I know you’re not supposed to formally review a play your friends class put on for a single performance at the end of a semester. But given all the blogging sh*t that goes, I feel I should point to something worthwhile. And The Peculiar City of Wholman Lunk is an excellent play from a rising talent.

The Peculiar City of Wholman Lunk, written and starring Susan Annette Holeman, follows the life of Wholman Lunk, from her parents’ death in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing through a fantasy of constructing a city climaxing with her suicide. The city is built on the site of her parents’ vast Wyoming estate. Wholman plans obsessively to control the world around her from the layout down to the color of individual building’s front doors; and all of it’s done over the phone. Wholman observes the city under an assumed name. When the media catches on and demands Wholman reveal him or herself to the world the real Wholman calls on her best friend, Caroline, to act as a body double. Things go fine for a while, but the weight of Wholman’s actions eventually crushes her and she commits suicide locking herself in an empty building and detonating a bomb. Caroline buries Wholman under her name completing the switch and allowing the city to flourish.

This was all done in an hour, with one week of planning, and minimal production values: I’d estimate the budget at round $50. Nevertheless, the story works. Anyone who wants to complain about production values should consider this: King Lear works perfectly with a good actor and a sheet of tin. The Peculiar City of Wholman Lunk works in wonderfully in a minimalist context.

Thematically, the play centers on the concept of creation, destruction, and the relationship between them. Wholman’s parents were both architects: creators. They died in the bombing of a public building: destruction. It causes Wholman to plan and build a city: creation. Wholman is a recluse who uses a body double: creation. After her suicide, destruction, the body double becomes Wholman: creation. The constant reversal ranges from the very subtle to the over-the-top bluntness of describing Wholman’s suicide building, “doesn’t it look like that building that was bombed in 1995” [sic]. However, the surrealistic elements of the play function because we don’t see them. Wholman’s city most likely looked different to each member of the audience. Without special effects or excessive scenery I don’t feel an image has been forced upon me, and that allows me to buy into the premise.

The dialogue was excellent and moved the plot at a quick pace, allowing the author to make leaps through time and dreams producing an overwhelming emotional catharsis as I sat stunted watching her suicide.

The cast was comprised of classmates and acting was fair overall. However, Susan Holeman stole the show bounding through each scene, grabbing members of the audience by their eyes and ears, and forcing them to come along for the ride. The budding starlet emoted with such sincerity that you could feel the audience lurch with her every movement.  I felt happy, sad, and distraught in turn. I can’t help but wonder what the play would have felt like in an intimate venue, like Suzanne Roberts Theatre, with a professional cast that included Susan Holeman.

In conclusion, while I’m proud of my friend for her debut play. And I was enchanted seeing it in a tiny room at Arcadia University. The real reason for this review is the strength of her dialogue and my uncensored pleasure of seeing something so wonderful the only time it will be performed.

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