In recent memory, the Black Box Theatre at GC has housed some of the theatre department’s most eclectic and engaging shows for their college demographic despite the limited seating and space. There is a certain electricity housed in the four walls that performers seem to effortlessly tap into.

“The Feast,” by Cory Finley and directed by Mary Morgan Collier, a senior theatre and English major, is another testament to this. From April 3-6, audiences were fed the psychological deterioration of a struggling artist. 

“I was really excited to bring this to Georgia College because it is so different from anything I have ever read,” Collier said. “We have a lot of great theatre happening around here, but I can’t think of a show in recent memory that involved an audience quite like this.”

Upon entering the theatre, before the show starts, the audience is met with a pre-show performance of Spencer Roberts, a senior theatre major, entranced while working on a painting. This painting becomes essential to the story’s plot. 

Roberts plays Matt, the protagonist artist on the brink of insanity. Prior to meeting the characters, Matt has begun to hear screaming in his sewer pipes, specifically from his toilet. His girlfriend Anna, played by Dawson Babischkin, a senior theatre major, writes the matter off as a plumbing issue. 

When a plumber unexpectedly shows up at Matt’s door offering assistance, Matt’s stark decline is made evident. The plumber, played by Chaps Schremmer, a senior theatre major, takes on multiple ominous roles throughout the play as The Man. Collier describes the character as a human manifestation or extension of Matt’s own insecurities. 

Schremmer is an impossible-to-ignore force while on stage. He commands attention in each character he takes on during the play. 

As a self-proclaimed mega fan of Roberts’ performances, his portrayal of Matt is a triumph and one to be applauded. During a scene in which Matt is confessing to his therapist about traveling down the pipes to visit the screaming souls, Roberts is so disturbingly convincing and urgently truthful that you forget you are watching someone slowly becoming unstable and not a work of fantasy. 

“Spencer is truly an incredible actor who knows how to authentically submerge himself in a role,” Collier said. “Sometimes, he does so very literally. As a theatrical artist and writer, he can heavily relate to Matt’s life. I also love to tell everyone about how he had an eerie painting hanging over his toilet years before he had ever heard of ‘The Feast.’”

Matt begins to paint the Creatures he has encountered but fears that he has disturbed them. His obsessive and compulsive behavior towards his painting affects everyone around him, including his girlfriend. Amid the chaos, Anna admits to having an affair with a co-worker that only sends Matt spiraling further. 

As with everything I have seen her in, a tribute to her brilliance and versatility as an actor, Babischkin was a perfect casting choice. Babischkin’s portrayal of Anna is strong-willed and determined enough to love Matt but also strong enough to leave him for her own sake. 

During the climax of the show, Matt’s painting appears to be not only controlling him but also the world around him. With eerie lighting design by Patrick Schoen, a junior theatre major, the audience sees glimpses of the Creatures from the pipes and the painting that have now materialized in Matt’s apartment.

Between the unknown and sitting in flashing lights, it is a similar feeling to entering a haunted house attraction. No one knows what is coming next or where the Creatures might be. For an audience member, it is frightening and exhilarating. I, personally, have never experienced a theatrical experience quite like it.

“The audience themselves are at a feast; they voyeuristically watch the characters, who are limited to a frame like the subjects of Matt’s painting,” Collier said. “After all, Matt’s painting is placed at the border of the fourth wall. Not everyone is a painter, but everyone has a toilet and pipes that occasionally creak.”

While Matt seems to have regained control of his mental state by the end of the show, it is evident he has not when the Creatures make their way out of the shadows to hold Matt’s hand. Matt is now one with the Creatures. 

Collier has somewhat of a track record for effectively presenting dismal stories, specifically ones focused on making art. She credits works such as “Donnie Darko” and “Inland Empire” for inspiration in her direction for this project.

“‘The Feast’ is rather dark and upsetting, but I think it has a lot of comedy and joy in it,” Collier said. “I think the end is particularly real and uplifting despite its visual strangeness. We spend so much time with a haunted man who denies every person who wants to help him. He doesn’t escape his demons, but he learns to live with them as best as he can.”

From the storyline to the performances to the lighting to the intentional directing, “The Feast” is sure to capture the twisted imaginations and darker curiosity of its viewers.