From Feb. 25–28, the School of Drama presented Madeleine George’s “Hurricane Diane,” directed by MFA directing candidate Kaycee Swierc. This comedy brings Greek god Dionysus to suburban New Jersey in the form of a butch lesbian permaculture gardener trying to reclaim the earth and rebuild her cult of revelers.
Exploring themes of queerness and climate change, musical theater senior Ness America Minta brought Diane to life as the god attempts to allure four suburban women living on the cul-de-sac to let their gardens — and minds — run wild.
“For [researching] Greek mythology, it was lot of diving into how Dionysus couldn’t be more queer, in essence, and looking especially at the Bacchae cult surrounding Dionysus and how that was used as a ritual for women to kind of flee from society and have their time to explore the sexual freedom,” said Lillian McDermott, one of the two co-dramaturgs for the production.
From researching Ancient Greek plants to exploring the setting of suburban New Jersey, seniors and co-dramaturgs McDermott and Jesús Feliciano advised members of the production team throughout the play’s design and rehearsal process. With queerness and sexuality being a central theme in the play, Feliciano and McDermott also worked with the director and actors to interpret the text and its themes.
“Our Diane is a nonbinary person who is playing this genderless lesbian that’s butch-presenting,” McDermott said. “So there was a lot to explore with, ‘How do we make sure that this queer identity stays in here and that everybody in the cast feels connected to that story?’ A lot of that was kind of looking at current-day queer culture and making sure that everyone was familiar with that.”
To bring the blend of Ancient Greek culture and modern suburbia to life, production designers integrated symbols of Dionysus with symbols of queer culture; McDermott described School of Music senior Felix Gabriel’s sound design and music as “Greek modern gay pop fusion.” Feliciano highlighted the cohesion of the production team when putting on the play.
“We have such an amazing production team [made up of] mostly seniors or graduating master’s students, and we were just all people who knew each other and knew that we were here to have fun while making good art,” Feliciano said. “That allowed us to have a cohesive mindset from the get-go.”
Beyond its standing as a subversive comedy, “Hurricane Diane” discusses the increasing threat of climate change in modern life. While Diane tries to restore nature to earth by bringing the women into a chaotic bacchanal, she ultimately fails and is forced to flee, posing the question that’s been on the minds of climate scientists and activists for decades: Is it too late?
“At the end, Diane doesn’t win — Diane flees the situation, and it kind of tells this tale that it’s too late, and this is what happens when we don’t make any changes,” McDermott said. “It felt really important to tell a story that might be kind of doom and gloom and shows us not winning, or at least the world not winning.”
Before the show, Feliciano and McDermott held a ritual for Dionysus. They brought that tradition to the audience as well, displaying an altar to the god in the Purnell lobby.
“It ended up being such a fun time, and also a pretty vulnerable time, because you bring in a sacrifice of yourself to Dionysus with this bunch of artists that you know, that you spent the past four years [or] three years getting to know,” Feliciano said. “It ended up being such a beautiful experience, in that way of just being there with each other, having a good laugh, having a good old prayer to Dionysus. I think it really gave a lot of comfort going to tech and show days, being like, ‘Hey, we’ve done the work. We’re here together.’”
