Obedience experiments

Cannot figure out where this mildew smell is coming from.  Pretty strong.  I'll probably need to move.  Crap.  (I don't have time to move.  Or the money.  Or a car.)

One of the coffee shops I like is closing on Friday.  Their lease is up, and they don't have another space, Star Life on the Oasis.  Went there to read before going to see a play at the University.  Had an avocado/green apple/pineapple/lime smoothie, which was surprisingly good.

The play was a preview of "Reading to Vegetables," written by EM Lewis, and directed by Tina Polzin (second year directing student.)  From the director's note in the play program, it's "a play about ethics, responsibility, and the fine line between right and wrong.  It exists in a world without regulations where humans can be the rats in an experiment.  It asks us to question our own role; to think about the choices we've been making.  We talk about moral decisions like there's a clear right and wrong, but they are complex, and I think we need to be continually reminded to actively listen to our decisions and their consequences so that we don't repeat them."

Watching it, I couldn't help but continually think, "This can't happen now.  This is so unethical."  Since this is the world premiere of this, I'm hoping some of the dialogue gets tweaked.  The character Ken Schaefer has a lot of gratuitous dialogue about coffee that feels clunky.  And the job interview felt like it needed more dialogue.  It felt unexplained and sudden.  But I like the concept, and the actors were good overall.

The subject matter was interesting, the idea of going after a goal regardless of the consequences, the act of obedience, and at what point do you take responsibility for what happened.  I think I read somewhere that this was based on the Milgram experiment of the 1960's where study participants were being tested on their willingness to obey an authority figure even if that went against their own conscience.  The participants gave electric shocks (or believed they did) to someone they couldn't see every time they answered a question wrong, and the shocks increased in intensity the more wrong answers there were.  The actual person on the "receiving" end was an actor and would pound on the walls as the shocks increased.  There were recorded screams for each shock as well.  Even when they tried to question the safety of the receiver, the shockers were told to continue and that they wouldn't be held responsible.  Most of them did continue, but were shaken by the experience (of causing harm to someone else.)  Although, none went to see the state of the receiver without receiving permission first.

This is a quote from Milgram in 1974: "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority" -Milgram, Stanley (1974). "The Perils of Obedience". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-05-14.  Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority.  (I found this on Wikipedia.)

Amanda Hilson as Beth Mills and Christopher Donoghue as Tom Linkowski stood out for me in this.  I think this might be the same cohort of actors I saw in the Tennesee Williams shorts last year.  It's a 3-year graduate program, haven't seen any of the other years, I don't think.  Runs through Feb 9.

No pictures: rained all day.