CC Senior Derek is bringing you his comprehensive review of the 122nd Annual Varsity Show.
As a jaded senior, I half-heartedly attended the 122nd Annual Varsity Show, purchasing a ticket more out of a sense of duty rather than anticipation. But despite the show’s hiccups, in a very Grinch on Christmas Day manner, V122 still managed to melt this senior’s heart and make him feel some type of way before it quickly froze back over because finals.
The show opens with Columbia’s four “founding fathers” (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert Livingston, and King George II) reminiscing upon the good old days of Columbia aristocracy, depicting a familiar tension that many students probably commented on once or twice in Lit Hum: Columbia as an institution built by and for “dead white men,” as V122 claims. Emphasizing Columbia’s relatively recent identity change, we are then immediately introduced to Jenny Park (April Cho, CC ‘17), a first-generation college student with a powerful voice who dreams of becoming like the Notorious R.B.G. but often feels insecure about her true role at the school.
The final details of the main plotline take form when Dean Valentini (Charles Sanky, CC ‘16) reveals to Dean Cristen Kromm (Emma Smith, BC ‘19), Dean of Undergraduate Student Life, that Columbia – due to a technical glitch – has actually been admitting a handful of the wrong students for the past four years. Jumping at the opportunity, King George II (John Fisher, CC ‘16) convinces Dean Kromm to help him launch a crusade to “Make Columbia Great Again” by snuffing out the defects based upon his own standards, ripping up the list containing the actual names of the falsely admitted students.
Sending students into a panic as they each confront their own insecurities and try to prove to King George II that they belong at the school, the remainder of the first act largely follows the witch hunt for the wrong students, committing essentially all rebellious/non-normative students to the stocks to await their expulsion. The CC class led by the brilliantly drunk Professor Wilkenson (Henrietta Steventon, CC ‘18) best captures this very real urgency Columbia students feel to perform for their peers. In the heavily satirical but not inaccurate scene, Wilkenson applauds elitist student Frederick Von Smith (Jacob Iglitzin, CC ‘19) for his Kant and Marx puns while Jenny is shrugged off for trying to talk about the reading. This moment was certainly one of V122’s best, poignantly capturing the feeling of being just one step behind or not quite fitting in that can sometimes be hard to shake off even as a senior.
The second act follows as expected, where Jenny Park, warring with her desires to not be a “sheeple” but also fearful of losing her spot at school due to her first-generation background, ultimately confronts King George II with the aide of anti-patriarchy Barnard student Rose Greenberg (Jet Harper, BC ‘19) and frees the locked-up students.
While the remainder of V122 had some good moments and the entire show was moved along by an impressive ensemble, the most captivating scenes were also unfortunately the earliest. By nature of the way that The Varsity Show is written, in which a loose script and plot is initially crafted and later edited and added to with topical material as it occurs on campus, it’s tricky to try and keep the performance seamless. Perhaps V122’s biggest downfall was its own ambition, taking on too many big ideas at once rather than focusing on fleshing out a few, which in itself is actually quite Columbia-esque. There were also a few technical difficulties with lighting and microphones that distracted from the experience and made it hard to understand some of the one-liners. (I attended the second night).
While V122’s disorganization made me personally lose interest towards the second half, watching the performance knowing it would be my last as an undergrad wrought havoc upon my emotions. Even for the grouchiest among us, forcing yourself to watch a musical about Columbia will make you reflect upon your own college experiences. Watching V122 try to tackle issues like not belonging, heteronormativity, bureaucracy, and Donald Trump makes you realize that many of your own insecurities and problems with the school are not individual, but institutional, and shared widely amongst your peers. Knowing that the entire production is student-run drives this point home even further.
Columbia, perhaps because of its setting in New York, can make the undergraduate community feel even more fragmented than on other campuses. Although perhaps doing too much, V122 pulled off an accurate portrayal of this complex tension between city and campus, and the ways it affects us as students. V122 dragged out feelings that had been buried under the stress that this school can invoke and helped me to realize that I will always feel partial to my Class of 2016 because of our shared insecurities — to belong but not be “sheeple,” to be successful while staying true to our friends and ourselves.
If you missed out on V122 but want to feel just as cheesy as me, you can watch the recorded version when it is posted here.