Dream Theatre

Chances are you have never before heard of San Francisco's Xenodrome. Most likely, after walking a mile from the BART station through a residential neighborhood, to come to an apartment building, with nothing more than an 8 x 10 flier to assure you this is the right place, you may begin to feel uncomfortable. Quite possibly, you may question the meaning of life. Well, that was my frame of mind going into the play "Victim of a Mind Trap." However, after my fears subsided, I was treated to an enjoyable performance of a play written, directed, starred in, produced, and promoted by Cal sophomore Eric Barry. The play focuses on the possibility of exploring one's deepest fantasies, effectively blurring the line between dream and reality.

Eric Barry, Ali Mafi, and Thais Zayas-Bazan play recent high school graduates, all of whom put up walls to disguise what they truly want and thus live unhappy lives beyond their stable exteriors. This is the play's most concrete drawback-its stock premise and characters. High School graduation stories are depressingly overdone.

The character of Thais comes off a little too much like Mena Suvari's cheerleader character from "American Beauty." However, if the characterization is the play's handicap, then the acting is its dagger.

At various points throughout the play, the three characters take turns using a dream machine, a bicycle helmet that their therapist gives them, enabling them to take an active role in their dreams. These scenes are wonderfully acted. While the dialogue in the beginning comes off as a bit dry, these scenes are full of wit, passion, aggression, and all those other things that Aristotle argued draw us to the theatre.

Ali Mafi and Thais Zayas-Bazan give wonderful performances, after they get past the predictable twists of their characters. Eric Barry's cold, gothic character isn't nearly as sympathetic, but who wants a play about three tragic characters? Even at his most vulnerable, it's impossible for the audience to forget they have spent the entire play waiting for him to soften up to no avail. But it's his acting that gets you to that point, and good acting at that.

In the end, I think that is what is truly enjoyable about this play. It almost seemed like Barry knew he was placing his characters in stifling company, only to shed those shackles and produce three-dimensional vibrant characters that complete his artistic vision.

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