The Play "Good Friday" - Another Day of Gun Violence and Rape on Campus and this too Will Pass

The audience is asked to take a collective breath and forewarned there may be upsetting moments in today's performance.  This was an understatement.  The play clearly depicts scenes of a campus shooting, hostage situations and a graphic depiction of a co-ed being gang raped & video taped.  Kristina Rae Colon is a playwright, poet and actor.  Her play "Good Friday" is a gambit into immersive, intensive writing holds the audience hostage.  An esoteric feminist discussion about love using Ibsen's "Doll House" as a paradigm precedes a cataclysmic shooting on campus.  The bloody massacre happens outside the building where the women are holed up becomes disturbing real.  The shooter's violent melee moves inside and the women do their best to barricade themselves & call for help.  Still in the classroom is Sophia a fervent Christian, Ariel, a brass hard-ass bitch and their loquacious professor.  Moments beforehand, Kinzie, an innate leader left to help the love stricken ingenue Asha with the mess of an unexpected menses.  Kinzie is heard banging on the door to be let back in.  The women scramble to unlock the door and rebuild their blockade.  Now the fear in the room is palpable and the chaos & uncertainty disturbingly real.  The play succeeds constructuring the intensity of this life or death event.  However, a malady of bloody metaphors mar the credibility of the siege.  Sophia draws a crucifix above the door using her menstrual blood.  Another plea to open the door is met with uncertainty but they clamor to open the door to offer protection.  Their reluctant intuition was correct.  The shooter enters holding Asha and another female hostage, Natalie.  The tension continues to escalate in this scenario that's become too mundane in our news cycle.  There's an unexpected twist revealing the shooter and her Natalie as her accomplice. The full body disguise and mask are strewn aside, the automatic rifle put down and the female shooter, Emme reveals herself.  Emme in a fugue state justifies the murders of the male students outside because they had gang raped her while filming the sexual assault.  This is where the fault lies.  The manifesto against a culture of rape which goes unpunished doesn't align with sympathizing vigil anti-murders.  The crux of the play shifts from fatal attacks on campus to the crisis of unchallenged sexual assaults.  Colon is an intelligent writer but the messaging gets tangled.  The clever projection & sound design amplify shooting casualties, violence and rape on school campuses.  I commend the proffered support the cast offers in the lobby for victims of assault.  Sadly, these attacks have become all too common.  So too are the multitudes of victims of fatal shootings that continue to fade into the past until the next time.