"Oh, To Return"

Attending Cornish College of the Arts' 2025 Junior Art Showcase

Close-Up Image of Logan Worth's "When My Wandering Meanderings Have Finally Reached Their End"

Cinematic Universes Don't Care About You

A critical piece examining the relationship between the commercialization of the "Nerd" and the declining rate of quality in blockbuster cinematic universe films.

Theatrical Writing Exercise: Eat You Alive

 A semi-structured freewrite for an Arts Writing course.

Eat You Alive by Madeleine Beckner. Performance: 1 March 2025, 1 PM.

1. Initial Viewing: Gritty, rough, interpretive. Reeling, painful, pulled between two. Stretched thin. Misinterpreted. Game of telephone, each person not sharing everything with the others. Anima fiddling with, removing her wedding ring. Noah not having his on. Doyle and Susanna’s costumes mirroring each other, flipped. Sparse scenery making the small room feel bigger, size of architecture constantly commented on within the show. Both masculine and feminine characters retreating in duos to discuss with others. Anima and Susanna’s close relationship. Doyle and Susanna’s opposition. Minimal drastic lighting until climax. Themes of burnout, high career expectations. Toxic and assumed gender roles. Standards/expectations of care in masculine and feminine roles.

2.

Eat You Alive by Madeleine Beckner captures the spirit of gendered critique and burnout in a commercialized creative space. It examines themes of masculinity and the infantilization of women in creative spaces, as well as the tense boundaries between professionally aimed creativity and the artist’s passion. The set, housed in a small theater room in MCC, is minimal, a couch, plush chair, and coffee table taking up most of the onstage room. A lamp and coat hanger live stage left, and a piano stage right. The furniture is nice, groomed and upkept, as we see Anima in the opening scene making minute adjustments to each of them in expectation of guests. The set ends up serving as a projection of a larger space, the house of two decently successful creatives: the newly married Anima and Noah.

Most on-stage elements work to support a hesitation of this accepted space, all actors interacting with pieces of it in their own levels of comfort. Anima and Susanna are more lithe and held back, while Noah and Doyle take up more physical space with movement and action. The language of the one-act is familiar, casual, but shifts intensely into deep-seeded upset backed by personal experience and gripe. The audience is clued into the characters’ stories verbally, enough to catch a glimpse of their circumstances, but also through body language and physicality. Susanna’s hesitation toward physical closeness with Doyle is spotlighted by her willingness to lean into Anima. Each piece of dynamic, each moment of characterization works to complement the others.

This show works to display the oppositions put in place by the lines of gender and hierarchies of power in creative industry, and it does so well. Doyle’s drunken and heated demeanor fills the room’s air, while Susanna’s opposition to his antics highlights the traits the audience wishes to see in Anima. When they finally do understand the extent of struggle between these characters, it isn’t long before the power dynamics are seemingly swapped. The show, as it ends – with Anima screaming that she wants to go home, that she isn’t a monster – articulates a harsh but authentic reality of industry, albeit in a more outright form. The message of the play is efficiently delivered, both in the dramatic and theatrical elements present. It prompts introspection, critique, and sympathy in inventive and tactful ways, especially given its shorter run time. Eat You Alive pleads with an audience for care, meaning, all while allowing an audience to sit in the discomfort of such heated and passion-driven acts.

Arcane’s Treatment of Disability: How Viktor Failed

An exploration of Viktor and cultural depiction of disability, as presented by Arcane’s second season.

"You Talking to Me?"

Reflection on “You Talking to Me? On Curating Group Shows that Give you a Chance to Join the Group” by Ralph Rugoff as part of "What Makes A Great Exhibition?"

Ekphrastic Writing Exercise: The Seed by AURORA

A semi-structured freewrite for an Arts Writing course.

 Song: The Seed by AURORA, HAIK Concert Live 2021 

Dance Writing Exercise: Ilia Malinin's "I'm Not A Vampire"

A semi-structured freewrite for an Arts Writing course.

 Ilia Malinin, Skate Canada 2024, “I’m Not A Vampire” Men’s Freeskate