The American university experience is, in some ways, very different from that of students attending university in the UK.
We see this repeatedly in numerous films. From the shared ‘dorms’, to the Greek Letter Societies with their frat and sorority houses, to the ‘campus cops’, none of which is a feature of UK universities. It’s clear that expectations and norms are very different on either side of the Atlantic.
The other difference, again as epitomised in much popular culture, is the fact that a significant number of US College students appear to not only meet their life partner whilst studying, but also that becoming engaged at graduation is regarded as an entirely normal occurrence.
That expected journey, and relationship milestone, forms the backbone of this show, which uses a game of Dungeons & Dragons as the lens through which to tell its story.
We begin with a prologue, with our Dungeon Master: Ronny, convincing their friend from High School – The Lacrosse Player: Lucas to join a D&D campaign they are setting up. The jock reluctantly agrees and we jump forwards four years to the group of five’s final night at College and the grand finale to their campaign. With the understanding that they will never play together again.
Some scenes are set within the game world, and these are by far the strongest sections of the script.
The overwhelming majority of the production’s scenes take place in ‘the real world’, and they mostly disappoint.
The five characters who make up the campaign team are shown to be social outcasts, with few social skills, and seemingly no other friends. This is an image which Wizards of the Coast (owners of Dungeons & Dragons) have spent a solid decade trying to shift perception away from.
Lucas plans to propose to girlfriend Myra – who he met in the first week of college, immediately after their graduation ceremony. Myra preempts this by breaking up with him – as the final session of his campaign is starting.
It is very strongly suggested that we aren’t supposed to like Myra. She is shown to have a somewhat over the top hatred for D&D, Lucas’ friends, and Ronny in particular. It’s questionable how the relationship has survived this far to be honest but it’s abundantly obvious that the two were fundamentally unsuited.
The campaign team have somehow also angered Resident’s Assistant Daphne, who is annoyed by the constant noise from their weekly meetings, but who may actually be more annoyed that she wasn’t able to go to a last night of college party.
In an atmosphere where every character is terrified that any breach of any of the multitude of often petty seeming ‘behavioural rules’ will lead to them not being allowed to graduate, the campaign team set out on a quest to reunite Lucas and Myra.
Further cast members keep on being introduced, and we end up with 11 performers altogether. Most of the characters are very thinly drawn, assigned into ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘obstacle’ immediately upon meeting them.
On top of everything else, this is a musical. The songs are fine, but some of them could have benefited with being transposed down slightly, to allow a cast who are trying desperately to make the best of this to perform to the best of their abilities.
There’s a lot of problems here: a group of 21 year olds often seem to act like they are in their 50s. The compulsory heterosexuality is overwhelming, with a sudden lesbian exploration almost entirely fetishised.
Myra’s decision to end her relationship with Lucas isn’t accepted. Another two members of the campaign team fall in love in the dying scenes, seemingly out of nowhere.
The Dungeon Master and Lucas agree to stay friends. Even though it’s not clear how they ever bonded at High School in the first place.
Indeed, the possibility that a group of D&D players, and university students at that, is 100% heterosexual, is deeply eyebrow raising. When so many queer people have used D&D sessions to work through discoveries about themselves. Here, everyone is playing a character of the same gender as themselves, which just feels very boring and unchallenging.
The cast are trying as much as they can here, but they can’t rescue a fundamentally flawed script. The decision to have the ‘in dungeon’ scenes acted using capes and prop weapons is fun. An inventive way to stage the production when under budgetary constraint.
It’s the lack of fun which makes this whole thing a disappointment. The idea is good, it’s just the execution which fails to work, because the script doesn’t allow it to. An opportunity missed, seemingly generated by rolling a Natural One. Unfortunately, it’s a Critical Fail.
Featured Image Credit: Fringe Society