Written for The Argo by Samantha Flatten.

“We are lonely. We are lonely right now. Even sometimes when we are surrounded by people” stated by Bob Bartlett, the playwright of Lýkos Ánthrōpos; A New Play About Monsters that had its debut at Stockton’s own Experimental Theater shown April 9-11 at 7:30 P.M.

This two man production had only one scene throughout the whole play, yet sparked a growing world in audiences heads, leading to an array of questions left to be pondered on. The two actors, Brain Beehler—a senior graduating with a B.A in Performing Arts and a B.S in Environmental Sciences—played as the Young Man and Declan Young—a junior majoring in Performing Arts played—as the Stranger.

Both gave an outstanding performance that encapsulated most of humans biggest fears of isolation. The play was directed by Aaron Moss who has won an array of Best Director awards and received recognition from the New York Screenwriting awards for his screen play Good Medicine.

In short, Stockton’s whole theater department came together with incredibly talented student performers, crew technicians, and director that constructed an experience like no other. The department was able to bring Bob Bartlett to this showing for one night only where the audience was encouraged to pick his brain about any thoughts they may have about the production.

During this Q&A, Bartlett shared how he was inspired to write this piece and how he wanted to shed a new light on the concept of the werewolf and lonely man tropes. He started off by sharing that he has always been in love with the concept of the tortured werewolf and tortured man who can not find connection with human kind. He found interest in writing about lycanthropy, which refers to the mythical transformation of a human into a werewolf during his one month residency in Greece, to which he learned that this ancient folklore was rooted in Greek mythology.

Upon reading The Book of The Werewolf by Sabine Baring-Gould published in 1865, which is considered one of the oldest comprehensive studies of lycanthropy, was Bartlett immediately inspired to reshape the Hollywood depiction of this trope into how the ancient folklore originated it to be.

He had the pleasure of being able to watch Beehler and Young bring his inspiration to life and enthusiastically stated that this was “the first time I’ve seen other actors with it in their hands, and these guys did such an amazing job with a really complex puzzle of a story, a fragmented narrative that’s all over the place, and you guys pieced it together, all the non sequiturs, and in really interesting ways.”

At the end of the Q&A, Bartlett was asked several questions, such as “What did you intend the audience to really take away from this play?” He sat back and took a second to think then responded with true confidence; “I really wanted us to take a look at our loneliness,…many of my plays are about extreme loneliness and isolation, although I am not a lonely person, or at least I’ve convinced myself of that. But more than anything, my plays are about finding home.”

This concept of finding home is nothing new to the stage, and has been portrayed through forbidden romances, family connections, and lifelong friendships thousands of times. This play takes that concept even deeper though, by portraying a world where we have to find that home within ourselves. Bartlett explained it as “putting a big old broken mirror up to all of us into this mess of a country, and trying to say, look, this is what we are. This is where we are now. What are we gonna do about it?”

This journey is not a smooth one which is why Bartlett created his plays as such, a messy array of feelings and stories that leaves one with a desire to put the pieces together. His final remarks warn the audience of “not trying to connect every single dot, because if you do that, you’re gonna sit here and you’re gonna get lost in a lot of stories.” A soft reminder of the allowance to be confused and allowed to take time to figure out who we are inside and what home is for ourselves.

In addition to speaking with Bartlett, Beehler was also questioned about his perspective on how this play came to life. He was eager to share his views since this experience was one that he does not come across often. He informed the audience that; “I think that this play is very dependent on subtext and the whole rehearsal process was finding that subtext and really having a conversation and making observations in real time because the way that you say the lines, especially in this play, changes the entire story; we do it differently every night”

Since the play had limited cast and sets, it truly relied on the power and authentic emotions from Beehler and Young to create real feelings in the audiences hearts. Being able to fully embrace oneself and take words off of a script and make them come to life is a talent that these two definitely displayed during this experience.

Beehler took a moment to thank his director and share that; “Aaron Moss was an incredible director to work with and I think this is a great opportunity to apply the skills that we’ve been learning, and working on in class. I learned a lot about acting technique through doing the show because it’s one of the more challenging ones that I’ve done since it’s sort of more cryptic.”

While this play was not as simply put and ‘upbeat’ as others, it is the perfect blend of humorous moments and silent realizations. The practice, commitment, and perfect timing which of the production of all involved brought the play to life for the Stockton community.