Samford’s Underground Theatre has always had a reputation for exploring boundary-breaking concepts in their shows, and “VROOOMMM! A NASComedy” no exception. Not even five minutes into the play, actors have piled into a fleet of rolling desk chairs and are scooting in circles around the audience.
Creative use of space was a consistent theme throughout the performance. A scene would start at the front of the stage, and then suddenly cut to the back of the room, where the audience would have to turn 180 degrees to keep up with the performers.
In keeping with the racing theme, the performance required the audience to keep pace with the rapid changes on stage. Characters would undergo two to three costume changes (sometimes in the same scene), and each actor could be playing as many as three characters over the course of the production. Director Lizzie McDonald’s blocking made sure that audiences would constantly be left guessing.
This exchange of identities also works to further the show’s themes. The plot centers around the rising career of NASCAR’s first female racer, and the jealousy shown by her (apparently) male competitors. In classic farcical fashion, many actors are playing characters of the opposite gender. The entirely female cast meant that every male character in the show was (quite literally) a woman with a mustache on. This casting choice adds layers of irony that the show absolutely revels in. The audience is left wondering if the men played by women are secretly female in the script (as is revealed in one shocking case,) or just played by female actors. Is every male character secretly female? The play never tells you outright, and that ambiguity is part of what makes the show so engaging.
One benefit of having an entirely female cast is that normally transgressive jokes at the expense of women are fair game. In a Q&A panel after the performance, McDonald asked the audience if they thought that the show would still work if the cast was entirely male. The answer for Saturday’s show was a unanimous no.
Given the content of some of the jokes, this answer makes complete sense. The sheer amount of sexist puns, innuendos, and explicit gestures in this show would have come off as completely unacceptable in a male cast. Having these jokes be delivered by female actors transforms them into parodies of themselves. The audience is free to laugh because these normally transgressive jabs at women have become punchlines in themselves.
This dynamic is ripe for social commentary, and the show is clearly aware of this. What exactly this commentary is, though, is never explicitly stated. In the Q&A session after the show, the cast and crew were intentionally vague about the show’s exact message, instead prompting the audience to consider it for themselves. In a world where movies are made to accommodate people half-paying attention scrolling Instagram on their couches, The Samford Underground Theater’s “VROOOMMM!” dares its audience not only to pay attention, but to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
Staff Reporter
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