CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A play written by an alumnus of the theatre department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will have a familiar feel to recent college graduates and to anyone who remembers trying to find their place in the world as a young person.
“Origin Story” examines the life of a young woman, Margaret, who is working two jobs to pay off her college debt and having a “quarter-life” crisis, trying to figure out what she wants in life. It was written by Nathan Alan Davis, an award-winning playwright and a native of Rockford, Illinois.
The Illinois theatre department’s production of “Origin Story” is the Midwest premiere of the play. It runs Nov. 5-6 and Nov. 9-13 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
Director and acting professor Lisa Dixon said the theatre department committee that chooses the plays for each season likes to include new plays, those with strong roles for women and works written by alumni. She described “Origin Story” as quirky, funny, sad and hopeful, with elements of magical realism.
“Everyone in the play is searching for some kind of human connection. It’s a universal story of people trying to connect with each other, to give their lives meaning, and to be affected by and affect someone else,” Dixon said. “This is really timely in terms of its subject matter. The main character is at a point where, once you get out of college, life isn’t really structured anymore. You have to structure it yourself.”
One of the cast members is a nontraditional student who started college in her 20s after working at a “cubicle farm” such as the one portrayed in the play. “It almost gave her flashbacks. She was asking those questions of herself: ‘Is this my life? Is this what it’s going to be like?’” Dixon said.
The character Margaret is adopted and trying to figure out who she is and what’s important to her, Dixon said.
“She ends up finding some things out about herself at both of her jobs to help give her some answers as to who she is, and also cause her to question herself even more,” she said. “The play presents her as someone who spent a lot of time letting life happen to her instead of making life happen. She finally gets the chance, near the end of the play, to make decisions about making life happen instead of letting it happen to her. That’s where the hope and joy come in.”
The theatre department produced another play by Davis in 2016. “Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea” was a lyrical story about family and a young man trying to find out who he was within his family as he takes on a journey to search for an ancestor lost during the Middle Passage.