March 12, 2015
Sexual assault. Denial. The truth. These and other topics are at the heart of Probably, an original play by Amherst graduate Owen Davis ’14 that is as captivating as its subject matter is difficult.
Focusing on a fictional character named Katie as she tries to cope with the memory of a traumatic evening, it’s a story fraught with complexities that are front and center in today’s national debates. And it poses tough questions: How do we broach the subjects of sexual violence and sexual respect on college campuses? How do students talk about these matters with each other? Where does personal responsibility begin and end?
Originally staged at Amherst in the spring of 2014 and performed again this year as a staged reading at Amherst and Hampshire College, Probably follows a group of college friends who grapple with one night’s serious events and re-examine the way they treat, trust and speak to one another.
Davis says the characters and the issues they face were “born out of discussions I had with friends during my senior year.” Prompted in part by fellow Amherst student Angie Epifano’s personal account of sexual assault, which was published in The Amherst Student in 2012 and garnered national attention, Davis says his inspiration for writing the play also stemmed from “the college’s communal response [to the article] and the student body’s collective inward reflection.”
The play is now available to liberal arts institutions across the country interested in incorporating it into their own sexual respect initiatives.
The initial performance in 2014 was preceded by The Chalkboard Project. A few weeks beforehand, chalkboards were placed in various locations on campus, each with a different question about sexual respect; students wrote their responses on the boards for others to contemplate.
Reilly Horan ’13, a graduate assistant in Amherst’s theater and dance department who assisted with set design during the original production and served as production manager of this year’s staged readings, says “it was interesting to see the inter-dialogues that happened between people” on the chalkboards. She says some students circled what others had written and wrote responses, or crossed words out and wrote why they disagreed. “It raised [their] awareness by asking these questions before they even saw the piece,” she explains. The chalkboards were then reinstalled in the theater as a backdrop for the play.
Though The Chalkboard Project wasn’t reinstated for this year’s staged readings of Probably, both performances engaged students with post-show discussions, facilitated by trained student moderators, about sexual violence and sexual respect.
And the subject matter wasn’t any less potent this year for students who participated last year. “Revisiting the story and language of Probably after performing in the play last year was a powerful experience,” says Chris Tamasi ’15, an original cast member in 2014 who attended this year’s performance at Amherst. “Hearing Katie... deliver the final monologue of Act I still gives me chills.”