“A Hugeonic Pop! Culture Extravaganza” is an out-of-this-world play featuring a
hilarious script and potent social commentary on art and the nature of humanity.
“A Hugeonic Pop! Culture Extravaganza,” created and directed by professor Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, opened Thursday, April 24 and closed Sunday, April 27 at the HopKins Black Box theater. This play, like all other HopKins productions, was largely experimental, combining scripted, devised and adapted literary elements to create a wholly original show.
“Hugeonic Pop!” follows Maud, a mother whose husband recently left her for his new secretary. While in the depths of her depression, Maud is suddenly visited by Rollo, an alien ambassador, who gives her one hour to prove why humanity is worth saving. Maud, with the help of her three children and their friends, puts on a performance loaded with pop culture references, exploring themes of family, love and poetry.
“There’s some fun popular culture references that go way, way back,” Shaffer said. “Like the very first time that a space ship was on film makes it in there, to something as recent as a song from the most recent Taylor Swift album.”
Nods toward pop culture icons like The Simpsons, the Kardashians and early 2000s chick flicks, though still broadly well-known today, did not seem like the most relevant references for the current Gen Z college demographic.
However, these references were put into perspective when Shaffer explained that she and her team were putting themselves into Maud’s mindset. As a middle-aged woman, Maud would not be totally up-to-date with some of the more recent and niche pop culture moments, which is why the play mostly avoids references to very recent moments in the cultural zeitgeist.
My favorite character in the play was the alien Rollo. Rollo was played by three actors, two musicians were staged on a platform in the back, one playing electric guitar and the other playing a theremin, while the third actor played Rollo’s disembodied voice. The way these three actors came together to play a single role was both creative and innovative.
“What I do is I sort of create the sounds that is then translated to speech by a third person,” Hal Lambert, the electric guitarist and manager of the HopKins Black Box, said. “I’m a musician, so I play around town. So I’m already kind of comfortable playing guitar, and this is probably the third show where I’ve collaborated with Tracy on the music in some sense.”
The cast comprised actors of all ages, ranging from freshman undergraduates to seasoned professors. The acting from each cast member demonstrated versatility and range, as any given actor could transition from a dancing alien to a Kardashian to a character from the 1982 cult classic “E.T.”
The acting, sound and video elements worked together to create a truly bizarre spectacle, but nothing was more impactful than the play’s overarching message. Ethan Hunter, graduate assistant for the HopKins Black Box, sees the play as an argument not only for the value of humanity, but the value of art as well.
“So there’s the message that’s running throughout it is that art is valuable in and of itself,” Hunter said, “If the value is only going to be on the administrator, or in this case Rollo the alien, on this other person’s terms who doesn’t see value in it, then it’s never gonna work. You have to let me show you the value of it and explain the value of it on its own terms.”
The only way for Maud to save humanity by proving its worth is by playing on her own terms, not Rollo’s. In the same way, the only way for art to thrive is for it to be recognized as valuable in and itself. This message is especially resonant today when so much of the arts are grossly underappreciated for their inherent value.
“A Hugeonic Pop! Culture Extravaganza” was a hilarious, bizarre and relevant play that not only pays homage to some of the most iconic pop culture moments of the last few decades but also raises important questions about the societal attitude toward the arts and the inherent worth of humankind.
