Stage Right
By Erik Maulbetsch
October, 2005
The locals are back on stage this month, so now’s the time to reserve your tickets and polish the opera glasses. As jack-o-lanterns reappear, leafblowers roar, and blustery weather blows in, it can only mean one thing: The Twilight Zone Parody is back at Mary Miller Theater. Every fall for five years running (excluding 2004’s December curtain), the Lafayette Community Players place Rod Serling on the pedestal he deserves by producing three episodes of his iconic sci-fi series.
The show begins with “Kick the Can,” from the Zone’s third season. A group of forgotten rest home residents have a chance to relive their youth, if they’re willing to take it. Working backwards, a highlight from the second season, “Shadow Play,” is next. Reality short-circuits in this clever plot as one convicted murderer’s dream might just be everyone else’s actual life. Finally, irony abounds in season one’s “World of Difference.” Mediums mix in this play about a character in a movie who discovers his life is only a script and set.
Purists should keep in mind that this is a parody, and the actors aren’t afraid to poke fun at the Zone’s more pretentious moments. On the other hand, Serling devotees will appreciate the adherence to a black-and-white world—costumes and sets are strictly grayscale, leaving human flesh as the only color on stage. It gives the actors an almost hyper-real quality that, befits the episodes’ themes (particularly the last two) and the overall Twilight Zone atmosphere.