Student Scene
Cremaster and Commander: The Inner Side of the Thigh
Review and Photo Gallery
This year's Second-year Show, "Cremaster and Commander: The Inner Side of the Thigh," took theater-goers on a Mystery Machine tour of HMS--with Thelma, Daphne, Shaggy, and of course, Scooby along for the ride--at Roxbury Community College from Jan. 29 through 31. The audience cheered on the cartoon-inspired characters through two action-packed hours of HMS-based satire that was definitely for adults only.
Li'l Joseph Martin (Matthew Eisenberg), Li'l Cindy McDermott (Anjelica Garza), Li'l Cliff Tabin (Matthew Lewis), and Li'l Richard Schwartzstein (Conor Kleweno) hang out at Li'l Shiv's birthday party.
Directed by Stephanie Krejcarek and Christopher Russell, this year's show included unabashedly gratuitous (and thoroughly enjoyable) dance numbers, razor-sharp portrayals of some of HMS's most famous faculty, and enough sexual innuendo to make Larry Flynt proud. Just as amusing were the charming continuity scenes, including several featuring hilarious, true-to-life commentary by Richard Schwartzstein as parodied by Conor Kleweno in a disturbingly convincing performance of the physiology course director and lung-lover.
Dean Malcolm Cox (Ryan Dunlop) strutting and singing his way through the song, "I'm Too Sexy for Your Curriculum."
The tale unfolds as Dean Joseph Martin summons to his office Nancy Oriol, Shiv Pillai, Dana Stearns, Jeannie Hess, Paul Farmer (complete with his adoring youthful female entourage), as well as Cindy-Trudy-Sam, that is, Cindy McDermott, Trudy Van Houten, and Sam Kennedy, who throughout the show are literally joined at the hip. The dean has received reports of some scandalous behavior by his faculty and has called them together to get to the bottom of the matter. In the middle of the meeting, though, Martin mysteriously disappears. In true HMS fashion, an ad-hoc committee is formed, composed of students Fred (New Pathway), Daphne (Dental), Velma (HST), Shaggy (HMS Second-year Show writer), and the requisite knockout mouse SCOobY (a genetically engineered obese mouse) to find the missing dean and solve the mystery--and, along the way, to write a murder mystery script for the Second-year Show.
SCOobY and the gang (Joanna Epstein, Cheri Cox, Michael Monge, Quintin Louie, and Guibenson Hyppolite).
The adept students soon find the one they believe to be the culprit--antibody-obsessed Shiv Pillai--only to find that yet another faculty member has been kidnapped. Soon, nearly the entire faculty is gone, snatched by an unknown culprit, which sparks a chase to find the real villain.
Prathima Prasanna leads off a dynamite bhangra dance number.
Along the way, SCOobY and the gang watch Nancy Oriol and Bev Woo, aptly portrayed by Jona Hattangadi and Emily Pinto-Wong, respectively, duke it out for student affection; see Jeannie Hess as played by Stephanie Krejcarek vamp across stage as a Chicago-style diva; and witness an unlikely striptease by Dean Malcolm Cox as played by the talented Ryan Dunlop. Finally, the villain--none other than physiology drill sergeant Richard Schwartzstein--is caught in a rousing finale and sentenced to a lifetime of teaching the "touchy-feely" Healer's Art class for his crimes.
Dental students say, "Hit the road, plaque" (Stephanie Goldglantz, Ji Yeon Kim, Benjamin King, Helen Youm).
Highlights of the show included the beautifully performed traditional Nepali dance routines, choreographed by Ruma Rajbhandari; the running spoof on Paul Farmer's Messianic complex, which included a scene with Farmer dressed up as Jesus, fittingly played by Ted Lord; and the musical number "Hit the Road, Plaque," a twist on the Ray Charles classic that will surely be seen in a toothpaste commercial in the very near future.
Stephanie Krecjarek vamping it up as Diva Jeannie Hess.
Proceeds from this year's show will go to the Martha Eliot Mentorship program, which matches medical students as mentors with Mission Hill middle-schoolers.
--Tarayn Grizzard
All photos by Steve Gilbert