Love put to test in ‘Beirut’

Love is one of the most powerful motivators in the broad spectrum of human emotion. It provokes irrational, selfless behavior for the biological sake of protecting future generations. It is also the golden thread holding together Alan Bowne’s characters Blue and Torch in his tragedy, “Beirut,” which runs this Friday through Sunday at the Shafer Street Playhouse.

Directed by theatre pedagogy graduate student Jason Campbell and presented by the Shafer Alliance Laboratory Theatre, “Beirut” is not your traditional love story. In keeping with the focus of his dissertation – theater’s response to the AIDS epidemic – Campbell’s selection is an appropriate choice.

Manhattan’s Lower East Side has been renamed Beirut, a quarantined zone for people infected with an unnamed disease. It is an unfair world where sexuality is strictly regulated and relationships are torn apart through oppressive conditions.

“It’s governmental housing comparable to a concentration camp,” Campbell said.

Caught in the cross hairs are Blue (Katie Dingle, senior, theater performance) and Torch (Alex Gerber, senior, theater performance). Though the two share a deep love for each other, Torch has suddenly been transported to Beirut because of his infection. Unable to bear a life without her love, Blue risks her own life by infiltrating the infected area of Manhattan. Torch suddenly finds himself in a quandary in having to push away the girl he cares for most.

“On a base level, the whole play is really Blue trying to get Torch to have sex with her. It’s really more about the love between the two of them,” Campbell said. “He keeps pushing her away because he doesn’t want to infect her with the disease.”

Though the play primarily only features two people, Gerber and Dingle said it allowed them to delve deeper into the underpinnings of their character’s emotions.

“A play with this subject matter is an obstacle in itself,” Dingle said. “In this world, the conditions of love cannot be what we understand the conditions of love to be.”

The biggest paradox in the play is the manner in which Torch responds to Blue’s advances and the resilience of their love in such trying conditions.

“The challenge for me is seeing how terribly (Torch) treats (Blue) and trying to understand why she doesn’t just leave him,” Gerber said. “You have to find the subtext, which is love, and understand that.”

The Shafer Alliance Laboratory Theatre presents “Beirut,” written by Alan Bowne and directed by Jason Campbell, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at midnight at the Shafer Street Playhouse’s Newdick Theater. Admission is free to those 18 and over as “Beirut” contains adult content, strong language and nudity.