Cappies Review: 'A Spare Me' At Mount Vernon High School

By Avi Urbach of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Identity. Bullying. Prejudice. Peer pressure. Substance use. Self-harm. Suicide. These are hot-topic problems today, but Mount Vernon High School's production of A Spare Me presents a future highlighting precisely these issues.

A Spare Me, written by A. Rey Pamatmat, is set in a distant future in which each member of the new generation of children has a clone a "spare" ready to step in and take the child's place should anything happen to them. The story focuses on the identity crises of the spares and questions the definitions of what makes someone or something human.

What really brought the show together was the consistency. The large cast of characters showed no weak points, and all the actors were able to work together to put on a holistically striking performance.

Nicole Duchaine as Win drove the show plot-wise. From her awkward interactions with her boyfriend's spare to her chemistry with her siblings, Duchaine brought energy to her part.

Roles that stood out include Keeley Bryant as Tee and Josiah Arnett as Prox. Bryant showed impressive use of her whole body to always be in the scene. Through posture, tone, and facial expressions, Bryant was always in character and was able to command the stage. Bryant used her remarkable physicality to convincingly display her character's arc of self-discovery. Arnett showed great range from the use of awkward and nervous character choices to angry and commanding as his character learns to stand up for himself.

Other roles that bear mentioning include Katia E. Ramirez as Dos, whose commitment to her acting choices and commanding stage presence drew the audience right to her. Isabel Pascal as Elga used precision, diction, and physical presence to intimidate and take charge of the stage. Sarah Funkhouser as Cop and Karly Sargent as Two brought comic relief to an otherwise dark show.

The consistency of the cast carried over to the tech categories. An impressive set helped pull the audience into the future, and impressively efficient scene changes kept them there. Tight lighting and meaningful lighting changes also added to the performance. Costumes aided in showing age and status of characters, and makeup drew out eccentricities of certain characters.

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." This quote from C. S. Lewis, which appears as an epigraph on the script, focuses on the driving issue of the show: identity. Mount Vernon High School's thoroughly well-done production of A Spare Me showed the audience what it really means to find one's true self.

Photo by Melanie Beus: from left to right Laura Schmechel, Kevin Martinez, Josiah Arnett