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Walden Two Live The novel adapted into a play. (197K)

We all know the novel is boring and ineptly written (one can hear Skinner's mind creak in the ponderous candences of his prose) but greater depth is revealed when it is acted out as a play. Were you aware that Mrs. Meyerson, the Manager of Clothing for Women is having an extramarital affair with Frasier? That Burris is flirting with Steve Jamnick's fianceé? That the whole of Walden Two is drenched in sexual innuendo?

It is much more engrossing to see Frasier throw a temper tantrum than to read it in the book. This play was performed twice during Twin Oaks' 30th Anniversary Celebration in June, 1997. The play is copied almost verbatim from the novel, though heavily abridged. Lawrence Levesque, then a member, discovered it was much funnier when he played the character Castle as an angry Scottsman with a thick accent. (Cameron, who is a Scottsman, played Dairyman Larson in the play, and was not offended by the stereotype.) Nexus, the director, decided that since the physical plant described in the novel was so similar to the physical plant of Twin Oaks (after 30 years of development,) it was best to use the actual buildings and grounds of Twin Oaks as the scenery for the play. The audience walked from scene to scene around the property, following the actors. The cast dressed in their closest approximations to 1945 (when the novel was written) garb. The walkaround aspect had to be curtailed for the first performance, due to rain, so we performed it in Ta Chai Living Room. The second performance was harried by problems. Some cast members ditched the show in favor of other activites without warning. Luckily, the show was planned to be performed as a staged reading, with scripts in hand, so it was relatively easy to install volunteer replacement actors. The Twin Oaks rock bands, who were originally scheduled by the 30th Anniversary Celebration Planning Committee to play at a time which would not conflict with the play, decided that they would rather play in the early afternoon, during the play, thus drawing away many potential audience members for Walden Two Live. Despite the fact that the audience dwindled to 5 people (one of whom had fallen asleep; maybe Walden Two is incurably boring) by the end of the second performance, the sun was shining and the walkabout aspect created exactly the kind of bizarre juxtaposition of fiction and reality that Nexus had envisioned years earlier.

Download the script of the play (197K)

This site was created by ex-member Nexus.