Melanie Wolf
Contributing Writer
“Children should not be asked to touch anyone in the areas of their body that would be covered by a bathing suit or allow anyone to touch them in those areas.”-Sheriff’s Office, Marion Country, Oregon.
On October 10-12, North Central College’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts presented the dark comedy of Speech and Debate directed by student Colin Loeffler.
Speech & Debate is essentially about three high school students from Salem, Oregon who are ignored by the adults in their lives. They consequently decide to start a speech and debate team so others are forced to listen to what they have to say.
Diwata, the self-proclaimed leader, dreams of becoming an actress. And so, she starts the team because she was not offered a lead role in the high school’s spring musical.
Solomon, who wants to be a journalist, joins the team because Diwata promises she’ll use the controversial articles he wrote, which the school’s newspaper refuses to publish, as a speech. 
And finally Howie, a recent transfer to the school, claims he’s only joining because Diwata is blackmailing him.
When their separate motives for joining the team begin to clash, the three misfits wind up discovering that one of their teachers has been having sexual relations with students. The three are ultimately forced to decide the best way to use this newfound information while maintaining their new friendships and, at least in Diwata’s mind, continuing to prepare for their speech and debate performance.
The opening quote above was a reoccurring theme throughout the entire show.
When asked how he came across such a unique and fun show, director Colin Loeffler states, “I was first introduced to Speech & Debate while playing Giles Corey in a production of The Crucible at North Central. On break in the middle of a rehearsal, the cast and production team started joking about how funny it would be to turn the play into a musical, to which our director responded ‘Have you heard of the play Speech & Debate? During that show they make a Crucible musical… it’s all about Mary Warren and she time travels to meet Abraham Lincoln who’s gay.’ Needless to say, I was intrigued, so I quickly bought the script.”
Speech and Debate is enjoyably different from a lot of other theatre. For instance, Loeffler states that, “Plays that are a bit more conventional tend to end with the characters coming to a, typically explicit, realization about themselves or the circumstances surrounding the play’s theme. In my experience, real life virtually never provides us with such clear, appropriate answers to our problems; since my interest in theatre stems from how it can and does impact the surrounding world, I tend to dislike the appearance of clear solutions in plays. While the characters in Speech and Debate certainly develop during the play, their apparent unawareness of this development makes the show more interesting and realistic.”
Many of the audience members agree with Loeffler. The show was filled with humorous one-liners and entertaining musical numbers, however the fun didn’t stop serious issues from being discussed. Attendees recounted that the show was very engaging and they could not wait to see what would happen next. One attendee states that, “The characters were both real and believable yet still very animated and entertaining.”
Indeed, the characters were very believable due to the wonderful cast members. When asked if the casting was a difficult process, Loeffler replies, “Kind of. The characters are very rich and complex, and it can be difficult to observe, during the relatively short time you see any one actor during the audition process, everything of which this actor is capable. Fortunately, I had a very talented pool of actors from which to choose, and all four did an amazing job in the production.”
Speech and Debate is a show where many people can take a lot away from it and identify with some of the circumstances and issues mentioned that may have happened in their own lives.
Loeffler attests, “Speech & Debate explores situations in which an anti-homosexual conservative politician is revealed to be a homosexual himself/herself by presenting a similar scenario using a high school as the background. These situations are complex because the person’s implicated identity is so repressed that he or she promotes legislation that disadvantages him or her. The play is essentially about the value about being honest with yourself about your identity. It’s about the value of not caring what other people think about you, and, as Diwata would say, it’s about not ‘holding it in’. I hope people at least consider the ways in which they might apply these values to their own lives.”
