Have you ever wondered what life might be like in the future?
Written by Brendan Pelsue and directed by Jason Gerace, “Wellesley Girl” fast-forwards to the year 2465. Set in Weston, Massachusets, the play portrays an imagination of what American politics could become.
In the play, “America” is a few New England towns in an enclosed city due to a great environmental disaster. “The water has been (contaminated) by some chemicals that were used to create robot intelligence,” said Gerace.
Even after the disaster, the Constitution was able to withstand. There wasn’t much choice due to America now having a low population. Until population numbers go up, direct democracy is the only way to survive.
But the political system isn’t reigning nicely. Once an unidentified army establishes a camp outside the city, Congress is put into a horrific spot. They must push aside their personal agendas and decide the nation’s fate. Reality starts to hit hard as sometimes all you can do is hope history and luck are on your side.
While this play is set in the future, Pelsue doesn’t see it as a prediction of it. Nor does he believe it is an indictment of where we are right now.
“I see it more as maybe as a hypothetical that could be useful to think about politics, and what it means to be a citizen, and what it means to participate politically,” said Pelsue. “But I didn’t write it in response to any particular issue, or person or anything like that.”
What inspired Pelsue to write this story was his surroundings during his time in graduate school. Going to school for playwriting, Pelsue was questioning the point of what playwriting was.
“(I was) feeling like I was divorced from the world around me,” said Pelsue. “What I wanted to do was sort of be more of a citizen to the world around me.”
Pelsue went to Yale University for graduate school. While living in New Haven, the world of politics slowly started to become prevalent in his life.
“I realize that New Haven is where I live and I don’t know anything about the city of New Haven, who the mayor is or anything like that,” said Pelsue. “So I just started to think about a lot of stuff like civics, and civic engagement, and politics and political participation.”
At this point, Pelsue recounted something his grandmother told him. On the day of her town meeting, there was a snowstorm. A lot of people chose not to show up and vote because of the storm. His grandmother was in disbelief.
“She felt like your responsibility to vote was so great that you should brave the snow,” said Pelsue.
After remembering this event, Pelsue started to put “Wellesley Girl” together. He began to write a story about people walking to vote in the snow. The people felt strongly about it. Next, they started to negotiate their relationship and voting. Once this came together, the rest fell in place.
“I didn’t have ideas beyond that,” said Pelsue. “I kinda told myself ‘okay, well what will happen next when they get to the town meeting? What are they voting on? Okay, why?’ And you know things sort of spill out from there but often I find that I start from just sort of an impulse and see what flushes out.”
“Wellesley Girl” runs Sept. 26, 28 and 29 at The Thrust Stage Theatre in Meiley-Swallow Hall. Times vary for each performance.
