PEA Community Reacts to “SLUT: The Play”

All students and faculty members were required to attend one of two performances of “SLUT: The Play,” an 80-minute performance by the Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company in New York City, on Friday. The play aimed to illuminate the nuances and challenges of a particular experience with sexual assault. The actors, all high school-aged girls, also held a question-and-answer session after the performance with the directors and playwrights. Students additionally talked about their reactions to the play during advisory discussions.

Written by Katie Cappiello and directed by Meg McInerney, “SLUT: The Play” follows the journey of 16-year-old Joanna Del Marco, who is sexually assaulted in a taxi cab while with three male friends during a night out, and highlights the damaging impact of rape culture on the lives of young people. Cappiello worked with the actresses to write the play, which was inspired by real experiences of high school students.

Senior Ruby Fludzinski initially brought the idea of hosting the play to Dean of Academic Affairs Karen Geary and faculty in the health department. After months of discussion regarding the benefits and potential impact, administrators decided to show the play and make it required. 

“I think that sexual assault has been a kind of untalked about issue for a long time, and it’s important that our school is beginning to have conversations about it.”

Performed by an all-female acting group, the play aimed to ignite discussion on the topics of slut-shaming, sexual assault and the bystander effect. The decision to have the play performed by female actresses was a conscious one, aimed at forcing the audience to listen to women who are often silenced in conversations about assault. Many audience members, as well as the directors of the play, found that the omission of males helped the performance delve deeper into the root of the issues and the stigma surrounding these social issues.

The event was hosted in the Assembly Hall, which is not designed for theater productions. This caused some technical difficulty for the cast and crew of the play. However, many students found that the minimal effects gave the performance a more weighty tone, one that they felt was necessary and helpful for discussing such a topic.

Because the evening performance of the play for uppers and seniors was scheduled from 7-9 p.m., Some students were frustrated with its conflict with the Mozart Requiem, a required appointment for all orchestra members. Some students recognized this conflict and sat in on the morning session, originally designated for preps and lowers. Others who did not attend a performance watched a recorded version of the play on Monday. Some advocates of the play, however, stated that watching the play after the original showing would diminish its relatability, intimacy and ultimately its meaning.

The play received mixed reactions from students and faculty, each of whom connected differently to the depicted experiences. In addition to the overall relatability of the performance itself, some students felt that they empathized most with individual characters in the play.

Lower Mila Deguere, along with many others, saw parallels between herself and the protagonist, Joanna Del Marco. DeGuere said, “I’ve always had guy friends who I of course trust wholeheartedly and feel comfortable with, but seeing things like that on stage just reminds me how you can truly never know.”

Select students had a hard time watching the play due to their own past experience with rape, sexual misconduct or sexual assault, on and off campus. History instructor Betty Luther-Hillman commented on the reactions that she witnessed from the students in both her dormitory and classroom.

“Many students have commented that they found the play to be very realistic,” Luther-Hillman said. “I think that it’s a scary prospect to consider how the interactions of daily life might help to create a cultural mindset in which a true sexual assault isn’t taken seriously.”

Some students, however, did not see the connection between the play and the supposed “hook up” culture on campus but did say that they now understand the stigma surrounding sexual assault. “I don’t think that we have a rape culture,” said prep Gillian Quinto. “However, any rape in our community and culture is definitely too much.”

Overall, students found that the performance, regardless of whether or not they personally related to the play, sparked much-needed conversation on the topics of both sexual assault and rape. Fludzinski said, “There was a lot of great feedback and some negative feedback, all of which will help start an essential dialogue about consent, victim blaming, stereotypes and abuse.”

Lower and H4 representative Pedro Sanson agreed with Fludzinski and explained how “SLUT: The Play” added to discussions that have been happening over the course of the past year. “While H4 has been engaged in dialogue pertaining to these issues, it was nice and important to have a school-wide event to include everyone in this necessary exchange,” Sanson said.

Advisories were required to talk about their reactions to their plays in meetings on Mondays.

The deans gave advisers specific questions to ask students. Lower Avery Giles said that his advisory discussion was successful in diving deep into the issue of sexual assault at Exeter.

“My advisory actually used an extra 20 minutes talking about the play and the topics it brought up,” Giles said. “At first, we focused on the individual aspects of the play, but,  as time went on, we zoomed out and looked at the bigger, more important picture of sexual assault and rape in our community.”

Lower Molly Canfield said that most of the people in her advisory thought the play was “powerful and moving.” However, they also discussed negative opinions. She applauded the decision to have discussions within advisory groups and said, “I think that sexual assault has been a kind of untalked about issue for a long time, and it’s important that our school is beginning to have conversations about it.”

Controversy over the play’s importance was stirred on Exeter Confesses, a forum on Facebook where PEA students anonymously post opinions about on and off campus happenings, when one post was sent in detailing the cost of bringing the production to campus.

“We paid $40k+ for this,” the post said. “The play could have funded almost a full scholarship for a year for a student at PEA.”

However, this allegation was false as Fludzinski explained that the school received a discount on both the production itself and the following question-and-answer session and that the cost came out of the budget of the Theater Department, which has no overlap in spending with the Office of Financial Aid.

Many students said that the performance was needed because the intense pressure of Exeter rarely supports discussion regarding more complex social issues like sexual misconduct and assault.

“Instead of talking about it, we simply push conversations about sexual assault under the radar,” DeGuere said. “I felt like it was necessary for Exeter to be reminded of these very real issues that plague society.”