By Audrey Elwood, Campus News Editor 

This past weekend, Xavier Theatre produced its third iteration of “Slut Shaming” by Trey Tatum, tying with “The Vagina Monologues” for their second most produced show. The show is centers around a time traveler revisiting the events leading up to and right after her sexual assault. 

The production is extremely intimate, with only three actors total. Actors play multiple characters, so one may be the protagonist in one scene and the mother in the next. While this normally would be confusing, each character is distinct enough and there is enough continuity, so it does not feel overwhelming to follow. 

The heavy themes give the show an intense feeling right from the beginning. While only lasting 55 minutes, the show does feel much longer than that, but this is not a bad thing. That intimate feeling is heightened by the long stretches of monologues. 

The most impactful monologue in the show was carried out by sophomore theatre and English double major Anna Meister. In the scene, the protagonist was ridiculing her lawyer on the invasiveness of her questions on the character’s sexual history. The audience could feel the emotion emulating throughout the room, truly embodying the frustration of a rape victim in court. 

The intimacy of the show helped convey the interconnectedness of situations of rape. The changes between the characters, the fact that there were never more than three characters and the heavy monologuing also helped convey the aftermath of a sexual assault. Isolation and loneliness were conveyed without being overtly stated. 

The stripped-back theme of the performance continued with the set. The only set piece utilized through the show was a locker. While it may not be much, it had so much versatility in the show. The locker was even used as a percussion instrument at one point. It really became the focal point of the show. 

The most stunning part of the show was the lighting, as it was so masterfully used as a plot device. When the protagonist was going to tell her parents that she had been sexually assaulted, the light illuminated the hallway. At the end, the light was coming from the locker and then shut off abruptly. The lighting became faux set pieces that made the story more interesting.

“I think my favorite part is the time travel aspect. I think when it comes to trauma, a lot of the time you’re reliving things, you are also forgetting things, and it’s just a whole bunch of all of it. And I think using time travel as a way to say, like you keep going back to that moment,” sophomore musical theatre major and actor in “Slut Shaming” Nicole Grace said. 

Overall, “Slut Shaming” was somber and heart wrenching, but digestible for a general audience. The best part of the play was how the actors conveyed so much without being in your face. Good theatre makes the audience feel like it is real, and the audience really felt all of the confusion, anger and lack of support throughout the show.