By Jaya Goud, Banner Staff

As members of the Winsor community entered the Goel Theater on Friday, February 7 for the Lower School Winter Play, Rogues’ Gallery, they were greeted by the sight of many cardboard boxes laid on the stage—an unconventional set that promised a thrilling performance to follow. 

When the lights dimmed, it became clear that these boxes were not simply props; they were an integral part of the story. Rogues’ Gallery centers around two security guards, Hopper and O’Keefe, who  are in charge of protecting a five million dollar art installation called Cardboard Boxes. When they realize that they accidentally mixed up their shifts and left the door to the gallery unlocked, they embark on a hilarious adventure through the security footage of the past couple hours in order to craft a reasonable explanation to placate the artist of the piece and avoid getting fired. As they examine the videos, they find each story crazier than the next, with characters like art dealers, vandalists, tourists, and angry couples each interacting with the exhibit in unexpected and bizarre ways. 

One of the most memorable parts of this production was its breaking of the fourth wall. In the final scene, actors sat alongside the audience, and, pretending that they were also watching the play, spoke directly to us. Sophie Wang ’30 remarked, “It was so exciting to perform [the interactive portion of the show].” During that scene, actors shouted at each other across the theater and completely immersed their audience in the show, allowing us to feel as though we were all experiencing the events of the play with them.” 

Actors also worked with the director in making decisions and crafting the storyline of the play. For instance, Ellie Flaim ’30 remarked that her favorite part of the show was “getting to experiment with the line adaptations and set choices.”  The cardboard boxes set did not stay the same throughout the show—each scene caused a new disruption to the exhibit. For example, in the first minutes of the play, a character dramatically crushed a box by jumping on it multiple times, and it remained that way onstage for the rest of the show. Actors also drew on the boxes with markers, toppled over towers of boxes, and even cut out holes in the boxes onstage.

The play concluded with an unexpected twist: an art critic was extremely moved by the box sculpture’s unconventional beauty, despite the many ordeals it had been subjected to. This final scene underscored the play’s core theme: how do we define art? Ms. Yoniack, the director of Rogues’ Gallery, expressed her hope that the audience would “take away the joy of [the actors’] accomplishments” and leave the play considering “what art is to them.”