Looking for your annual dose of Greek tragedy spin-offs and metaphysical “comedy” brought to life? Look no further than the King’s Infringement Festival, on until February 9 in and around King’s College campus. Student written, student directed and student acted, this week-long festival features 28 plays in total, including gems like Oedipus and Stuff and Arthur: The College Years, all put on in unconventional spaces around the quadrangle.
On Monday’s tour night, groups were lead around the campus by tour guides to see five short plays. One, a Hamlet redux featuring the dean of residence as the ghost—“to dean or not to dean, that is the question,” one, a musical about the woes of a hit man and one a video projected onto someone’s dorm room wall answering the question we’ve all pondered, wide awake in bed at night: “what would a cat-pocalypse look like?” Often funny and almost always cerebral, tour night ended with a ‘50s themed Down at the hop opening gala at the campus bar.
Hadyn Watters and Anne White, festival coordinators, say that now that the festival is in its eleventh year, they’re trying to extract the drama out of the theatre. “In past years we’ve had plays in an elevator, a bathroom stall, and a common room,” says White. “When the location is complementary to the script, it adds to the play in an interesting way.” White says that the festival aims to be accessible to all. “The King’s Theatrical Society main season can be tough to break into, and I see Infringement as a great way for students to get involved in a way that is slightly less of a commitment, while still showing the public what they’ve been working on.”
“It’s a balancing act of giving a respectable platform for the plays and being open to all.”
For tickets, check out kingsinfringement.com
