San Diego State’s Skull and Dagger Society is showcasing “The Motherf— with the Hat” with two sets of cast members from April 21-27.
Playing at the Agape House, the play deals with the struggles of love, friendship, and addiction while facing the challenges of adulthood.
Real-world trouble and conflict mix with an immersive theatrical experience. The play follows a petty drug dealer named Jackie, who is fresh out of prison and is attempting to stay sober while under parole. He, though, remains madly in love with his struggling but tough girlfriend Veronica.
Jackie comes home one night to Veronica to see a mysterious hat sitting on their dinner table. From here, mixed emotions of love, betrayal, and fidelity are on full display. Distraught, he feels lost and alone once again. Jackie looks to get everything straightened out and turns to who he trusts most.
Ralph D. (Sascha Parafiniuk) accompanies Jackie as his sly and sneaky sponsor. Ralph is also married to the resentful and dissatisfied Victoria (Ann-Marie Thornton). They have an unhappy marriage but Ralph does what he can to appease and tend to Victoria, although she plans on leaving him.
Jackie seeks to find out the origin of the hat with his cousin, Julio, (Aldo Ley) who wanted to join and help him. Although Jackie is brash and never liked his cousin, Julio is a man with a heart of gold staying by his cousin’s side to the very end offering solid advice, and being a stand-up guy.
Partaking in the play, actress Juliana Acevedo (Veronica), a sophomore English major, resonates heavily with the overall message expressed in the plot.
“I’m someone who has had a lot of history of addiction and homelessness and incarceration in my own family. Seeing this play that depicts how hard it is for addicts to get clean and find their ways in life just really stuck out to me,” Acevedo said.
Acevedo enjoyed playing Veronica, and she noted how well the play showcases the resilience of the human spirit when it comes to experiencing hardships. She also expresses how important this play can be and how its themes are relevant to everyone.
“I love that this play shows the good, the bad, the ugly, and the resilience of the human spirit, this play is all about love and humanity,” Acevedo said
Actor Segio Morejon (Jackie), a sophomore theater major with an emphasis on performance, noted how he wanted his performance to coincide with the themes presented in the play.
Morejon played Jackie with a mix of comedy and a serious tone when needed, bringing a variety of emotions into his performance.
“I wanted to portray the fact that every human being is valid in the wrong way. We all struggle with our certain issues, and we all make mistakes,” Morejon said. “We all have pain and we all hurt, but this specific character has gone through so much that it can be really easy to just dismiss Jackie as a bum or an addict.”
Morejon, like Acevedo, offered an insightful perspective for students who may have not attended a theater show.
“The story and the writing are beyond incredible. The characters are palpable,” Morejon said. “For someone that might have never gone to a theater show, if this is the first show they’ll go to, they’ll fall in love with theater because it’s just so active and (it’s) so real and so human.”
Director Amira Temple, a senior theater major with an emphasis on performance, said at one point during production, the play was initially determined to be performed outside. Fortunately, though, cast members and production were able to find a home with the Agape House that turned to work to add a layer of immersion for the audience.
“(The Agape House) gives us an opportunity to put the audience in that pressure cooker and make it that there’s nowhere to turn,” Temple said. “You’re now in this world — literally and figuratively — with these characters because there’s nowhere for you to go, and you are very literally head-on with these emotions and circumstances and problems.”
The audience becomes elevated when you’re not sitting for a play away from the stage, but instead on the stage itself. Feeling the jackets of actors as they pass by you to begin the next scene makes you feel as if you’re in for a ride. The experience truly makes you feel as if you’re an actor playing a character yourself being close and personal with the cast and set.
The production and set design creates a unique, intimate atmosphere that adds to the story of troubled adults. The set was decorated with a bed mattress and a few coffee tables to enhance the small apartment setting. Between scene transitions, slow but erratic saxophone notes performed by Nat Francisco, a senior music education major, would be playing.
Both Acevedo and Morejon said they were allowed creative freedom under Temple, and felt it was a collaborative effort bringing themselves to the characters they portray.
Temple believed to have an opportunity to direct and present this play to SDSU students and the community was ideal to display current societal issues.
“I feel like this play lives at the intersection of racial identity and economics, which is like the heart of the human struggle when you’re living in a late-stage capitalist world,” Temple said.
Speaking with the director and cast, the hard work and dedication of those involved are evident throughout the play. Although portrayed by young college students, this story can be viewed from the perspective of anyone who has experienced addiction.
“The Motherf— with the Hat” brings an interesting conversation to how students may be able to relate to themselves to others who come from different racial and economic backgrounds.
For more info and for those interested in viewing this play, tickets can be found here.
