2023’s Fall Play: “The Hollow”

The Hollow, written by Agatha Christie, is a murder mystery filled with suspense, romance, and secrets. On November 9th at 7 PM, The Hollow’s first performance was held, going on to hold two other shows on the 10th and 11th. While the performances were held that week, it took over a month to prepare for the show. With a cast of 12 student actors, 6 student technicians, and 1 student director, all of the cast and crew worked very hard to make this play their own, staying late for rehearsals and spending many hours working on their characters and scenes.

When interviewed, Ben McPherson, ’24, The Inspector, says ” I’m really grateful for this opportunity and the fact that theatre gets recognized at all at Penn is really huge to me, because I feel like the performing arts is a really powerful piece of what we have, and I’m really glad that it’s getting recognized.” Ben talks about his favorite scene as The Inspector, “I’ve got to say I’m probably a little biased, but as the inspector, I’m a big fan of all my interrogations, getting to become this character that’s really digging into how everyone’s acting and looking at their behaviors and getting to ask all these questions.”

Eva Wells ’25 who plays the mistress of John gave us an insight into what that kind of relationship was like and how it was developed. “The first rehearsal, having to practice the intimacy between me and John was definitely, it’s funny now, but it was very awkward, very tense. Especially because with the cast members, you don’t really know most of them until you get into the group together. I didn’t know anyone’s last name, and I had to pretend to be making out with this dude. So that was definitely fun” Eva also expressed her favorite scene “talking to Edward and yelling at him about John’s death and I get to have my mental breakdown and where I’m talking about how no one cares. No one seems to understand why I’m upset or whatever. So I think that’s definitely one of my favorites working through the emotion of that and the actual having to relate what I was saying and understand why I was saying it to get the emotion. I really enjoyed doing that.”

Andrew Dell, ’27, who played Edward shares his favorite scene with us stating “My favorite scene is when Edward finishes talking to Midge and she explains to him that she can’t ride with him, so he comes back in and contemplates suicide. That’s my favorite scene because I feel like it really captures the emotional toll that whole experience had on Edward.” Andrew also talks about his favorite character of the play “My favorite character in The Hollow would probably be Lucy Angkatell because she is a woman with memory loss, and she is just so out there, and she doesn’t really care about what anybody else thinks.”

Lauren Turnquist ’24 who plays Lady Angkatell, was essentially the comic relief of the play. “One of the actors, Andrew, would take his glass of sherry and just it was really hard to keep my composure on set because I just wanted to laugh at everything. I’d say it’s definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made to try out and act in it. It was fulfilling creatively. I’ve met a lot of really cool people. Miss Hein’s a great director. Evelyn, a first-time student directing, fantastic director. I think the hands-down best part of it, though, was the lobster.”