Trinity’s Attic Theatre is an arena-style theatre with no curtains to separate the audience from the stage. From Oct. 3 to Oct. 11, it underwent a transformation, featuring a slanted white platform, a wall covered in rippable white wallpaper and a wall filled with different drawings and poems each night. There, Writer Martyna Majok and Director Roberto Prestigiacomo, associate professor of human communication and theater, presented “Sanctuary City.”
The play starred Jose Felix Combs, sophomore theater major, and Christabel Eke, junior business analytics and technology major, as two undocumented teenagers, B and G, facing the challenges of growing up in the United States without legal status. When one of them obtains citizenship, the couple must decide whether to marry so that both can stay in the country. Through fragmented scenes, Majok explores the tension between survival and belonging in a country that promises opportunity but denies acceptance.
Prestigiacomo led the production with an approach that emphasized participation and unpredictability. Upon entering the theater, ushers explained that spectators could change seats at any time, tear wallpaper from the set’s wall and draw on the opposite wall with chalk. The actors encouraged the audience to shift their viewing angles with blocking and lighting cues.
Prestigiacomo said the audience interaction with the performance and the space itself absolutely worked. The audience’s interaction with the space changed noticeably between the first and last performances, he said.
“I saw two performances, opening night and closing night,” Prestigiacomo said. “By the end, one of the walls — the one dedicated to chalk — was full of images. The walls that the audience were meant to peel were all torn down.”
This level of participation showed how the audience actively engaged each night. Prestigiacomo mentioned that the audience embraced their ability to move from place to place during the performance, something that’s part of the probabilistic stages approach.
“They could see the play from different points of view, and I saw them engaged in every aspect of this immersive element,” Prestigiacomo said.
Behind the scenes, the preparation process embodied the same sense of engagement. Bella Martinez, first-year history major and sound board operator for “Sanctuary City,” said that everyone in the play was nice.
“Right now we’re going through this time in America where everybody’s divided on letting people into this country, and this country was built on immigrants,” Martinez said. “I spent time with [the cast] outside of it, and they were all dedicated to showing the frustration that everybody is going through right now.”
“Sanctuary City” reflected Prestigiacomo’s interest in staging plays that address current social issues. The importance of telling a story about immigration is to share that human experience, he said.
“To be able to do this type of work at Trinity is wonderful because it’s a way to share these messages and give students options to look at reality and make their own decisions,” Prestigiacomo said.
Antonio Luna, a local resident who attended the performance, said he was curious about the show’s focus on immigration and its interactive format.
“I didn’t know exactly what it was about, only that it had to do with immigration. But I found the concept of tearing paper off the walls interesting. At first, I didn’t understand it, but then, as I participated, I thought it was an interesting way to involve us,” Luna said. “I think it managed to convey a serious message about the current situation in the country. A little strange, but it worked.”
By the end of the run on Oct. 11, the theater itself had transformed. The floor and walls were covered in torn wallpaper, chalk drawings and paper fragments — visible reminders of a week’s worth of performances and audience movement throughout the space.
