By Rachel Korach Howell
Photos by Elisabeth Ross
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| Regan Jade Loula as Felicity; Benjamin Alley as Zamir |
Iowa City - Dreamwell’s
Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, written by Christopher Durang and directed by Adeara Jean Maurice, is a look into post 9/11 frenzy in the United States with smatterings of other hot topic political issues thrown into the mix. The story revolves around Felicity (Regan Jade Loula) and her marriage to a possible terrorist named Zamir (Benjamin Alley). We see them wake up together and it becomes quickly clear that what was, to her, a one night stand (foolishly enacted in a drunken blackout) is actually the result of being slipped a drug and forced to marry a man she doesn’t know (married by an oblivious minister who makes porn, played by Brian Tanner). Zamir’s random shouting and violent threats to keep her from annulling the marriage, are seemingly, fairly easily ingested by Felicity as she agrees to have him meet her parents.
Luella, Felicity’s mother (Sandy Goodson), a sort of Stepford shell of a once-was woman (a clear result of an overly patriarchal society and a war-mongering and abusive husband), talks mostly of movies and theatre while the father, Leonard (Randall Schroeder) gets furiously angry on the turn of a dime, brandishes hand guns at the drop of a hat, and mysteriously retreats to care for his “butterfly collection” which no one has ever seen and Felicity suspects isn’t real.
