“Now I trust you’ve had the
opportunity to look at our vessels out on display…?”
– DECOY by Keith Walker
Sifting through the plays of the Strawberry One Act Festival,
Kristopher Karcher, the Riant Theatre’s literary intern and dramaturg, will be publishing a new article every
week to talk about the topical issues that are brought up in many of the One-Act
plays in our festival. 
But what if
one of these controversial treatments could save your life, or even make you
immortal? You’d be able to live to see your children grow, graduate, get
married, and have kids of their own (and hopefully in that order). You’d do
whatever is possible right? What if the treatment meant losing your body and
transporting your thoughts, ambitions, and emotions into another person, a
vessel for your soul? Would you still do it? Remember your life is on the line. DECOY by Keith
Walker,
deals with all of these issues when a newly married couple
confronts a crisis with a possible new medical breakthrough. The Groom is sick
and he isn’t getting better. He’s given two options, go through another round
of treatment that may not work, or try a new treatment, a treatment that takes
everything you are and puts you into a new healthy body. The play explores the
couple’s love for each other and a man dealing with his own morality. 
Science
fiction is huge right now, especially with the young adult audience. Book
series like The Hunger Games and Divergent are experiencing a surplus of
success as the overused trends of vampires, werewolves, and magic all die out.
What is it that this new wave of genre has to offer us? Is it the promise of
new technology? The need for change? Possibly. But what really grabs the
attention of the readers and audience members of this new sci-fi craze is the
fact that these characters are dealing with futuristic technology in a utopian
setting, but are still dealing with the same human problems and issues we have
today. These books, films, and plays allow us to face impossible situations and
ask us, as audience members, what would we do? Perhaps this genre, more than
any, helps us discover who we are, and what our moral limits may be.
At the end of each article, I plan on leaving the audience
with a question. Tweet us with your answer (@rianttheatre), or leave a comment
below, and you will be entered into a drawing to win two free tickets to the
night of your choice of the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival!
This week’s question:
What would you do if you were in the same situation as the married couple in DECOY? Would you give up your body and
live in someone else’s?
