The script for Jeffrey Kuperman ’12’s play “Roll!” began as a meditation on Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” An English major, Kuperman is earning a certificate in theater. For his senior thesis he wrote and is directing the 75-minute play, which will run April 27–29 and May 1–3 at the Lewis Center’s Matthews studio at 185 Nassau Street.
The play follows Sef (played by Bradley Wilson ’13, center in rehearsal photo at right), an actor who loses a TV role due to a sustained bout of vertigo. He struggles to find balance in his life by pursuing a relationship with a burlesque dancer, who cooks full-course meals in her sleep. The play — which Kuperman calls a “playfully dark piece of physical theater” — employs highly stylized and athletic choreography and video projection. “[Sef] is constantly struggling to reconstruct a unified vision of his life, fix his career, and revive his long-dead love life, which is difficult considering that he often can’t tell the ceiling from the floor,” he says.
Kuperman has choreographed, directed, or performed with a number of campus shows. “I don’t know any other student that has been able to bring so much from different dimensions,” said Robert Sandberg ’70, Kuperman’s thesis adviser.