News

Xavier Players Present “Hot ‘n’ Throbbing”

Extended Learning session promotes discussion

01/15/08

Xavier graduate and director Erin Mattingly Bukowski and the Xavier Players present Paula Vogel’s play, Hot ‘n’ Throbbing, February 7-10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Gallagher Student Center Studio Theatre on the University campus.  There will also be a viewing of the documentary film “Killing Us Softly” on February 4 from 3:00-4:00 pm at the Xavier Women’s Center at 1415 Dana Avenue. The documentary is free. Tickets to the play are $5.00 for students, faculty and staff and $15.00 for all others. Tickets are available by calling the Players box office at 513 745-3939.  Doors open 30 minutes before show time.

 

The central theme of Hot ‘N’ Throbbing revolves around a key question: which is more obscene; pornography or domestic violence? Charlene, the family breadwinner, writes erotic screenplays for women. The physical abuse and alcoholism of her ex-husband, Clyde, drove her away, but he is not absent. Daughter Leslie Ann drinks and parades around in revealing clothes and son Calvin is an A-student uptight adolescent male. The characters in Charlene’s imagination act out her lurid fantasies and their dialogue mirrors that of her family. As in last season’s Players’ production, Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, disregard for boundaries and a lack of genuine love start at home within dysfunctional families, and are often the cause of sexual pathology.

 

“The play doesn’t preach. It shows, as good plays do, how these topics are embedded in people’s lives,” says Director for Performing Arts Cathy Springfield, who heard Paula Vogel speak at a conference and was drawn to her philosophy. “She stressed it is important to find your individual voice, and for her it was making the world a better place for women,” Springfield says. “Erin brought this play to my attention and I agreed it was important.”

 

Erin Mattingly Bukowski graduated from Xavier in 2000 with a B.S. in accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant. She earned her M.A. in Theatre at the University of Kentucky and is actively employed in both fields.  “I have become aware of the negative effects a ‘sex sells’ culture can have,” she says. “I like Hot ‘N’ Throbbing because it’s sexy, it’s entertaining, and it’s funny and it pulls people into a world where sex, although there is plenty of it, is a sidebar and control/power becomes the focus…The play does not try to take sides or tell the audience what is right or wrong it simply portrays our world today and the negative effects of what is going on.”

 

Xavier’s Women’s Center and Peace & Justice Programs is offering a chance to start a discussion with a short documentary film about the portrayal of women in advertising. “Killing Us Softly” will be shown and discussed from 3:00-4:00 pm on Monday, February 4 at the Women’s Center, 1415 Dana Avenue. For more information on the film and discussion, please contact Patrick Welage at 745-3768. For tickets to Hot ‘n’ Throbbing, please call 745-3939 or 745-3576.

 

Please note: Hot ‘n’ Throbbing includes adult content, language, situations, and violence. Children under 17 must be accompanied by an adult and discretion should be used when considering whether to bring a young child.

 

It is the philosophy of the Xavier Players to combine real-life experiences in the form of cast service projects that relate to the issues presented in their plays. The Players believe it is in this act of service that one truly become socially aware. Xavier, as a Catholic Jesuit University, strives to form students intellectually, morally, spiritually, with rigor and compassion, toward lives of solidarity, service and success.