Areon Mobasher, a fourth-year studying English, and Mackie Raymond, a fourth-year studying communication, formed their very own theater company – Star Pocket Theatre. The company works to highlight typically underrepresented figures in the world of theater. Their first major production, “The Member of the Wedding,” opens on Thursday at VAE Raleigh. " />
Contributed by Areon Mobasher
Areon Mobasher, a fourth-year studying English, and Mackie Raymond, a fourth-year studying communication, formed their very own theater company – Star Pocket Theatre. The company works to highlight typically underrepresented figures in the world of theater. Their first major production, “The Member of the Wedding,” opens on Thursday at VAE Raleigh.
The theater arts have long mirrored the dominance of white, straight, masculine and upper class societal identities, excluding and misrepresenting many along the way. But, as young people are commonly the face of change, two students have taken it upon themselves to bring counterculture theater to Raleigh with their own company – Star Pocket Theatre.
Founded in July of last year by Areon Mobasher, a fourth-year studying English, and Mackie Raymond, a fourth-year communication, the company has stepped up to be grounds for young, savvy theater productions that challenge traditional theater with inclusion and representation of all identities in both text and cast selection.
“There’s pretty much a monopoly on theater in this country that is older, white men,” said Raymond, the managing director of Star Pocket Theatre. “And it really limits the kind of storytelling that is done and the kind of crowds that show up.”
Their commitment to equity, not just diversity, exudes in the process of creating their upcoming production “The Member of the Wedding,” which is based on the book of the same title that was published in 1946 by American novelist, essayist, poet and playwright Carson McCullers.
The play takes place during the latter part of the Second World War, in 1944, in a rural Georgian town. The protagonist is preteen Frankie Addams, played by Raymond, and follows her comical and dramatic entry into what she considers adulthood alongside her only two friends in the slow southern town: John Henry West, her androgynous cousin, and black housekeeper Berenice Sadie Brown.
Although the time warps back three quarters of a century, the themes presented in the play are undoubtedly relevant today.
“A lot of the show is specifically related to queerness and gender nonconformity and class and race struggles,” Raymond said. “It was countercultural for the time and it is still countercultural.”
Raymond and Mobasher are in sync on this vision for this production, and for their company, and audiences should be prepared to have their feathers ruffled by the striking resemblance of the two eras — then and now. But, this is meant to heighten the exciting conversation and activism around such themes, not stifle them.
“It is steeped in a time period and region … which really limits Frankie’s options as a young girl in a way that she is really hyper-aware of,” said Mobasher, artistic director. “And it limits Berenice’s options as a black housekeeper with very few family members left, one of whom directly deals with police brutality in the town. And John Henry because he’s a nonconformist child who will most likely be raised to be hyper-masculine in the blue-collar workforce of a small town. All of these issues and all of these themes are still pervasive today. … People should expect to have their feathers ruffled in a way that will make them examine the world we live in currently.”
Although it takes on heavy topics, the show will also be comically sweet as it comes from the innocent and witty perspectives of children.
It was Raleigh director Brent Wilson who sought out Raymond with the desire to bring this play to life, and for her to play Frankie Addams. He had been sitting on the story since he read it as a child, but there wasn’t a company yet in Raleigh who would produce it.
So, that’s when Raymond and Mobasher, who have been creative partners since 2015, decided to start their own company that would produce counterculture-style plays. Establishing a company with a firm, progressive vision has been difficult. But, not when it came to casting. The three — Wilson, Raymond and Mobasher — put many sincere hours into reading the script and decoding the compositions of each character. Identity played a big role in pre-casting and they consider themselves lucky for finding actors that embrace their own authentically lived experiences for their roles.
“A lot of them bring their authentic experiences to the roles, and that really helps the production,” Raymond said.
During casting they were also intentional in valuing the openness of new actors being vulnerable and showing up to auditions.
“Part of our mission to make theater accessible is to bring people of varying experiences into theater,” Mobasher said. “Because we believe that talent is cultivated and the ability to act is cultivated from a person and it is reachable, so we want to create opportunities for people as well. We want to make it accessible for people on stage as well as in the audience.”
“The Member of the Wedding” will be the first in the series “It’s Not a Phase” which will embrace adolescent and teen angst during times of crucial identity establishing.
However, their first appearance as a company in the Raleigh theater scene was with a Middle Eastern storytelling production last November. The production of “Mashallah” was inspired by and responded to the racial slur that was painted on the campaign signs of Raleigh City Council candidate Zainab Baloch.
Opening night for “Member of the Wedding” is Thursday evening at 8 p.m. at the Visual Art Exchange (VAE) in downtown Raleigh. The play will run through Sunday and again April 26-29 at the same location, which will also be running their exhibition “The Feminine Spectrum,” by Stacy Kirby, an exhibit that Raymond believes McCullers would really enjoy if she were alive today.