Criminals In Love Personal Response Paper

-By Farah Khan

Criminals In Love is a comedy about how a teenager, Junior, gets himself and

his girlfriend sucked into what he perceives to be his destiny—the family business

of crime.

As I walked into the theater, rock music was playing and the stage was lit

dimly but evenly, providing a dark atmosphere. Most of the set was made to look

like concrete with a slight slope and some cracks, suggesting a decrepit urban

environment, and a wall partially separated the interior and exterior space. The

dated look of the aluminum trash cans as well as the patterned futon and table

lamps suggested the time period to be around the 1980s.

I was at first a little worried about the interior and exterior spaces bleeding

into each other during the play, but the lighting technician did a good job in

distinguishing the spaces, and the actors did a good job keeping within those spaces.

This containment of space throughout the play served to reinforce the oppressive

feeling that Junior and his friends face under his so-called destiny.

To offset the dark theme of being trapped by one’s (self-imposed) fate, there

was an outrageous comedy element that commented on the ridiculousness of the

notion. Henry, with his slicked back hair, and Wineva in her freedom fighter

headband and bellbottoms were almost cartoonish representations of adults, who

had their heyday in the 70s. In contrast, the teenagers didn’t dress like stereotypical

80s teens. Rather, their costumes were very tame, and almost too modern. This

difference in costume makes the notion that Henry and Wineva had power over the

teenagers’ destiny laughable, and unbelievable. And it was true, Henry and Wineva

didn’t actually control Junior’s fate; it was Junior’s own belief of fate that trapped

him and his friends.

As far as the acting goes, Christian Muniz, playing William, stood out to me

the most. The way he moved was very heavy for the most part, which made sense as

his character mentioned feeling “dragged down”. The enunciated accent that he

used was also interesting because it distinguished William as a bum who saw

himself as an intellectual. His comedic timing was excellent and he delivered his

lines in earnest.

Wineva was another character who stood out to me. Although Mae McDowell

played her in a cartoonish fashion—especially with the maniacal laughter—she

stayed true to the character, who was supposed to be outlandish to begin with. She

bounced from informatively quiet and falsely loving to loud, angry, and passionate

at the drop of a hat, and she definitely commanded attention with her presence and

devotion to pushing the other actors around.

The scenes with Sandy (Hanna Yang) and Gail (Erin Patterson), are the ones

where I saw the most truth in relationships. In the first scene where Sandy and Gail

are together after Sandy’s shift, they are close and comfortable. It feels real that they

are friends. When they meet out late on the streets, they keep a distance from each

other, each girl perhaps a little ashamed at what she’s been up to, and not wanting

to discuss much with the other. They even threaten to tell each other’s mothers.

Erin also played her scenes with Chaz Atkinson convincingly. They had many

great non-verbal interactions, particularly when William or Wineva were acting

ridiculous. The romantic bits, though, seemed a little forced. William and Junior’s

father-son-relationship also fell short to me, so when William encountered Henry,

his anger seemed to be out of nowhere.

The play engaged me on one level in that I could sort of relate to the self-

imposed trapped-in-a-box feeling that Junior had. For a long time, I blamed my

parents for sheltering me from people. I always thought, unless it was with other

Bangladeshi people, they wouldn’t let me spend time with friends. I would

automatically turn down invitations with the excuse, “my parents probably won’t let

me”, but this was a sentiment that I just kept from when I was younger, and I hadn’t

realized they would trust my judgment better the older I got. After I started asking

them, though, they were absolutely fine with letting me hang out with my friends

outside of school. In the play, what’s at stake for Junior is the guilt of leaving his

father to die—the same father who doesn’t care about him. He is pushed around by

Henry and Wineva, and instead of taking the ample time outside of Wineva’s

presence to find a solution—such as reporting Wineva and his uncle (who are the

main threat), he continues to let himself, and his friends be pulled down further

from being accessories to accomplices, to (unintentional) conspirators of crime, to

criminals avoiding arrest.

As I walked out of the theater, I was relaxed. The comedy may have

overpowered the drama for me, but the play was done well enough. One moment

that still stays in my mind is when the bomb went off. The flash of lighting was very

well-timed there. Another was when Gail encounters Sandy on the street. The

ambient city noises and occasional flashes of “car lights” aided the mood.