Friday October 11 was a rainy and dreary night, so what else to do but go and see The Profession?  I walked through the rain to the Experimental Theater while I filled with excitement.  I didn’t know anything about the show other than the fact that it was an absurdist piece about a dystopia.

I entered the Experimental Theater and saw two actors, one a large man on stilts standing between two large tables and a small woman sitting at one of the two large tables.  Although I knew these actors from theater club their creepy character presence made me uncomfortable.  These actors remained on stage, silently interacting with each other.  The actors sat there for a while.  Then the lights went out and a voice dominated the theater.  The voice welcomed us to the theater, reminded us to silence our phones, and then encouraged us to enjoy the show.

The lights came up and we were in the same classroom setting as the stage was set before.  The large man on stilts was saying names of the digestive tract parts.  The students sitting in their oversized desks repeated the names that he said to them.  The female character had no issue repeating these names but the male character struggled and the man noticed.  The man on stilts boomed at him, “Eugene!  Stand up!”  The man, who we now know as Eugene, stood in front of his desk as the teacher from The Profession pointed to a small piece of the lower intestines and asked Eugene what it was, but Eugene had no idea.  The teacher was angry and told Eugene that he would never make it in The Profession, unless he threw himself into the fire.  Eugene and Rosetta, the female student, were put through many other tests until Eugene was told to have sex with Rosetta.  Eugene was married that morning, and he refused to break his vows so quickly.  Eugene fled The Profession and returned home to his apartment and his wife Ibid.  Ibid was played by the same actress who played Rosetta.  Ibid drilled Eugene with questions about his day at work and Eugene skirted around the fact that The Profession wanted him to have sex with his classmate.  Ibid claimed to have read the handbook that Eugene never saw and said she knew about this unpleasant task.  When Eugene told her that he refused to do the task Ibid was angry she told him that he would go back and do the task.  Then there was a ten-minute intermission.

After the intermission we were back in the classroom Eugene and Rosetta stood in front of their desks both reacting differently to the sex they had during intermission.  Rosetta was numb and Eugene was giddy as a schoolboy.  While Rosetta was disgusted by the sex and frozen, Eugene questioned Schaffer, the teacher of The Profession, about the person in charge of The Profession.  These questions made Schaffer uncomfortable, and he finally broke and gave Eugene a simple hint as to who controlled The Profession.  Schaffer handed Eugene an orange.  This orange was a great clue.  After Rosetta unfroze she told Eugene that maybe the orange has something to do with a fruit fly.  This was the correct answer; the ruler was the fruit flies, apparently.  Eugene was a threat to The Profession now, so Schaffer told Rosetta to castrate Eugene.

Eugene runs and leaves the theater.  He flees to the nearby park, where bad things are said to happen.  At the park Eugene meets a vagrant.  The vagrant seems crazy but safe so Eugene asks if he can join him living the vagrant life in the park.  The vagrant convinces Eugene out of all of his clothes except his underwear. There is a noise in the distance and Ibid arrives in the park.  Ibid discusses how she is happy with their life and wants Eugene back.  She begs Eugene to return, and after a while Eugene agrees to leave with her, when the vagrant rips off Ibid’s wig.  Rosetta was wearing a wig the whole time, fooling Eugene.  Then Rosetta tells Eugene of how he is a clown and is only meant to please the fruit flies.  Then the vagrant reveals that he is the teacher, Schaffer.  These two characters argue and laugh at Eugene.  Eventually, Schaffer leaves and Eugene kills Rosetta with the orange.  Once Eugene realizes what he has done he begs for forgiveness and says he will live his life by the handbook.  Fireworks go off and Schaffer returned, rewarded Eugene a promotion for killing Rosetta.  Then Eugene gives in to the life he was being offered in The Profession.

The whole play, The Profession, was trying to show that in a perfect world the higher power will always succeed, and that there is no escape from any of the higher powers.