Once the academic day is finished, many college students are on the prowl for one of two things: food, and/or something fun to do. While I agree that fun activities are needed to relieve the stresses that are produced by the everyday academic struggle, I also believe that we as college students have the duty to, on occasion, ponder some of the more difficult issues that will one day be passed off to our generation. The trouble is getting college students interested in these difficult subjects. One solution that seemed to have a great impact was presenting a difficult subject in the form of live theater.
The second show that was produced by the Stockton College Performing Arts Center was one named Hello Herman. I had the great honor of being casted in the show as three different supporting roles. I must say that being involved in this show was definitely one of the greatest experiences of my first semester here at Stockton. I made so many friends and had honestly the best time working to perform a show that truly is difficult in its subject matter. The whole premise of the show is to show the issue of violence amongst the youth of America, and to show the possible motives that would drive a teenager to use violence to express their anger. The plot follows Herman Howards, a sixteen year old from fictional Broom, Iowa, as he carries out a Columbine-style shooting of his high school. The one major difference is the magnitude of the shooting. Howards shot 43 students, 2 teachers, and 1 police officer, making this shooting the worst mass school shooting in American history. The play then goes into an interview style as Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Lax Morales, attempts to unravel the teens incredibly twisted mind. Through the use of flashbacks, the audience learns of Herman’s past, as well as Lax’s back story which eerily parallel that of Herman. There are also various subplots, such as the romantic plot between Lax, and news reporter Sheila Duval. While all these elements are unfolding, the audience still has to think about an element introduced fairly early in the show of if Herman will be executed, in addition to if the execution will be televised.
Through the course of the play, the audience learns that Herman’s father cheated on his mother, and left when he was eight. It is also revealed that Herman’s younger sister, Julia, was hit by a car, and died three days later in the hospital. The cause of Julia’s death could also be attributed to the fact that their mother, Gail Howards, was working and too busy to rush home right away and care for her daughter. Herman was the only one home at the time, and could not deal with the situation correctly, which seemed to be haunting him in his later years. Herman’s inability to correctly mourn the loss of sister may have also contributed to his insanity and facilitated his decision to do what he did.
In the end, Herman is executed on television, and the audience is left with this awful pit in their stomachs. When asked if they enjoyed the show, many of the audience members replied with that while they did not enjoy the subject matter, they did thoroughly enjoy the acting, which pleases me greatly. Despite being proud of a great production, I am also thrilled that the show was able to bring a very real issue in our society to the forefront of our students’ minds. If anything it got people talking, which is a great start, to hopefully what will be a definite solution to this enormous issue.