Support The Daily Orange this holiday season! The money raised between now and the end of the year will go directly toward aiding our students. Donate today.

Gasps and laughter echo throughout the Loft Theater at Syracuse Stage as the audience sits enraptured by the witty dialogue and harsh social commentary of “In Sisters We Trust, or My F*cked Up American Girl Doll Play.”

“Performing this is a reminder of what’s happened in the past and what can happen in the future, and it’s still going on,” said Syracuse University senior Cricket Withall, the show’s director and producer.

“In Sisters We Trust,” SU Department of Drama’s student production for the fall semester, is playing at the Loft Theater from Dec. 6-8 and 11-13. The play uses American Girl dolls as a means for social commentary.

During the play, eight historical American Girl dolls come back together later in life for a televised reunion special. In the second act, the characters transition to an alternate reality where they portray feminist office workers while maintaining their original personalities. The play’s satirical nature offers critiques of corporate feminism, capitalism, patriarchy and performative activism.

Adding to the humor of the play, the audience is shown the realistic versions of their childhood playmates, now seen taking part in adult life. In the first act, the audience witnessed the dolls fighting, swearing and flipping each other off.

“The way that the characters are in this is reflective of how people play with dolls — that really crazy, little girl violence,” Withall said.

In the show, the audience catches up with the lives of the beloved characters of their childhoods, but through the lens of reality as the characters embody various social issues.

The character Addy critiqued microaggressions as well as systemic, structural and individual racism, as the white dolls exaggeratedly glanced at her when talking about marginalized groups and made the famous “Black Panther” hand gesture to show support.

Kaya fights to be taken seriously as the only Indigenous doll, repeatedly asking the host of the game show to stop patronizing her by calling her the nickname, “Magpie.”

Courtesy of Victoria LeFarge

Felicity (Robbie Harless-Glatts), Kaya (EJ Figueroa) and Josefina (Pauline Medina) chat about improving the American Girl doll company.

Though these are serious issues that make up the central themes of the play, they’re tackled in a humorous and satirical way. The script combines subtlety and in-your-face statements to make its point clear.

EJ Figueroa – a junior television, radio and film major who played Kaya in Act 1 and Maggie in Act 2 – said the play’s subtle and obvious moments help the audience connect the satire to issues they face in real life.

“You can still relate, even if you’re not a woman,” Figueroa said. “You can be like, ‘Oh, I know what that feels like.’ People can go into the world and think, ‘Oh my God, this reminds me of that show.’”

The play addresses many societal issues, including political ones. Withall emphasized the importance of the show’s message especially because of last month’s presidential election results. After the election, the cast had a meeting about how the result would affect the meaning of the play.

“It was a really hard day,” Withall said. “Not to bring up politics, but it’s a very political show.”

The playwright, Justine Gelfman, said the play gathered inspiration from different feminist movements during former President Donald Trump’s first term, such as the #MeToo movement and the rise of feminism on Instagram. The second act of the play was inspired by the playwright’s experience working at a real-life, women-centric company, “The Wing.”

The play’s strong message was part of what attracted some of its actors. Sophomore acting major Violet Lanciloti, who played Kit in Act 1 and Jemma in Act 2, was proud to act in the show for her first production at SU.

“I feel really grateful that I got to do a show that really reflects my values as an artist, because I really want to center mental health and feminism as guiding things in my artistry as an actor,” Lanciloti said.

As there are no Indigenous acting students at SU, the play’s members sent out a casting call to the Indigenous Students at Syracuse to find an Indigenous actress to play Kaya. Figueroa, a member of ISAS, ended up getting the part.

Figueroa is a member of the Hopi nation, so the thought of playing a character from another Indigenous nation while wearing that nation’s traditional clothes was a somewhat nerve-wracking experience, she said.

“I try to remember Kaya, in her story, was generalized, and she’s mad about that, and she’s upset about it,” Figueroa said, “And so I try to realize that me being in this role actually kind of works for that kind of character.”

With a mostly female cast, many of the actors could relate to the injustices their characters fought against. Embodying dolls who fought against racism, sexism and more from all the way back to the 1700s, the modern-day iterations of the characters brought these issues to light in a contemporary context.

“It’s been freeing, in a sense, because you get to give this character a voice, this character whose experience is very close to a lot of the people you know and close to yourself,” Figueroa said.

Published on December 10, 2024 at 10:33 pm