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Gianna Chase, Margaret Roarty and Taylor Lamerand act out a scene in a play written by Wilkes University senior Simone Hanna.
The voices in Evie’s head are insistent.
They torment her with thoughts that no one cares and no one would miss her if she died.
One even suggests that she use something sharp to “get it over with.”
During a break in rehearsal for “Words Left Unsaid,” playwright and co-director Simone Hanna said the theme of the short play is deeply painful and personal for her, because she did lose a friend to suicide.
“I’m dedicating this to everyone who has lost somebody,” said Hanna, who is presenting the play as her senior theater capstone at Wilkes University.
All of the university’s senior theater majors direct a capstone project, co-director James Daly said, but most of them don’t write the script themselves.
Hanna did, giving pain-filled words to Margaret Roarty of Luzerne, who portrays Evie, as well as to Gianna Chase of Scranton and Taylor Lamerand of New York state, who represent the voices and their sometimes conflicting messages.
“I want to live,” Chase says.
“But then I don’t,” Lamerand says.
There’s another voice in the play, too, one that tries to be cheerful and comforting.
Michael, a student who admits he often used the excuse of needing to borrow a pencil as a reason to talk to Evie, begins to date her and assures her he won’t be disappointed in her, no matter what kind of baggage she might reveal to him.
“Can’t you trust the fact that I’m not going to judge you?” he implores.
Will Michael’s friendship be what Evie needs to want to stay alive? Or will she succumb to the voices that tell her “the worst possible things”?
You can find out by watching the play at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. today, Feb. 27, in the Black Box Theatre of the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts at Wilkes University. The event is free to the public, though seating is limited.
“I feel this is a topic people avoid,” said Hanna, who is from Waldorf, Maryland. “I felt compelled to write something relatable to audience members who may recognize suicidal signs in their peers, or to give a voice to someone who needs help and may not know where to look or who to ask.”