“About Her” by Dennis Bush—directed by Senica Slaton ’26 with assistant director Skye Figueroa ’26, and produced by Spike Tape—went up in the Patricelli ’92 Theater on Friday, Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. “About Her” tells the story of Sharla (Hyacinth Tauriac ’25), who recounts her experiences with her abusive husband, Jason, from the first day she saw him to the night he murdered her. Sharla predominantly speaks to the audience while the rest of the characters only speak to each other, rarely (if ever) acknowledging Sharla. As she shares her story, the other characters—as the show’s title implies—talk about her and her situation, often labeling Sharla as “hysterical” or “deranged.” While “About Her” is only a 30-minute, one-act production, a lot is packed into the show, taking the audience on a journey through a timeline of Sharla’s relationship with Jason, highlighting the disparities between her experiences and others’ perceptions of them.
An intense voice recording played the phrase “Let go of me!” through the theater at the beginning of the show, immediately immersing the audience into the world of “About Her.” Police sirens echoed in the distance and blue light flooded the stage right as Tauriac walked onto stage and faced the audience. The lights came up and Tauriac began Sharla’s story by describing Jason. I was drawn in immediately when a recording of the cast interrupted Tauriac.
“You don’t know what you think you know,” the recording boomed.
Sharla, obviously having heard the taunt, tried not to acknowledge it and went on with her story.
Unlike Tauriac—who was onstage for the whole performance—the rest of the cast sat among the audience, periodically getting up, moving around the stage, and interacting with other people in the space. Characters would often interrupt Sharla’s story with their conversations onstage. Sharla would listen attentively to their conversations, sometimes reacting with an upset glance or small smile. I was fascinated by how Sharla could peer into the worlds of Finley (Mae Wrigley ’26) and Mackenzie (Michael Scott ’27), or of Reece (Ibby Newland ’26) and Austen (Abigail Grauer ’27), but they would barely look at her. Even if they did, it was, for the most part, only momentarily.
The repetition of specific language within the play was striking. Sharla seemed to respond to conversations between other characters, even when she was continuing her narration where she left off. This highlighted Sharla’s invisibility.
It wasn’t just the language that played a role in Sharla’s invisibility. During one scene, Reece and Austen discussed fragility:
“It’s what you do—if you’re not fragile,” Reece said.
“Why are those the only two options?” Austen responded. “Be a fragile little bird or fight back?”
Looking at Austen and Reece, Sharla began to describe how Jason moved in across the street from her.
“I mean it’s not like I had a choice,” Tauriac said. “They were moving in, whether I was happy about it or not.”
It felt like Sharla was responding to Austen and Reece, even though neither saw or acknowledged her. She wasn’t part of Reece and Austen’s world.
This is not the only way that the script emphasizes Sharla’s isolation. None of the characters know her name, and they repeat phrases like “what’s her name?” or “her name” from offstage throughout the play, almost like an echo. By stripping away such a fundamental piece of Sharla’s identity, the play gave the audience a way to sympathize with her.
The staging of the show was also very intentional. A lot of times Tauriac would stand opposite one of the other actors and they would circle each other. Tauriac wouldn’t break eye contact, but the other actor would be looking somewhere else, their character completely lost in their own world.
“Sharla is very isolated throughout the entirety of the show whereas the actors are integrated into the audience,” Slaton said. “They will come in with the audience, they will come talk to the audience, they all live in the same world. Sharla [is] her own entity that just kind of exists within [the space]. And the only people who see or acknowledge her, with a couple of exceptions, I will say, is the audience.”
Slaton explained that she first came across this show in high school and has been waiting for the right time to put it on. She resonates with the story because it showcases the experiences of women of color, ones that she and many other people on this campus have experienced.
“I [wanted] to do something that’s meaningful to me and that’s meaningful to the theater community on campus and something that…I have not experienced on campus, which is talking about race in theater, and performing race, based in theater,” Slaton said.
During the short month-and-a-half long rehearsal process, Slaton did in-depth character analysis with each cast member. She presented them a list of 15 to 20 questions to answer about their character. Slaton and the cast got into the meat of the show, asking questions like: What does your character think is going on? Who knows the truth? Who’s on Sharla’s side?
“The creative process for this show has been quick but still incredibly attentive to detail, mental well-being and overall specificity,” Wrigley wrote in a message to The Argus. “It’s been really cool to be able to dive so deeply into this intense material and I think the short run time only aids in that!”
While watching the show, it was clear from the way the actors spoke and how they moved around the space that the actors knew their characters inside and out. One scene that highlighted this was Kai’s (Cate Baldwin ’26) monologue that described her experience seeing Jason grab Sharla by the arm at a paint-and-drink-wine event and drag her out the door. The passing looks between Baldwin and Tauriac as they circled each other really pulled the audience in. It was clear that although Kai couldn’t see Sharla, she could feel Sharla’s presence.
It was also very clear who wasn’t on Sharla’s side. In a conversation between Mackenzie and Denver (Jackson Palmer ’26), they say that Jason was a good neighbor and must be a good person just because he had mowed Mackenzie’s lawn. They don’t even try to consider Sharla’s point of view. Tauriac stood between Scott and Palmer, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. Unlike Kai and Sharla’s interaction, Mackenzie and Denver pay no mind to Sharla, too engrossed in their own conversation.
The show culminated in Tauriac sharing the horrific events that took place the night Sharla died. As she spoke, the rest of the cast stood up from their seats, some crossing the stage, and started arguing with each other about Sharla’s situation. In that moment, we saw each of the six characters take a hard stance for or against Sharla.
“We’re very much taking that standpoint of, it’s all or nothing,” Slaton said. “And I feel like that’s an important one to take because I think a lot of times things can end up being gray when they don’t need to be gray.”
Throughout all the screaming and yelling, Tauriac stood in the middle of the stage with her hands around her throat, detailing how Jason put his hands around Sharla’s neck and how she could see the veins bulging from his muscles. Tauriac then let out a piercing scream, and the other actors fell quiet and looked at her. This is the first time everyone else onstage recognizes Sharla. As she gasps for breath and desperately says she can’t breathe, the people around her utter their final thoughts.
“It is what it is,” Denver said.
“[W]e don’t know if all the screaming was for attention or not,” Mackenzie said.
“Maybe he shouldn’t have been doing whatever it was that was making her scream!” Kai and Austen said together.
“Women and girls scream a lot, sometimes for no reason,” Reece said.
The show ends with Tauriac falling to the ground, her character suffocated by Jason. Wrigley got down to Tauriac’s level, trying to help but unable to do so, while Scott stood over the two of them and the lights fade to black. The intensity of this final scene made chills run down my spine. It was so well executed, and I could tell that everyone was giving 150% of themselves to their characters and to the storytelling of the show.
“A favorite memory from the process was the first time we put the ending scene together,” Wrigley wrote. “The emotions are so high but watching my cast mates absolutely leave everything out on the floor was really incredible to watch.”
Wrigley also expressed hope that the show will push audience members to do some self-reflection.
“I hope audience members feel compelled to examine how they interact with the communities around them and remember [how] you never really know the full truth of a situation.”
Slaton hopes the audience will reflect on their interactions with women of color and ask the difficult questions surrounding how women of color are treated in our society. How are they seen as invisible? And how do other people’s opinions or viewpoints take preference over theirs? Slaton is also curious about how the audience may potentially see themselves reflected in the certain characters.
“I’m just thinking about how we interact with women of color,” Slaton said. “How do we potentially put women of color in dangerous situations? How do we neglect them? How do we put a lot of [work] on them and walk away from responsibility? And I think there’s a couple of characters that I feel like the audience might really resonate with. And I think that’s going to be really scary for a lot of people.”
Sabrina Ladiwala can be reached at sladiwala@wesleyan.edu.