Last spring, “The Harvard Crimson” accused Kaavya Viswanathan, a nineteen-year-old sophomore, of plagiarizing several passages of her novel, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” from Megan McCafferty’s “Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings.” The news made front-page headlines across the United States. Viswanathan’s publisher, Little, Brown and Company, pulled the novel from bookshelves, while DreamWorks cancelled her film contract in disgust.
James Frey made a similar splash last winter, after thesmokinggun.com accused him of fictionalizing several passages of his memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” which shot to the top of bestseller lists after an “Oprah’s Book Club” sticker appeared on every copy in Sept. 2005. Frey received a public tongue-lashing from the Queen of Daytime Television while becoming the subject of several “Daily Show” segments and Frank Rich Sunday columns, questioning the author’s integrity and insuring he won’t be publishing again anytime soon.
Plagiarism is front-page news in the United States, especially if that plagiarism originally won an author accolades, two-book deals, and Oprah’s best wishes. Paul Grellong’s “Manuscript,” performed in the ’92 Theater Oct. 5 through 7, expertly explored the impetus behind acts of plagiarism through the eyes of three Ivy Leaguers struggling toward success at Harvard and Yale.
Directed by Margaux Weisman ’09, “Manuscript” chronicles Chris (Chris Correa ’10), his best friend, David (Ben Smolen ’10) and Chris’s girlfriend, Elizabeth (Caitlin Winiarski ’10), freshmen on winter break from their respective elite universities. Halfway through the first act, as Chris leaves to buy opium from a “famous writer friend” of David’s, the audience realizes that David and Elizabeth originally met at a writing camp the summer before. Elizabeth plagiarized David’s prized work, an article on facing the WASP-y life of New England boarding school as a skinny Jew from Brooklyn. Elizabeth simply changed “skinny Jew from Brooklyn” to “girl.” “The New York Times Magazine” published it the following week. Along came a book deal for Elizabeth, which certainly helped her as she applied to Yale (a story strikingly similar to Viswanathan’s, who applied to Harvard Early Decision after signing a two-book contract with Little, Brown and Company).
Chris returns in a state of shock, shoving a manuscript at Elizabeth and claiming that he found David’s famous writer friend dead in his living room, his unfinished work sitting on the coffee table. Elizabeth immediately jumps at the chance to publish the work as her own – evidently the second book isn’t going so well, and she sends the manuscript off to her agent that evening. Through the rest of the play, the audience watches with delight as Elizabeth falls into the trap David and Chris have cleverly set for her; the manuscript Chris “found” is actually David’s.
“Manuscript” unfortunately features few original characters. There’s the Jew from Brooklyn and the WASP-y beautiful bitch with pearls, both of whom resemble any number of characters. Yet, as the plot unfolds, the audience quickly sympathizes with the trials these stock characters face.
The actors featured in this production succeeded in rounding out their roles and escape cliché. Weisman’s direction certainly helped, and the small touches she added, though perhaps slightly stereotypical, certainly fit the characters’ personalities and added quite a few laughs. I personally loved the opening to the final scene, as the lights went up to reveal David thoughtfully perusing Philip Roth’s new novel, “Everyman,” an oh-so-fitting tribute to his smart Jewish boy angst.
While I always admire Wesleyan students for choosing challenging material with older, more complex roles, the actors in this production seemed to easily identify with these characters and the problems they faced. This resulted in believable, multi-faceted performances with whom the audience could sincerely sympathize. I especially admired the very subtle, realistic final scene between David and Chris, a touching moment that left the audience questioning the nature of their relationship.
Weisman’s production proves how an effective director and skilled cast can push past the boundaries of unoriginal characterization to convey the poignancy contained within the plot. These elements, combined with the appropriateness of the material, provided the audience with an evening of thought-provoking, thoroughly enjoyable theater.
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