The Graduate
Playmakers Theater 19106 Playmakers Road, Covington, Louisiana 70435
The post-graduate one-two punch of panic and boredom is just as timely today as it was when Charles Webb first wrote the 1963 novel The Graduate (adapted just a few years later into the starmaking Dustin Hoffman film). And the story's tensions play out just as well on stage—see for yourself when Covington's Playmakers bring to life Benjamin, Elaine, and the dangerously charismatic Mrs. Robinson. Benjamin Braddock is a confused young man. Graduating college with a brilliant scholastic record, he finds himself adrift, uncertain about his future and increasingly alienated from the upper-class, suburban, “plastic” world of his parents. Fighting panic and boredom, he is deeply conflicted but ultimately willing when Mrs. Robinson, the unhappily married, alcoholic, and dangerously charismatic wife of his father’s business partner, tempts him into an affair. It falls apart when he falls in love—with Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s upbeat, optimistic daughter. Set against the shiny backdrop of affluent Southern California in the 1960s, this bitterly hilarious dark comedy is full of rapid fire dialogue amid an exploration of family dysfunction and the disillusions and dichotomy of youth. Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson! 8 pm on Friday and Saturday; 2:30 pm Sunday. $20; $10 students. (985) 893-1671 or playmakersinc.com.