When deciding on a Moreau co-curricular at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night while sipping on Shirley Temples from the comfort of my dorm room, my friend and I came across “RED CUP.” We thought it sounded interesting. As the hardcore partiers we are, we believed that “RED CUP” could help fix our bad party habits.
Coming into it, I was expecting some comedy. As a veteran of a very small high school theater program, I loved portraying funny characters. However, this performance was very heavy: It shared real Notre Dame students’ testimonials from papers written in the class “Drunk on Film.” These papers were adapted into this one-act play, where current students presented the stories.
When I walked into the theater at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, I could hear a playlist of party music (quite on theme). The show started off with the cast playing beer pong while a lyric video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” by Katy Perry was projected on the screen. My friends and I were confused as to whether we were supposed to sing along or not.
As the music died down, the first character, “Lucky,” played by senior Lucy Bullock, stood up to give her story with the rest of the cast seated in the background. She shared that drinking is how she connected with people. She created an alter ego, “Lucky,” who was her drunk persona. We found out through the monologue that “Lucky” took over this girl’s whole identity.
We then heard from the “Reluctant Drinker,” played by senior Mason Kacmar. He shared the story of how when he arrived on campus, he was thrown into his dorm’s drinking culture. After being pressured into playing his dorm’s iconic drinking game, he downed several beers and got drunk for the first time. He found this fun and started to make drinking a habit.
The next character, “In Your Blood,” played by junior Thomas Solano, shared that he grew up in a family of drinkers. In college, he believed that as long as he was able to perform well in school, drinking was fine, living the “work hard, play hard” cliche. This led him into a cycle of drinking that he could not quit.
We then met “The Performer,” played by senior Brigid O’Driscoll. She opened up about binge drinking and joining an AA group as an underage person because of her unhealthy drinking habits. Throughout her college experience, she felt pressure to present herself as straight. Alcohol helped her keep the appearance of being heterosexual. As she stopped drinking, she was able to explore her sexuality.
After “The Performer,” the audience was introduced to “The Caregiver,” played by junior Aine Starshak. After not making many friends her freshman year, as a sophomore she befriended a freshman named Kelly. As Kelly got more integrated into the community, she started to invite “The Caregiver” to parties. “The Caregiver,” as the name suggests, had to take care of Kelly whenever she got drunk. This included protecting her from men who could take advantage of her. “The Caregiver” also opened up about having a boyfriend who raped her while under the influence of alcohol.
The last character to approach the audience was “Do Not Disturb,” played by sophomore Lauren Little. She shared her experience of getting peer pressured into drinking by her friend. As a Gateway student — we love the representation — she felt like she had to party in order to fit in. She even got dropped from the group she was going to live with senior year because of her refusal to drink. She presented the question: “Why am I a non-drinker?” She said that for her, it is because she wants autonomy and the ability to make decisions for herself.
“Champagne Problems” by Taylor Swift then started to play, and the cast left their seats and started talking to each other about drinking in moderation.
After the show, there was a Q&A. The audience was mostly freshmen who were there to fulfill a Moreau co-curricular requirement. Most of the students agreed that there is a drinking culture present at this university, and that it can be hard to avoid.
The show was not what my friends and I expected. The acting was good, but it was also mostly monologues, which give me scary speech and debate flashbacks, if I am being honest. Clips involving alcohol from movies and television such as “The Kissing Booth” and “Stranger Things” were projected in between the monologues. It was interesting to see drinking portrayed in the media, but only half the time did they connect these clips to the characters’ experiences.
“RED CUP” made me think about the reasons for drinking and made me aware of the link between alcohol and sexual assault. Hearing testimonials from past Notre Dame students was compelling and was definitely a sobering event.
You might be wondering, were my friend and I convinced to quit our party-animal tendencies? After watching this, we might cut back on the late-night Huddle snacks and the excessive rebellious stepping on the God Quad grass.
