Response to What Happens When

By Anonymous -
I went to see What Happens When this past Sunday at 2PM, and surprisingly, I made a few connections between the play and this class (besides the one that involves us providing copious amounts of food for all those involved). Overall, I found the play to be very powerful and extremely moving. The component I found most crucial to the play, and to this class, is the idea of communication.


(Source: What Happens When Facebook page)

As we've discussed throughout this class, the five senses help us orient ourselves. But they also help us communicate with our fellow living beings. A wave means 'hello,' A pat on the back means 'good job.' And as What Happens When effectively emphasizes, language is another means of communication. It stimulates our sense of hearing as well as our sense of sight as we watch people gesticulating as they speak or moving their lips. One of the main themes of Professor Meehan's play is miscommunication. How do we interpret the senses when it comes to communication about issues like sex and sexuality? Throughout the play, characters had different opinions on how certain activities or words should have been interpreted. A whole section of a scene dealt with what one guy "heard" versus what a girl he was sexually involved with "said." Do we sometimes purposefully, as they say, 'hear what we wanna hear' or 'see what we wanna see'? In that case, how much should we trust our senses when it comes to interpretation and communication? If a touch means one thing to someone and a different thing to another, how do we reconcile that? How do we use our senses to start a conversation about it? What Happens When really speaks to this and was very eye-opening about real issues that happen on college campuses.

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