What can I say about The Cave Dwellers? Firstly, the story is nonsense. I hate to start the review off negative, but I just needed to get that out of the way. The central romance of the story between The Duke (Tyler Nunez, senior) and The Girl (Donna Bella Litton, freshmen) is erratic, falling in and out of love over the matter of days, with a narrative conclusion that leaves much to be desired. The absurdity of the courtship makes Gorky the Bear’s (Matt McMillan) appearance seem ordinary. There’s my gripe. But, what ultimately saves the show is the committed performance of each and every cast member. Nunez’ punch-drunk Duke seems to recognize the heightened reality of the show, appropriately mumbling some of his line delivery, while still nailing the dramatic beats. Litton, who has the most underwritten role of the ensemble, acts as the audience surrogate, but gives hints of a sadder complexity beneath her doe-eyed innocence. As freshmen, it’s exciting to think what Litton has in store for audiences with more experience and juicy material. Rounding out the quartet of leads are The King (Colin McIntire, junior) and The Queen (Avery Cartwright) who bring their college veteran experience to their loquaciously eccentric roles. The scene stealers though, intentionally or not, were McMillan’s Gorky the Bear and Father (Hamilton Turner), his Russian bear trainer. The duo show tremendous chemistry, and elicit big laughs from primarily physical comedy. It should be noted too, that this was PAD’s first show “in the round,” on the the stage of the proscenium theater. All the performers adjusted competently, with any unintelligible lines few and far between. For those looking for a thought provoking show, you may have been disappointed. But, for any fan of top notch...

Entering his senior year, Hamilton Turner has a lot on his plate. Between a full class schedule, directing a show and Underwear Society—the student run sketch comedy group—Turner has hit the ground running. Turner recently sat down with the SFUADcast to talk about his upcoming projects. Last week, Underwear Society, which has been active for 13 years going back to the CSF days, held auditions for the new season. Turner is joined by Jacey Ellis, Michael Pepp and Darrell “DLou” Luther, as the elder statesmen of the group. Starting last year, Underwear Society took a unique turn in casting CWR major Ellis and CMP major DLou. Turner hopes to continue that trend of branching out across campus. “There’s an interesting thing to be said about keeping it open to the entire campus,” said Turner. “That opens the door to a lot of things that we can do.” An even fresher element for the new year is Underwear Society inching towards a more improv-based entertainment, rather than what has been traditionally scripted comedy. Turner directed Small Craft Warnings, a one act by Tennessee Williams, last semester after being encouraged by the Performing Arts Department. He returns this semester to direct Hotline by Elaine May, a dramedy surrounding a suicide hotline. “I think that it will play well with some of the other shows in the season,” he said, “because they are all completely different.” Aside from senior Matt McMillan, who stars in the show, Turner is excited that the cast mostly consists of freshmen and transfer students, singling out Madeleine Garcia in particular. “She had a really interesting take on the character, which is what I was drawn to, that’s why I cast her,” he said. “[Her performance] was really simple, really instinctual, I’m really excited...