A play about Duke

Perhaps at first glance it appeared presumptuous of Mary Adkins and Adam Bloomfield to give their play, The Perks of Disordered Eating, the lofty subtitle of A Play About Duke. But that's just what Perks, performed March 1 and 2, turned out to be--and not in the melodramatic and didactic sense that the title suggests. These were Duke students talking to other Duke students about eating disorders and also talking to each other about Duke. Like any great art, nuance and challenge was layered around this core simplicity.

The Perks of Disordered Eating was assembled by Adkins and Bloomfield from hundreds of e-mails, monologues and discussions--all Duke students, talking about themselves and our community. Monologues are interwoven with charactersâ backgrounds, scenes from daily campus life and occasional interludes, from dance numbers to the interjections of an omnipotent and Blue Devil character. Not everyone in the play was a victim of an eating disorder, but all were affected. It was the voices of students, delivered by students, to students; it showed women who come close to death, men who constantly obsess over their appearance and people who are at a loss for how to react; it was "about" victims of eating disorders, but it was also about "everyone else."

Considering myself part of "everyone else," I walked into this play ready to be taught something about anorexia and bulimia. Twenty minutes later, I realized that this audience was not here just to learn. Almost every line of dialogue was striking a chord that I'd heard many times before; every detail was a note on a register that was very familiar to all of us. These words about Duke are always spoken, in lunchtime chats or late-night chill-outs, with lots of "like"s and "I mean"s and all the other wary language that allows us to keep from taking account of our own speech. "Did you see her? She's so skinny," in whispered tones, hen's clucking, under rug swept. In passing, spoken without conviction or reflection, they are like cheesy, hummable melodies that drift through the mind without impression or are repeated ad infinitum until all meaning is lost. As a pastiche chorus, they resonated with powerful emotion.

Although the characters became more fully realized as individuals, and their problems more vividly confronted as such, they remained first and foremost Duke students. I had always considered Duke to be a playground for perfectionists and beautiful people, but this play exposed it as a battlefield--and these people were losing the fight. Does this mean that anyone can save them but themselves? No answer was given. The play merely allowed the question to be asked.

These voices did not yell out a complaint or a demand but gave a call for those in the audience to respond to. Afterward, it was remarkably easy for us to do so, those obstacles to serious discussion having been removed with such insistent grace. That night, the next day and all week since I have talked about eating disorders. Or, rather, asked questions and listened. Some of my questions nobody could answer, but everyone had an experience to share. In a way, I know little more about eating disorders than I did two weeks ago, but I have been engaged in a discussion with my community about this problem--its problem, and I'd go as far as to call it our problem--and that alone is a huge step.

It is often said here that "discourse" is a rotten term, a blanket term that obscures a lack of actual engagement with realities. To a certain extent, this can be valid. Alcohol, race, body image--these are community issues that often don't resolve into right and wrong, only present themselves as opportunities to learn through experience.

Too often they are addressed through agendas, objectives and demands. It is so easy to criticize--pick your target, whether it be the administration, fraternities or that corpulent student body. Easy and very tempting. It feels good--set yourself apart from the object of your complaints, deny your own place in a community by placing yourself above it. But where does that get you? If college is as much social as it is academic, is it possible that we are learning the wrong lessons?

Fist-pounding and finger-pointing is ultimately irrelevant and distracting, whether the issue at hand is as personal as an eating disorder or as communal as, well, eating disorders. Apathy is the other extreme, a result of a negative experiential education that tells you it's someone else's problem--not yours. But though there may be no target for blame, we all have a responsibility. Accepting it is our first step.