Questions, questions, questions. Many were asked to the cast and director Ward Dales following the stellar performances of Two Rooms. The play sparked conversation in the audience after each performance at Albany High School. Conversation went from government and politics, to love and war.

Some interesting points that were brought up in the talk back were questions like, “What is the difference between a soldier and a terrorist?”

Lines from the play that really captured the audience were:

“War isn’t a tear in the fabric of things, it is the fabric. If earth is our mother, our father is war. The chief priority we have on earth is to vie with each other for a place to stand.” – Michael Wells (Lee Blessing)

“Americans fight all the time — lots of wars. But always far away. We haven’t had to fight for the soil we stand on in a century. These people haven’t. Everyone in this country — Christian, Sunni Moslem, Shi’ite, Palestinian, Israeli — everyone is fighting for the ground. The ground itself. They stand here, or nowhere. So it’s easy for them to give up their lives. Small sacrifice. It’s easy for them to kill, too. Small sacrifice.” – Michael Wells (Lee Blessing)

One response from an audience member included a story from the Bible about Cain and Abel, and he went on to say that you don’t have to do bad things for someone to want to get rid of you. You can do good things as well and someone could want you gone with the same exact intent.

One line from one of the actors that the audiences discussed the most was, “That’s how people think, images, not ideas…images.” – Walker Harris (Lee Blessing)

We still think in images. Whatever image we have in our minds of people’s actions justifies how we treat them in the future. Whatever the media puts on television or in the newspapers, most of us just take it all in and accept it without looking into it more.