The Wind of the Night

The Wind of the Night is a surrealist play recently performed by the Ingenuity Players, the ship-board Drama Club.

Plot Summary
A young woman, Selanne, and her partner, Mollek, are invited to a dinner party at the home of one Mx. Worley, a friend of Selanne's parents whom she has not met before. Upon arrival, Selanne and Mollek are separated when Mx. Worley insists that Mollek go see the rose garden.

Selanne meets and interacts with stranger and stranger dinner guests. She discusses the politics of fish-hook design with the wily Asha, listens as the ephemeral Miko complains about his neighbor's unsanitary habits, and helps budding musician Kanu incorporate the proper thoughts into their song lyrics. Finally, she speaks with Ulm, a character who is invisible and is not heard to speak. The audience simply watches Selanne's half of the interaction. This section is acted with a straight face, but the actors occasionally break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience.

Selanne tires and starts to leave Mx. Worley's mansion, but finds a terrible storm outside. Mx. Worley tells her that the wind of the night is telling her to stay, and says he has an extra hammock if she would like it. She agrees, and, after having a lot of trouble getting into the hammock and falling out multiple tries, falls asleep. Mx. Worley asks if she has said good night to Mollek, and she replies "Who?"

She dreams that she and Mx. Worley are fishing on a dock. Mx. Worley tells her his life story, and then they stand in silence. From the distance, someone yells at them to quiet down, but they aren't talking. Selanne then sings, showing significant emotion for the first time in the play. Mx. Worley jumps into the water and disappears, but Selanne continues singing as if he is there. The wind picks up, howling very loudly.

She wakes up to find a rose on the floor that wasn't there before. The wind quiets.

The Candelabra Incident
The Candelabra Incident was an event that occurred during a performance of the play by the Ingenuity 's drama club. The exact details are heavily disputed, but it is known that the incident involved a candelabra, and ended with the Ingenuity 's fire suppression system covering the entire room, including the audience, in foam. The candelabra came from the set for the fancy dinner party scene.

Reviews
Reviews from exiting audience members averaged two stars, but this may have had more to do with the unpleasant foam incident than with the quality of the acting. "It's exactly the kind of nonsense that those theater fools like because they think it's really deep or something." said one audience member, dripping in foam outside the theater entrance. "Oh well, whatever makes them happy."

Critics are split on the deeper meaning of this play. Some claim that Selanne's interactions with the dinner guests represent a life lived backwards, from old-age to youth, and that the rose garden is a metaphor and that Mollek is cheating on Selanne. There is, though, a sizable camp of critics that claim that the play is complete nonsense and that playwright was not in their right mind when they wrote it.