This past week, student actors took to the stage, cussing, slapping, and fighting each other over a very unsuspecting object: stamps. The Barber Theatre presented Mauritius, a student-directed performance centered around stamp collecting. Stakes are high as two sisters inherit a rare stamp collection and feud over ownership. Three meddling men also vie for the collection, leading to over two hours of tense stamp-centered negotiation and argument. Director Davis Varnado ‘25 explained how even though philately (the art of collecting stamps) can come off as mundane, the performance is “tense […] surprisingly funny […] and violent.”
Every year, the Davidson Theatre Department selects one student to direct a play, and after a concept presentation to a panel of professors in the department, Varnado was selected. After his selection, Varnado began to research and read potential plays. When browsing through scripts, he kept his vision in mind, explaining, “I definitely love more realism, but I love a lot of energy, a lot of activity, a lot of stakes in my plays that I like to direct. Which is why I landed on Mauritius.”
Mauritius is, according to Samantha Smith ‘25, “what happens when […] men are hungry for power […] and sisters and relationships get torn apart.” The play’s dialogue and tension emerges from a seemingly simple object: a binder full of laminated stamps. The audience is first introduced to the stamps when Jackie, played by Mahrle Siddall ‘25, brings the stamps to get inspected by Phillip, played by Aidan Overcash ‘28. When business partners Dennis (David Kilde ‘25) and Sterling (Will Conley ‘25) discover that Jackie holds two incredibly rare and valuable stamps in her possession, chaos ensues. The chaos is amplified by Jackie’s older half-sister Mary, played by Smith, who claims the stamps belong to her. While the complex family dynamics between the half-sisters are slowly peeled back throughout the play, the desperate and power hungry characters clash from the beginning, each fighting to either sell or gain possession of the stamps.
The play has only two locations: a house and a stamp shop. “However, the stakes are so high,” Varnado stated. “It’s intense pretty much from the minute the actors are on stage, which is why I was really drawn to it.”
Audience member Jake McGraw ‘25 was a fan of the set, describing it as “so simple but still so effective at creating the different spaces.” The stage was set up with two oversized chairs, a file cabinet, and a big wooden desk. Two rugs adorned the floor and overhead lamps provided a shadowy ambience.
The cast would do table reads before moving to rehearsal at The Barber Theatre. Throughout rehearsal, Varnado explained that he tried to strike a balance between letting cast members express their creativity while also fostering his own vision for the performance.
Smith explained how Varnado’s leadership style shined in some of the exercises the cast went through in the first week of rehearsals. “We would be walking around the space, and then we would become our characters just through our physicalities. And [Varnado] would have us [ramp] up from a one to a ten […] we would interact with each other as our characters in the space, which was really cool. I think that was a good start to getting in the body and mind of the character.”
Audience members felt the impact of these choices. “[Smith] did an incredible job of getting the audience to relate to and even root for her character, even if she wasn’t the obvious protagonist. She made her struggles and emotions seem so real,” Charlotte Frampton ‘27 said. “[The performance was] funny, passionate […] I even teared up at some points. Overall, the cast, crew, and directing team did an amazing job!”
Mauritius includes numerous fight scenes between cast members. Even though tensions are high during these scenes, they actually gave the cast the opportunity to grow closer together. Smith explained that “every time [the cast] does a fight call […] we high five and it’s just very supportive backstage.” Audience member Brogan O’Connor ‘28 explained that the ”skill and effort in the fight scenes were impressive.” And the violence goes beyond just physical boundaries as well. “[Mauritius] isn’t just violent physically, but violent emotionally,” Varnado stated.
With Varnado at the helm, the actors were able to flourish. Be sure to keep an eye out for future Theatre Department plays like The Outsider in the spring, running from April 3rd to April 13th, 2025.
Cameron Unice ‘27 is an intended Political Science major from Richmond, VA and can be reached for comment at caunice@davidson. edu.
