The crowd that gathered Friday night for The UC Follies’ Woyzeck huddled like a bundle of penguins to stay warm in the autumn weather. Using the UC courtyard as a stage and the natural surroundings as the set, the Follies aptly set the mood for the quirky and engaging performance.

Woyzeck, a century-old play written by German dramatist Georg Büchner, shows the mental effect warfare can have on soldiers. The title character, Woyzeck, is constantly hounded by the infantry’s sociopathic doctor, and starts to develop schizophrenic visions. While the audience witnesses Woyzeck’s slow ascent into schizophrenia, they also get a glimpse into the strenuous lives of Woyzeck’s friends and foes. This is where the UC Follies add their own twist to the story.

Intent on focusing their performance around mental illness and the stigma that is so frequently associated with it, the UC Follies decided to have the other characters in the play exhibit a mental illness of their own (something that is absent in Büchner’s original version). A drum major whose priority is to sleep with Woyzeck’s wife, Marie, is suggested to be a nymphomaniac. Marie, in turn, sleeps with the drum major, but is suggested to have a bi-polar disorder as well as a borderline personality disorder. Woyzeck’s ill-tempered doctor is supposed to be a sociopath and a psychopath, and Woyzeck’s captain is implied to have social anxiety and depression. The play sheds light on the way we, as a society, look at mental disorders, and how it should be dealt with.

The UC Follies put on a thought-provoking rendition of Woyzeck, using an assortment of paint which the actors slathered each other with. Although the story was a little too abstract to follow, and important plot-points were not emphasized nearly as much as they could have been, these issues were largely made up for in acting and delivery. Willa Cowan, acting as Woyzeck’s psychotic doctor, gave a stellar performance, adding a particular emotional range to the role.