It wouldn't be Gaieties without the theme Beat Cal!
But it also wouldn't be Gaieties without some other content traditions. "The show has always been irreverent and pushing the limits in different ways," says drama professor Michael Ramsaur. "But it's important because it's part of the Stanford culture." Or as Nick DeWilde, '10, head writer for last year's script, says, "Gaieties has always been the last defense against politically correct Stanford."
In Gaieties 2010: The Last Temptation of Cal, Berkeley students led by Professor Lucifer try to corrupt a Stanford student: an African-American messiah who just wants to be a "normal kid." (At their high schools, many Stanford students were "treated like Jesus," DeWilde notes.) Can the young savior be induced to commit the seven cardinal sins? Well, he drinks; he gets high from a marijuana brownie; he sleeps with a promiscuous student whose past conquests include Harry Potter and Voldemort.
There were jokes about Stanford culture and world politics. One witty set-up: Israeli and Palestinian clubs are at the activities fair on campus trying to hang their posters when the coordinator, holding a tape dispenser, yells out, "Looks like we only have one strip left! Guess you two are gonna have to share!"
Gaieties has long tested the limits of acceptability in matters of sexuality and nudity, too. The very earliest era was built on burlesque traditions and the spectacle of Stanford men in frocks. In later decades, the humor staples included portrayals of non-blushing coeds, skits about infidelity and sketches in which men and women spoke in the dating clichés of the opposite gender. (In 1947, a male says, "Why the most fun I ever had was holding out on Patricia the week before we were married.") Year after year, shows would set skits in exotic locales where people were more scantily clad than their North American counterparts.
"It was supposed to be bawdy and risqué," says Bill Kibby, '51, MS '53. Sue McCone MacMillan, '55, remembers her racy line: "Please, Dr. Kildare! Not during office hours!"—spoken as she sprinted away from the good doctor, while zipping up the front of her nurse's costume. Actress Doris Viola Martin, '59, wore a flesh-colored leotard and tulle as she sang "Vestal the Virgin Am I." Carol Mitchell, '60, remembers the flak she got for the song "A Little Drunk, but Lovable." Later on, male cast members would get equal exposure: In 1991's Full Frontal Gaieties, Matthew Swanson, '93, appeared in a scene at the Exotic Erotic party attired in a catcher's mitt.
Doug Schuetz, '81, remembers, "We thought we were pushing the envelope if we had someone in a bikini on stage." He saw how times have changed when he watched the shows in which his daughters, Nicole, '06, and Marjory, '10, appeared. "There's at least one naked person in the show per year," says Nicole, who went topless briefly when she was cast as a Girl Gone Wild.
Ram's Head is forthright in telling its audiences to expect the inappropriate. But last year's Last Temptation script played so much with ethnic and campus stereotypes that a group of Ujamaa residents walked out on the final night of the show. It certainly wasn't the first Gaieties show to prompt controversy, but it prompted soul-searching among Ram's Head, other campus groups and the administration.
As a result, the 2011 script received additional attention. Ram's Head, a small group, made efforts to reach out to diverse student groups to widen its understanding of student experience. Producer Nora Martin, '12, says students have focused "on writing a show that the whole school can relate to and enjoy by including more Stanford-based humor. . . . We've designed a more elaborate set than ever before for Gaieties, and we have an ambitious staff eager to make the 100th anniversary of this show a year to remember."
Karen Springen, ’83, a former Newsweek correspondent, is a clinical assistant professor and director of the Journalism Residency program at Northwestern University’s Medill School.
