Theatre and film major Nicole Serham plays the role of Morse in the play "One Flea Spare" by Naomi Wallace. The play will open on Thursday in the Kiva Theater. Jake Barber/Argonaut

Thursday will be opening night for the University of Idaho’s production of Naomi Wallace’s play “One Flea Spare.”
The play, written in 1997, is set in 1665 during the historic outbreak known as the Plague that killed 100,000 people. The small cast of five characters spend the entire play quarantined in a home in Westminster, London.

The play has been in production since last spring when the theater department’s Play Selection Committee chose it.
Seraphina Richardson, the director, has a BFA and has directed several other plays for UI, including “Bent” and “Fat Pig.” She said she looks forward to a few things on opening night.

“The actors’ hard work paying off, that they feel the same satisfaction, that they feel like the audience is being receptive, and also seeing, hopefully, audience members being moved by (the play) and taking it in and being affected,” Richardson said.
“One Flea Spare” is a noteworthy choice for the department. The play is a fairly obscure work in America, and no one involved in its production at UI has seen it performed before.

However, after having read the play, everyone involved said they had fallen in love with it.
“It is an extraordinary script,” said David Eames-Harlan, playwright and actor who plays Mr. Snelgrave, the cantankerous patriarch of the family.
“It’s extremely tight,” he said. “It’s complex, yet accessible … it’s truly an amazing script.”

The play is shadowy. It deals with hierarchies and classes in society, all forced to interact while trapped together in a boiling, claustrophobic atmosphere. It poses significant questions.
“What is good and what is evil? What is good and what’s bad?” Giuseppi Romano, who plays Kabe, the family’s corrupt guard, asked.
“Do not let the subject matter deter you from this play,” Eames-Harlan said. “This is a play that is dark, absolutely. It’s not a happy play, but it’s a play… that has a slice of redemption at the end. If (the actors) do justice to it, it will be gorgeous. That’s our job and we’re going to give it our best shot.”

“One Flea Spare” opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Kiva Theater and runs through the weekend, as well as the next week on the same days, with a 2 p.m. matinee on both Sundays.

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