On the first anniversary of the San Bernardino shooting – and days before the 27th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre – Humboldt State’s Theatre Department opened its powerful production of columbinus, the award-winning play about the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. The work itself is harrowing, and HSU’s production of it, directed by Troy Lescher, is heart-wrenching. It’s a brave choice, in what is traditionally a season of lighthearted holiday theatre, and this stellar production could not be more timely.

In the works since 2002, columbinus, by Stephen Karam and P.J. Paparelli, incorporates extensive research into and materials from the shooting with depictions of both actual people and fictionalized characters.

The first half opens in a purposely anonymous American high school populated by adolescent standards: the jock, the prep, the nerd, the goth, the Christian, the popular girl, the freak and the loner. While each of these characters is named in the script (i.e., the Christian is “Faith,” the nerd is “AP”), this production chose not to denote the separate characters as such in the program, but rather to simply list the actors under the rubric “Ensemble.” Six cast members – Makenna Baker, Joshua Banuelos, Ambar Cuevas, Heather Karns, Joey Lawrence and Elio Robles – play multiple roles as students, teachers and parents. Two others transform into killers: “Loner” Bryan Kashon into Dylan Klebold for the second half, and “Freak” Mickey Donovan into Eric Harris.

Every actor was brilliant. columbinus calls on each one to reveal the angst, torment and suffering of adolescence; each is, literally, stripped bare and put in the spotlight. Every single actor delivered not a stereotype, but an archetype, a fully realized character full of pathos.

Even more remarkable was the work of the cast as an ensemble. From the very first moments of the play, the cast is called upon to click into a seamless unit, to show their similarities before being differentiated, and it would not work unless each actor had perfect timing – and they did.

Given that each performance is so key to the success of this play, it is somewhat of a betrayal to single out the roles of Freak/Harris and Loner/Klebold as principals. But the play, reflecting actual events, separates these two out from the crowd. Kashon brought a doe-eyed vulnerability to the role of Dylan Klebold, the suicidal half of the duo. First-year theatre major Donovan gave an impassioned, electric portrayal of Eric Harris so filled with rage that he was absolutely terrifying.

The calibre of the performances was perfectly framed by the simplicity of the set designed by Maggie Luc – a stack of sharp angles and hard edges that ushered its inhabitants into catastrophe. The lighting cues and backdrop projections by Derek Lane were impeccable, as was sound design by Cory Stewart; had any of these been less than perfect, all would have failed. The show operations staff (too numerous to mention individually, but each deserving a solid A) made it all work flawlessly.

While columbinus so movingly depicts horrifying events, paradoxically, watching it was a pleasure. This is attributable in part to the unexpected wit and humor in the first half. But it was the quality of the performances and the staging that accomplished what theatre does best: allow us to collectively live out an experience of deep pain and trauma, and bring us through to the other side.

Every mass shooting spawns cottage industries of speculation but, as advertised, columbinus offers no easy rationalizations of the terrible events of April 1999. What HSU Theatre did here was “Columbine” us – bring us into to the heart of darkness and reveal its humanity.

columbinus continues at HSU’s Gist Hall Theatre Thursday through Saturday, Dec. 8, 9 and 10 at 7:30 p.m. with a matinée performance Sunday, Dec. 11 at 2 p.m. Due to depictions of violence and very explicit language, the production is recommended for ages 16 and older. And when you go, turn off your damn cell phone.

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Lauraine Leblanc is scene editor of the Mad River Union. Subscribe here.