Elliot Ave-Lallemant, Staff Writer
On April 5 and 6, the Beloit Independent Theater Experience (BITE) and the Worldbuilding Collective put on “The Trail To Oregon,” and I can honestly say that it was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen.
The story follows a family trying to get to Oregon in hopes of finding a better life there and is very similar to the classic “Oregon Trail” video game. One of the unique things about this play was that it encouraged audience participation and interaction.
I was a little skeptical of the idea of an interactive musical at first, but it made the play a lot more interesting. At the start of the play, the audience got to name the characters, which made the play a lot more entertaining.
The night I went, the dad was named Eric Boynton, the mom was named Anus, the daughter was named Egg, the son was named Young Sheldon, and the grandpa was named Biggie Cheese. This led to lots of funny lines like “You don’t know how to make love, Eric Boynton, you only know how to make a mess of things!”
The original play was written by a few college students back in 2014, and it’s evident in the script and music. The humor, while being very crude at times, was quite funny. Some jokes took me by surprise, like the grandpa’s beef with the lobster king, but even in all the randomness, the jokes still somehow made sense.
During the intermission, the audience filled out a form to decide which character died, and in the show I watched, the grandpa, Biggie Cheese, was chosen to die. He ended up dying but then came back to life after smelling the fresh Oregon air. The last song that everybody performed was called “Naked in a Lake,” which was the best song in the whole show, and a great note to end on.
Overall, the show was hilarious and I could not stop laughing. The performers did a great job of engaging the audience and they were all really funny. I would definitely watch this play again!
Leave a Reply