Teenage Pregnancy and Sexuality Presented in the Play 'Dry Land' by Ruby Rae Spiegel

Play Review
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Some time ago, I got to know about Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land by one of my friends. He told me that this was a shocking and honest portrayal of teen crisis. On May 3, I decided to enjoy the play at Aaron Davis Hall, Theatre B. I reached the theater on time and had accompanied a couple of friends to have some fun with. It’s safe to say that Hallie Gordon’s careful and wise production and Ruby Rae Spiegel’s script grasped the way teenage girls are treated in today’s world. The theme of this play is an unwanted pregnancy, which causes a lot of problems for teenage girls studying at different schools, colleges, and universities worldwide.
Amy (Bryce Gangel) develops a relationship with a boy she is no longer able to see, and whom we, the audience, are not able to find anywhere around. As Florida law requires parental notification and Amy does not like the idea of letting her mother know about it, she decides to try some "DIY" methods or techniques to terminate. For this particular thing, she enlists Ester (Jessica Ervin), who is a mousy newcomer with awkward out-of-the-water demeanor. It is a common observation that most of the movies and plays depicting teenage pregnancy either suggest that the issue can be resolved by handing over the baby to wealthy adults (just like 2007’s Juno) or veer into after-school-special moral agonizing. However, in this particular play, Ruby Rae Spiegel seems to have skipped all of the preaching and palaver and makes it clear that Amy is not going to back down on her quest to self-abort.
Quality and performance-wise, this play has a lot to learn from. First of all, I saw Bryce Gangel wearing simple outfits, worried about her future, and concerned regarding how to deal with the issue. It is very unfortunate that in our society, teenage pregnancy is considered a big crime, especially when teenage girls are unmarried. It may be a bad thing, and the issue needs to be resolved, but this does not mean we, the people, have a right to deal with teenage girls arrogantly, to push them behind the competition or to criticize them all the time.
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