The Department of Theatre will host the spy thriller Pack of Lies as its winter production.
The production by Hugh Whitemore is based on a true story and will be directed by Adam Hester, professor of theatre.
Mirroring the show, The Americans, Pack of Lies is “a little bit different. It focuses on the neighbors who are a British couple in 1960,” Hester said.
He said that the production focuses on the couple’s relationship with their neighbors, their best friends, and how Scotland Yard tells them they need to use their house to spy on the neighbors due to suspicions that they may be communists.
“The play has several twists and turns in it. It’s meant to have surprises throughout, kind of a mystery, and it will be a thriller in the sense that [the audience] will feel unnerved,” Hester said.
Because the setting of the play is in Cold War Britain, Hester said that there will be historical events and figures mentioned throughout such as the Rosenbergs, an American couple convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union.
Hester also said he believes the play brings up themes that mirror current American beliefs of Russian influence on our own politics.
“There’s a character that is talked about, a Russian KGB officer. Even though Putin was not in power when this play was written, sometime in the 1980’s, it feels very much like an echo that that could be Putin when he was a KGB officer.”
Landon Holub, freshman theatre major from Victoria, plays Bob Jackson, the husband of Barbara and father of Julie, who are neighbors to the suspected communists, the Krogers.
Holub said that a big theme in this production is that of the “dirty little secret” on the Jacksons’ side, not just the Krogers’, especially between father and mother to their daughter and to best friends.
“Our character’s world starts slowly unraveling as the play goes on.”
Holub also said he noticed a theme throughout the rehearsals that everyone we know has an impact on how we react to situations.
“If Barbara and Bob weren’t married, the decisions they would have made separately would have been so different.”
Pack of Lies will be at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 13-15 and 20-22 and will be held at the Culp Theatre in the Williams Performing Arts Center.
Tickets are available at acu.edu/theatre-tickets or at the ACU Theatre Box Office in the Williams Performing Arts Center. Box Office hours are 1-5 p.m. Monday-Friday or by calling 325-674-ARTS (2787).
