Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

It wouldn’t be Gaieties without starting fashionably late (30 minutes after the velvety red curtains of Memorial Auditorium were supposed to open). But a mere 30-minute delay was remarkable given the sheer number of Row residents who were wrangled into Memorial Auditorium on Friday, Nov. 21. During the delay, paper airplanes made of the show’s playbill flew through the air, and the audience chanted director Daniel Grossman’s ’26 name until the moment the lights fell.

The production was very meta — at times too much for my taste. Tour guide and future Gaieties star Melissa (Emmeline McLean ’29) opens the show by leading prospective students around “campus” before encountering her friend, Sally (Caroline Goldman ’29), a Stanford Daily writer reporting on Gaieties. Though less than enthusiastic about her reporting assignment, Sally still agrees to cover Gaieties, possibly as a favor for her friend and roommate Ana (Sophie Mazzeo ’29), who produces the show. This clear conflict of interest driving the plot bothered me as a writer for The Daily myself. I was more in favor of having The Daily appear as a clear parody of itself — like as The Daily Bugle in Gaieties two years ago — instead of aiming for realism and falling short.

Ana’s relentless positivity masks her stress over all the catastrophes that befell the production: a stage light crushes female lead, Stacy (Kailamae Sands ’28), mono wipes out the original cast and forces a recasting and Teddy (Oakker Min Han ’29), the actor playing Oski, suddenly disappears. Having been born on a stage 20 years ago as a result of a previous Gaieties, Ana compares her life without Gaieties to “a CS class without honor code violations” and “a lake without water” — “what’s the fucking point?” 

After director Jacques (Diego Seligman-Tovar ’29) finds all auditionees to be disappointing, Ana steps in to be the new female lead, sparking a romance between her and the show’s male lead and former Cal football star Christian Green (Lyle De Luna ’29).

Teddy, having been hypnotized by the Three Stooges of Berkeley to believe he is Oski, terrorizes the cast, chasing Jacques offstage (and eating him). While escaping Teddy, Ana and Sally find themselves lost in the Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) closet singing a parody of “What Is This Feeling?” from “Wicked” about roomcest and their growing feelings for each other before being found by the crew. The lights matching the “Wicked” color scheme were a cute touch, but the romantic tension wasn’t enough for me to believe. Ultimately, this plot line felt very out of the blue, though I did appreciate the queer representation. 

Christian convinces Ana to blow off some steam at Sigma Phi Epsilon’s (SigEp’s) infamous White Lies party. The party sets the scene for what the cast describes as a “Challengers” movement, as Ana, conflicted between Christian and Sally, kisses and angers them both over the course of the night. 

No one gets together in the end, and while Christian is devastated enough to call his former coach and see his former team in person, he says he can never rejoin the Cal team because he was destined for greatness — and Berkeley is where greatness goes to die. 

Using a tip from The Streaker (Rhett Hounsell ’29) who overheard the Three Stooges’ plans to sabotage the Gaieties production, the entire Stanford company shows up to confront Coach Calamity (Jonathan Hunt ’29) and the Three Stooges, ending in a lot of making out.

The Cal affiliates were mostly comic relief. Coach Calamity was over-the-top with his suggestive remarks about beating Stanford. Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Smart Stooge (Max Kelly ’29), Leader Stooge (Zadie Diniz ’28) and Silly Stooge (Liam Ramsay ’29) — played off of each other’s energies, bringing the production to life. 

And I couldn’t forget The Streaker. “Hey there, Hoover Tower, looking tall and phallic as ever” is a pretty crazy opening line, not to mention computer science lecturer Nick Parlante appearing in The Streaker’s shroom-induced hallucinations (University president Jon Levin ’94 and Provost Jenny Martinez, respectively, guest starred the other two nights). The Streaker’s graduation speech opener was especially memorable: “Fellow Cardinal, we did it! We survived Stanford WAYS-EDP [and] now, we have to get jobs,” (eliciting a “boo” from the crowd). At Parlante’s probing for what brings him joy, The Streaker threw out post-graduation ideas — moving back to his parents’ house, a Coterminal degree — before settling on participating in the Gaieties naked run as his last hurrah. 

The pit orchestra also did a phenomenal job. After each scene, their playing elevated the tensions and emotions of the production. I appreciated the jazzy feel and the unique scores for each transition, and I found myself wanting the set transitions to take longer so I could continue listening to the music.

The set design by Eliza Siebers ’26, who was also a co-technical director, was not just visually stunning, it made the story stronger. I found the rotating set design with its overhead Y-shape very unique. Not only did it use the large vertical space of Memorial Auditorium well, it also created a storybook ambiance. As the set turned to a new face for a scene change, the audience was turning to a new chapter of the Gaieties storyline, giving the story much-needed continuity.

Row night, in one word, was raucous, with copious amounts of joy packed into the walls of the auditorium. The audience’s cheers and chants made it hard to hear the cast, though the performers kept moving forward despite interruptions (variations of “make out” depending on the number of people on stage and, strangely, “take off your shoes, put them on your head”). 

Leaving the show, I was left wondering why it had been named “Fifty Shades of Grayeties” at all. Besides the mention of “whips, chains and the domination of Berkeley” in the show opener, the use of fuzzy handcuffs to arrest the Three Stooges and Coach Calamity and the poster’s design (with a bear in the same pose as the Christian Grey in the original poster for “Fifty Shades of Grey”), there didn’t seem to be many other adhering motifs. While I do understand there are limitations with a student production, why choose that title if it has little-to-no connection to the show’s plot?