A man and woman stand together in a darkened room. The air is thick with alcohol.

"She mumbled something, and I couldn't tell what it was," he said. "It definitely wasn't no."

Calling It Rape, a community-oriented theater ensemble, performed this scene in their hour-long performance last night designed to focus on the issues of acquaintance rape.

The five member cast acted out seven separate scenes of potential rape situations before about twenty people in the Eliot dining hall.

"Our goal is to promote awareness about the issues surrounding acquaintance rape through dialogue," said Tyrone Jones '00, the group's producer.

"We don't have answers but there are a lot of gray areas which need to be explored," he said.

Juri E. Henley-Cohn '00, one of the actors in last night's performance, emphasized the importance of the group's role in prompting discussion on campus.

"We don't want to give our opinions. The goal is to promote dialogue," he said.

This is Calling It Rape's second performance at Harvard this year.

"With the recent interest in the subject of rape at Harvard, we thought this was a good time to do the performance," Jones said.

Calling It Rape, directed by Anna C. Lewis '99, travels around New England encouraging students to actively confront questions of acquaintance rape.

Jones said the group addresses all aspects of sexual assault--both of men and women--and targets friends of people involved as well as the survivors and perpetrators themselves.

After acting out scenes inspired by real incidents or taken from written material, the actors led discussions with the audience.

"The discussion afterward is extremely effective. It helps to bounce ideas off actors and other students," said Suzanne C. Lye '98.

Moving Portrayals