The debate over the respective values of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Class of 1992—which is more talented, more bankable, more prone to some serious junk in the trunk—is one that will rage on until the two are starring in modern retellings of Out to Sea. Their stars have alternately shone and dimmed, based largely on whether their last hit was a Bourne Supremacy or an All the Pretty Horses, an Armageddon or a Paycheck. But regardless of their individual successes, it’s difficult to discuss one without mentioning the other. The two will forever be linked in the public consciousness, emblazoned as two iconic youngsters gripping a pair of Oscars and each other.

But Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers know the truth behind the undeserved success of this A-list duo. Not a dangling participle of their defining piece of work, the Academy-honored script for Good Will Hunting, was written by either of them. It fell from the sky, right into their then worthless laps. So Kaling and Withers wrote a play to expose these facts. They ran it in New York and Los Angeles, to the vociferous praise of critics and audiences. And now they are hitting where the heart is: Matt and Ben’s hometown of Cambridge, Mass. and Damon’s almost-alma mater, Harvard University.

THE STORY BEHIND THE PLAY

From Oct. 27 through Nov. 6, playwrights Kaling and Withers are serving up Matt & Ben, a snippy satire targeting the rise to ubiquity of the two Cantabrigians, in Winthrop House’s Junior Common Room. For $15 and $25 respectively, Harvard students and the metro Cambridge population will have the rare opportunity to witness a full professional production of an acclaimed Off Broadway work in their own town.

The play was written by Kaling and Withers in the penniless years following their graduation from Dartmouth. Their overly active participation in the first incarnation of the play was no accident.

“Matt & Ben was inspired mostly out of poverty,” admits Kaling. “We wanted to work together but didn’t want to spend any money. We figured we could save a lot of time and expense by essentially ‘hiring’ ourselves to act in the play, direct it ourselves, and use our living room as rehearsal space.”

Taking on the challenge of tactfully poking fun at the institution of celebrity, Kaling and Withers set their play in Damon’s post-Harvard years, pitting the two against one another as polar opposites whose friendship transcends their differences.

While working on a film adaptation of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the screenplay for Damon and Affleck’s alleged brainchild, Good Will Hunting, plummets from the ceiling or perhaps from the heavens. The resultant scenario finds the two reacting in unexpected ways to the discovery, amidst “cameos” by Gwyneth Paltrow and J.D. Salinger and a screwy, violent climax. Humorous references to the duo’s headline-grabbing history pepper the play and provide rich comic fodder.

Before the play even gets underway, the unorthodox casting will no doubt turn some heads. Both Damon and Affleck are portrayed by women; the two playwrights, one Caucasian and one African-American, co-starred in the New York debut.

“Having two women in the roles heightens one’s focus,” says producer Andrew Arthur, explaining that the casting also makes one question their beliefs about the traditional ideas of male bonding traditions.

Kaling and Withers have since moved on to develop a sitcom for the WB (“It should be called ‘We have no money, and we’re miserable because we have no jobs or boyfriends,’” quips Kaling). They’ve been succeeded by a pair of native New Yorkers, Jennifer Morris (Matt) and Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Ben), who met while studying theater at the University of California, San Diego. Both were called back after auditioning and, miraculously, both were cast.

Morris was drawn to Matt & Ben because it had already established itself with audiences. “I had heard so much about it,” says Morris. “It was a big hit in New York, and it’s not very often you get to audition for the role of Matt Damon.”

She also notes the uniqueness of the opportunity as a draw, professing that “great comedic roles for women” are hard to come by.