A bizarre gothic tale of desire and power becomes an electrifying, laugh-out-loud experience as The Moors turns darkness into collective hilarity.

Columbia University Players presented The Moors, directed by Molly Greenwold (BC ‘26), at Glicker-Milstein Theatre on March 27th and 28th.

Originally written by American playwright Jen Silverman and published in 2017, the play is set in an old gothic house somewhere in the desolate English moors, where two sisters and their mastiff live. These two sisters, Agatha and Huldey—played by Jasmine Richards (BC ‘26) and Anusha Krishnan (BC ‘29), welcome a new governess, Emilie, played by Dunia Sarkis (BC ‘26), who soon finds the household extremely bizarre—almost intimidating. No matter where she goes, every room appears identical, from the carpets to the sofas, and she never spots a sign of the older brother—whose deeply emotional letters had drawn her here in the first place—nor the children she was hired to govern. Most unsettling of all, the maids of the house—all played by Jia Wadhwa (a visiting student)—seem to be keeping the household’s secrets: there are technically three maids with different names, but each looks exactly the same and takes turns being  pregnant, sick with typhus, or both.

The story of Agatha, Huldey, Emilie, and the maids is paralleled by the encounter between the mastiff (played by Julian Rodriguez, CC ‘28) and the moor-hen (played by Sara Rose, BC ‘28). As a lonesome dog who longs for companionship and someone to love, the mastiff’s growing obsession with the moor-hen mirrors the tense and charged relationship developing between Agatha and Emilie.

As Greenwold mentions in the director’s note, The Moors engages with “conversations about desire, intimacy, classism, and domestic violence,” and every character is consumed by want. Agatha, as the seemingly unshakeable head of the household, is driven by the need to uphold the family by herself and maintain her authority at all costs. Huldey, an energetic and childlike younger sister, reads her diary aloud, desperate to be heard, seen, and acknowledged. The maid—Marjory, or sometimes Mallory—clearly has no intention of remaining a mere servant. Meanwhile, the mastiff slowly fills its own emptiness through the moor-hen, becoming increasingly manipulative and possessed by desire. Hapless Emilie and the forgetful moor-hen, for their part, find themselves gradually ensnared and absorbed into this strange household’s web.

What makes The Moors remarkable is how it transforms the dark atmosphere of power dynamics and distorted desires into something satirical, whimsical, and genuinely, uncontrollably funny. As if reminding us that laughter is an antidote to extreme horror or shock, the play contains blood and domestic violence that arrive with unexpected force—yet it is handled with such an energetic script and sharp humor that you never stop laughing. A story that could easily have felt dark and dreary is instead brought to vivid, breathless life by six actors who give you no chance to look away.

The theatre’s structure and audience engagement played no small part in ensnaring the audience, making the comedy more enjoyable and striking. Even the audience’s extended laughter—frequently erupting mid-scene and cutting through the flow of the performance—became a part of the play itself. The blackbox format of the theatre, with almost no separation between stage and audience, made the experience deeply immersive and allowed the actors to interact more naturally with the crowd. The cast entered and exited through three different points—on both sides of the audience and at the front of the stage—creating a spatial experience that felt three-dimensional and dynamic. The climax of the play, Huldey’s song-performance, was especially effective in this regard: by turning the audience into both witnesses of the story’s events and spectators of Huldey’s own performance, it made us complicit in the narrative. Anusha Krishnan stepping up into the audience seating to sing was a standout directorial choice that cemented this effect. The audience oscillated between innocent spectator and active participant, laughing helplessly at the darkest expressions of human desire. 

Going into The Moors completely blind, this play was a shockingly hilarious experience. I have never laughed so hard for one and a half hours straight. By the end, I found myself laughing at things I probably shouldn’t have been laughing at—and so was everyone else in the room. I left the theatre feeling almost high from laughter. There is a rare, electrifying freshness in being able to experience that kind of collective, engaged energy, in an intimate venue, surrounded by other people sharing the same uncontrollable reaction—and this is exactly what live theatre is for.

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