In The Ruminants — a New School College of Performing Arts (CoPA) production — a pro-animal-testing, bathrobe-wearing rabbit and a neurotic college senior looking to leave a legacy of change hopped and stomped across the mainstage at 151 Bank Street. 

CoPA’s production, put on by the School of Drama, was the world premiere of The Ruminants, written by Dipti Bramhandkar, an NYC-based contemporary playwright, and directed by Ana Margineanu, a professor at the School of Drama. The play, which ran in early November, follows fictional Rose College student Bekka and her group of friends on their most extreme act of protest yet against the school’s animal testing lab. Within the context of our current political environment — the distrust, dissatisfaction, and anger, that many people are feeling — The Ruminants asks audiences to reflect on the nature of protest, privilege, and responsibility. 

About a year and a half ago, Bramhandkar received a fellowship with Farm Theatre NYC which spurred her to begin writing The Ruminants. “I wanted to write about the nature of protest, and what it means to stand up for something you believe in,” Bramhandkar said. “I wanted to think about what compels someone to take action.” She didn’t want to write about social issues. Instead, she shifted her lens toward the people at the heart of the protest. “What does it mean? What does it do to you? What does it do to your friend group?” 

Bramhandkar developed the play alongside students at three universities — Austin Peay State, Shenandoah, and Middle Tennessee State — who each put on a production of a different early iteration of Bramhandkar’s work as she was in the process of writing. “It’s a really collaborative, very different process than what I’m usually used to,” she said. For Bramhandkar, it’s exciting to see what different actors bring to the characters. “Playwrights don’t always have a chance to see their work done over and over and over again,” she said.

Margineanu, who directed a play written by Bramhandkar this year in Miami, was invited to a reading of The Ruminants earlier this year and then proposed the production to The New School’s Drama Department at CoPA. “I thought it was very time-appropriate, and I thought our students might enjoy working on it. It poses really interesting questions, for the times and for the place we live in … students are encountering those questions in their everyday lives quite a bit,” Margineanu said. 

The play begins with Bekka’s frustration with the lack of results that nearly four years of animal rights activism had achieved. She devises a plan to make her mark, and with the help of her friends E.B. and Ollie, she breaks into the school’s animal testing lab to send the administration a message. In the chaos, Bekka spontaneously kidnaps a rabbit, who resents her, and would much rather have remained in captivity. The protest does not unfold without consequence — the college’s administration discovers who was behind the break-in, and E.B.’s scholarship is revoked; he’s forced to drop out. Things don’t turn out the way Bekka expected. “There was no clear winner. Everyone kind of lost,” described actor Elena Ollenbeak, who played Ollie.

For many New School students, the play’s discourse around direct action may hit close to home. “A lot of people were like, ‘Why the fuck are y’all doing this play about protesting, after what we went through at this school last year?’” described actor Sadie Redmond, who was cast as Justin, a student reporter.

“Weirdly enough … I did not make the connection instantly,” Margineanu said. “I’m always five steps behind everything,” she joked. For Bramhandkar, the student encampments of last year pushed her to double down her efforts in writing about this topic. “As protests grew… I thought, ‘I think I’m striking something,’” she said. 

Over the course of the 5-week rehearsal process, actors took into consideration the pertinent context of The New School, New York City, and the political environment of today in different ways. According to Redmond, after the cast’s first read-through, Margineanu asked: “What do you all think about the fact that we’re doing this play?” In response to Margineanu encouraging the cast to bring their own perspectives to their roles, actor Ella Kahan — who played Bekka — said, “I liked that aspect of it. That we were allowed to think on our own.” 

“It’s their work,” Margineanu said of the play’s student cast. “I work as a person who is bringing it all together. But the things that I brought together are all theirs.”

In response to those questioning the intentions of the production, Redmond said, “I did explain to people that for us, we were kind of seeing it as [about] the consequences of performative activism and protesting without thinking it through.” For Redmond, “it becomes performative because you’re not even thinking about the consequences of what you’re protesting.”

“I think it was more important that we came at it from the storytelling angle,” said Kahan, noting the fictional framework that explored the real, raw experience of student protest. However, one line in particular stood out to her. The character E.B. asks, “How can Rose [college] talk about constant dialogue, and then react this way when we do something?” near the end of the play. “That kind of thing is very prevalent,” said Kahan, touching on the play’s reflection of reality. Universities promote dialogue and social action, but when it happens, they retaliate, Kahan explained. She emphasized the play’s message that politics are personal. “In today’s political zeitgeist, there’s not really a way to not be political,” Kahan said. “You have to be political in some way because it directly ties into personal rights.”

For Ollenbeak, the play’s unusual focus on the effects protest can have on participants was compelling. As for the play’s unhappy conclusion, she said “It’s a realistic ending. Because it doesn’t always work, and change does take time … I feel like it’s really easy for someone writing about protest to be like, ‘Yes, this worked.’ And show a hero, and this incredible change … showing a different result has a different but important message.”

What message is that? What should audiences be thinking about, as they leave the theater and return to their ordinary lives? Actors shared their thoughts.

“I want people to know that you can be active in whatever way works for you, but to keep in mind that your actions do have repercussions,” Kahan said. “Do your research.” In a similar vein, Ollenbeak hoped that audience members would be mindful of those they are protesting on behalf of — how to help those affected, without overstepping their voice. 

“I just hope that they get it in their minds that everybody protests differently,” actor Amari Figueras, who played E.B, said. “You can’t give your certain set of rules … that are predetermined by your lifestyle, to other people.” He emphasized the imbalance in the risks of protest, depending on your level of privilege. “I’m not trying to be like E.B. and get my scholarship taken away,” Figueras said. 

Redmond echoed his sentiments. “I feel like that’s a big part of what this is about, and what we wanted people to take home …  a lot of kids at this school don’t have to think about that side of protesting,” she said.

Margineanu hopes that audiences take the title to heart. The word “ruminant” — an animal that redigests its food — and the expression, to ruminate, come from the same Latin word, ruminare, meaning to “chew over again.” In Romanian, Margineanu’s native language, the word and expression are one and the same. “It’s an active process of deepening a subject rather than just jumping into it with whatever you have,” she said. “That’s all to say, I hope that people will ‘ruminant’ about it … if audiences would just think about it. And, you know, enjoy it. Clap your hands at the end, all the good stuff.”