Benjamin Braddock has just finished college, earned his degree, and returned home. Downstairs his parents are throwing a party in his honor. We gather there are no guests Benjamin’s own age. Dad insists he demonstrate a new scuba diving suit for the party goers, but Benjamin’s not interested. He senses the celebration is less about his accomplishment than an excuse for the parents to cut loose and get inebriated. Pretentiousness seems to permeate the air and why would he have anything in common with these clueless dolts?
He elects to take a drive when he Mrs. Robinson wanders in, plastered. She flashes and puts the moves on him, but Benjamin, flustered, manages to evade her. The next day, he resolves to take a road trip (inspired by Jack Kerouac) ready to embrace whatever life brings. Unfortunately his travels amount only to misadventure, and he returns home, disillusioned and sad.
Terry Johnson’s stage adaptation of Charles Webbs novel and Buck Henry, Calder Willingham and Mike Nichol’s film of The Graduate, feeds on the zeitgeist of the 1960’s and Benjamin Braddock’s malaise. The older generation may be vapid and blind, but they’re chipper. Ben and Mr. Robinson share the weariness of a disappointing world, and a need for authenticity, however sketchy that pursuit might be.
It seems the perfect remedy for their anger and bitterness is an affair, where they can forget, forget, forget. Mrs. Robinson’s allure is directness and honesty. The problem is her cunning. She’s disingenuous. The world outside their hotel room would rather believe Ben’s depraved and Mrs. Robinson’s ridiculous accusations.
So The Graduate is an allegory on empty values and emptier values. The distinction between the truth and the actual. Mrs. Robinson’s contempt is useful till she needs to game the system. In the end genuine virtue seems to prevail, at least for the moment.
The novel not withstanding, Henry, Willingham and Nichol’s film is episodic, dark, cynical. Satire emerges from timing, reduction, and cynicism. WaterTower Theatre’s production is a unique slant on the content we find in the novel and film. It explores details neglected in the movie. Mrs. Robinson’s backstory, her relationship with her daughter, Elaine. The mob enraged by the wedding’s interruption. WTT relates the same plot, with broader comedy, more humanity, more forgiveness.
Many thanks to WTT for letting me attend, so late in the run.
WaterTower Theatre presented The Graduate, from January 20th-February 8th, 2026. 15650 Addison Road, Addison, Texas. 972-450-6232 watertowertheatre.org