In Euphoria Season 2 Episode 7, The Theater and Its Double, everyone’s weekend at Euphoria High was ruined by Ms. Lexi Howard, who put her Our Life play onstage. The play was so incredible and its Broadway-like production left fans thinking, “which public high school has this much budget to spend on a random kid’s high school play?”. The episode left us confused as to whether we should compliment Lexi on her play or Sam Levinson, the writer-creator of Euphoria. Meanwhile, ‘the star of the play’, ‘Meryl Streep of Euphoria High’, Mr Ethan Daley, stole the show with not one but many characters. Fans think his back must be hurting after carrying the whole play.
In a recent interview with Variety, Maude Apatow shed some light on the recent rise of her always-sidelined character Lexi. The play was actually inspired by her own high school play that she produced in her school days. “It was loosely inspired by my high school play that I produced. Everyone in the theater department hated me, but I really wanted to do a good job,” she said.
All this time, Lexi was Rue’s old best friend, Cassie’s sister, and viewers never got to see who Lexi really was. But in the latest episode, she takes the center stage and has never looked more confident than she does in this episode; she appears to have realized what she truly wants.
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Viewers who have watched the episode may know how complicated the whole play was. The camera and the narrative were transitioning from the past, present, and even dreams while the stand-ins and the real characters blended in together on-screen. “It took a long time to film that sequence because it was so complicated,” Apatow shared about filming the play. “There were a lot of audience shots to consider… Sam had to make sure that the shots in the play connected to real memories and they had to be perfectly timed and interwoven.
Austin Abrams, who plays Ethan, reflected on his big role as Nate’s stand-in ‘Jake’ in the play. After an ugly breakup, the play felt like redemption for poor Ethan. In his conversation with Variety, he explained the complications of filming a play like that. They apparently “filmed that over a three-day span” and it “took a lot of physical exertion”. Abrams continued, “I was doing that dance a million times over those days. But, I loved the dance, I loved the guys that I was dancing with and it felt very real. I loved the energy exchanged between the performers and the actors and the audience because there was a crowd there. It’s one of those songs that makes me so happy. It puts everyone in a great mood, honestly.”