Typically, UW drama productions serve as proving grounds for actors, directors and crewmembers, allowing them to test their mettle and demonstrate just how well they can pull of another writer's vision.

Drama senior Ryan Barret, though, takes something of a different approach. Barret has both written and is directing the drama department's latest production, Touch.

Barret seeks to forge his own vision and impart wha t he considers a valuable lesson on all his viewers.

"Touch is a dramatic exploration of the fears, needs and desires regarding physical contact," Barret said. "It's the story of five individuals led by ... their dreams and through each other's lives, and this weird phenomenon called physicality."

He expressed his dismay with the current cultural aversion to interpersonal physical contact.

"The thing I hope people will realize is that nature and culture are not at odds," he said. "We built culture, and we are nature ... [yet we] have come to expel nature from our lives, we lose it, as urban individuals."

The play is based on Barret's philosophy of letting go of inhibitions that prevent affectionate human interaction. He described the need for human touch as a primal force that should be expressed without society's stringent constraints.

Barret shows his passion for physicality rather uniquely: through another passion of his, swing dancing, which he hopes to impart a love for in his audience.

"One huge element, the major twist apart from the plot, is partner dancing," he said. "I explore this physicality that has grown into this contention. Swing dancing [is different from] say, going to a club, where we sort of divorce ourselves from our senses. People go swing dancing looking for a connection."

Despite the deliberate abstractness of the concepts and the cutting edge intent, Barret said described the cast dynamic as "brilliant." Having had his doubts in light of the complexity of the subject matter, Barret said he couldn't have been more satisfied with how the actors came together rather early on to complete his vision.

The development journey was an interesting one for Barret, who said the concept of the work was inspired by many things, including his love for sophisticated partner dancing, which he calls a lost art, and his experiences working at a shopping mall.

"It started to become apparent to me that people were going [to the mall] to be in their own space; to be private in public," he said. "In public, touching is out of place and... there's something askew about that; when you apologize to someone for bumping into them or brushing elbows. Why do we need to apologize for that?"

Barret wants to distinguish his work from the typical dramatic experience for the audience's sake.

"Know that this is not theatre to view, it's meant to be witnessed, experienced and to be engaged with," he said. "I think it's important people understand that this is the result of open person's experiences, and be open to being challenged."