Chamberlain Bauman, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’26, didn’t set out to write a play when he began drafting songs based on Greek mythology as a journalism major at the University of Missouri four years ago.

“The very first seeds of what would become the play were songs I wrote about the myths of Echo and Galatea, but I wasn’t thinking about playwriting then,” Bauman said. 

Bauman’s songs were inspired by paintings he came across on Pinterest — John William Waterhouse’s “Echo and Narcissus” and “Hylas and the Nymphs,” and Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “Pygmalion and Galatea.” These paintings eventually became the grounding visual motifs for “Overwater,” the play with songs Bauman began writing last winter, after he transferred to Fordham and changed his major to theatre.

It took me a long time to connect the threads between the Greek myths and the digital world. … Once I started making those connections, it felt like it was writing itself. Chamberlain Bauman, FCLC ’26

Exploring the idea of the digital world in playwriting classes, Bauman realized something that united the millennia-old myths he had been singing about with his own digital generation — the stream.

“I feel like how I do my best writing is by connecting two different things to find new meaning in both of them,” Bauman said. “It took me a long time to connect the threads between the Greek myths and the digital world … Once I started making those connections, it felt like it was writing itself.”

As Narcissus is obsessed with seeing his own reflection in a stream, Bauman crafted Nicholas, a self-promoting musician posting videos of himself to TikTok’s stream of content. Adam, a young singer-songwriter with a detrimental social media addiction and parasocial relationship with Nicholas, parallels Echo, the nymph hopelessly in love with Narcissus. The allure of recognition pulls Adam into the stream. 

Since the play is set in two different worlds, Bauman and director Elias Bernstein, FCLC ’28, worked to distinguish the settings within the limitations of a repertory show.

“We couldn’t do a lot with the lighting,” Bernstein said. “In a full production, that would be the thing I would go to to differentiate the two different visual worlds. But with this, we had to be a little more creative with it.”

Once we locked it in, it was really fun to trace the common parts between these characters and their mythological counterparts. Chamberlain Bauman, FCLC ’26

Bernstein, who worked with supernatural creatures as assistant director of the mainstage show “The Tempest” in the fall, drew on his understanding of posture and movement to set the myths apart from the contemporary story, and the real world from the virtual one. 

“The nymphs were kind of like the water, they moved more flowingly,” Bernstein said. “When (the actors) were in the digital world, a lot of that was working with a lot of stiffness and keeping tension in their muscles to make them look like they were on a screen.”

Bauman and Bernstein could also only use six actors to portray over 10 distinct characters and countless TikTok users, which was another repertory limitation.

“I wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote the character breakdown list,” Bauman said. “Once we locked it in, it was really fun to trace the common parts between these characters and their mythological counterparts.”

Alex Vargas, FCLC ’26, portrayed Adam and his counterpart, Echo. He explained that though he played each character in their own world, in some moments the line between those worlds blurred.  

“Earlier in the story, it was easier to separate the material,” Vargas said. “As Adam starts becoming more afflicted by his addiction to social media, he loses his sense of reality, which then blends into the parallel with Echo. In one of the final scenes, where Adam is watching Nicholas perform almost as Narcissus, I think he lets his lovesickness take over him, and his and Echo’s worlds are almost entirely blended.”

Detachment from reality as a result of social media was one of the issues Bauman wanted audiences to consider. 

Social media isn’t what keeps us connected … It’s the human connection behind it that keeps us connected. Sylvia Sonenstein, FCLC ’26

“There’s a danger there that we wanted to unearth,” Bauman said. “I definitely wanted to expose in an unignorable way some things that I feel like exist in the underbelly of social media, things that … I feel like a lot of people can relate to, but we don’t necessarily talk about.”

Though the play is critical of social media, Bauman was careful not to make it “preachy,” balancing his criticism with the reality that a complete rejection of social media can be isolating.

“I literally struggle with (my relationship to social media) every day in a new way. … When you’re off it, it’s like this glimmering beacon of hope … you could be famous and you can make money doing this, but once you’re on it, you get a completely different experience,” Bauman said.

Sylvia Sonenstein, FCLC ’26, who played Nymph One, a figure luring characters from both worlds into their respective streams, is still grappling with her relationship to social media as she explores social media management as a career option. 

“I’ve always felt like I needed it,” Sonenstein said. “Otherwise, it’s like I’ll be sort of exiled from the current culture and then that’ll affect my ability to have a career in the field.”

From their work on “Overwater,” the actors took away the importance of showing up in their relationships offline. 

“Social media isn’t what keeps us connected,” Sonenstein said. “It’s the human connection behind it that keeps us connected.”

“Overwater” ran in Kehoe Studio Theater Feb. 5-7.