ESSAYSIndex of Social TopicsAs discussed in other essays on this site, it behooves the theatre to vigilantly criticize unexamined yet accepted norms. To this end, we offer the following examples of social relevancy in contemporary theatre as explored through criticism. Below, you will find various subject matter titles linked to excerpts from reviews of plays that directly or indirectly comment on these topics. Please note that the indexing and cross-referencing of these ideas is based upon the archives of this site, but is in no way a complete explication of the content found herein. Have at it!
From The Road to Mecca— One of the principal victims of the loss of the extended family is the elderly. Without protection from relatives and friends who care, older folk often fall victim not just to scam artists, but to upright folks who genuinely believe they know what's best for others. In Industrial Arts Theatre and Mirror Players joint production of Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca, Miss Helen is an elderly artist living alone in New Bethesda, South Africa in 1974. Miss Helen's lifestyle, living independently and alone, and her art form, provocative sculptures that face Mecca, not heaven, rub many of her fellow villagers the wrong way. Assuming the responsibility for the community, the village priest attempts to convince her to move to a home for the aged. In the midst of this process, Miss Helen's young friend Elsa, a graduate student, shows up after receiving a letter from Miss Helen calling for help. The battle for Miss Helen's soul is on. Ultimately, though, it's Miss Helen who must save herself. From Gumboots— Whether it be the tortured soul that generated the passionate art of Van Gogh, or the slavery that engendered the blues, much of our greatest art arises out of suffering… Such is also the case of gumboot dancing that is now being performed in the international tour of Gumboots now playing at the Buell Theatre. Gumboots are, essentially, Wellingtons—rubber boots that were used by slaves to keep their feet from rotting in the diamond mines in South Africa during Apartheid. This makes the origins of gumboot dancing much like the manner in which tap dancing arose out of prohibitions against blacks using drums during slavery. Forced to work over 11,000 feet underground under the worst conditions, the slaves slapped and slogged their boots to communicate with each other… These are the rhythms of oppression and liberation, Soweto soul music, that declares "The men who stole the gold is the men who stole the sun." Here is the fortitude and spirit that enabled South Africa's blacks to eventually overcome the depraved Boer regime. From Oleanna— David Mamet is one of America's most acclaimed contemporary playwrights. His unique approach to dialogue and the discontinuity of consciousness that he expresses through it, as well as his brutally honest excursion into seamier side of how we socialize and capitalize with and at the expense of each other, have made Mamet an oft performed artist... Oleanna is a deeply troubling play that wraps the power struggle between the sexes within a corrupt and doctrinaire educational system. Despite Mamet's one-sided presentation under his own direction, other directors have found great interpretive latitude between the characters of John, a college professor, and Carol, his student. Is John patriarchal and patronizing? Is Carol angry and naive? From Dream on Monkey Mountain— When colonial powers reek their havoc on native cultures, the result for the indigenous peoples is often a loss of both collective and personal identity. One of the most eloquent voices on behalf of the oppressed in the late 20th century is the Nobel Prize winning Caribbean poet Derek Wolcott, whose Dream on Monkey Mountain is now being presented in an ambitious collaboration between the Denver Center Theatre Company and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. Dream on Monkey Mountain is a full blown phantasmagorial dream quest of a dirt poor, old and ugly charcoal burner, Makak, a Carib, who is imprisoned by the local constabulary for "drunk and disorderly" conduct. While incarcerated, Makak's subconscious soul wrestlings with revenge, self discovery, and freedom are played out through original music and dance performed by the local West Indian population and apocryphal African tribes that represent Makak's divided self. But while playwright Wolcott's lyrical language is complimented by Robinson's choreography and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's score, and the native costuming quite spectacular, the story remains largely symbolic and lacking coherent integration between the dreaming and waking elements. And while this may be exactly what the author has in mind, one might argue that effective dream therapy is ultimately a clarifying process not an irrational one. From Two Trains Running— August Wilson is, at this time, America's most best known African-American playwright. His body of work consists primarily of a series of plays, each of which represents a decade of the Black experience in 20th century white America. Two Trains Running, currently in production at the Space Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex, is Wilson's commentary on the '60's. But unlike characteristically radical plays of the '60's by Imamu Amiri Baraka (aka Leroi Jones) and Ed Bullins, Wilson's answer to oppression and racism is not violence. Rather, Two Trains Running is about dignity that transcends color. From Mama, I Want to Sing— At it's best community theatre serves to bring folks together to celebrate their shared aspirations, fears, and life's transitions. Mama, I Want To Sing, the current production at Eulipions, goes to the root of one of the black community's greatest gifts—Music. Whether it's inspirational or secular, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock or gospel, reggae, or world beat, the influence of black musicians and singers is everywhere. Mama, I Want To Sing, may be the story of one black girl whose introduction to music came through the church, but it is the tale of many black artists who, at one time or another in the quest for professional employment, had to leave the sacred fold for the jazz clubs, dance halls, speakeasies, and recording studios. Getting permission from god-fearing parents for such a life was often trying, sometimes leading to permanent divisiveness in families. Never-the-less Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cook, Whitney Houston, Sarah Vaughn, Gladys Knight, Roberta Flack and many others succeeded in sharing their gifts with large audiences. From Showboat— When Florenz Ziegfield, Jr., the man whose name became synonymous with the Broadway extravaganza, originally commissioned Jerome Kerns and Oscar Hammerstein II to write Show Boat he expected a gaudy, vacuous comedy, as was the style of the times. What he got instead was a serious discourse on American musical and social history, with a complicated plot that mixed personal tragedy, national racism, and great musical entertainment. Ziegfield protested, but Kerns and Hammerstein held their ground, and Show Boat has become a permanent part of the American musical theatre repertory. The national tour revival of this classic, now being presented by Denver Center Attractions at the Buell Theatre, has undergone a variety of changes from the original to its present incarnation as Hal Prince's six and one-half million dollar blockbuster. There has also been some very serious public dialogue over the manner in which the play deals with racism. But after viewing Wednesday night's opening, I find myself agreeing with John Lahr, the talented critic for the New Yorker magazine who writes: "describing racism doesn't make Show Boat racist. The production is meticulous in honoring the influence of black culture not just in the making of the nation's wealth but, through music, in the making of its modern spirit." From Having Our Say— Having Our Say is the story of two very remarkable women. After Amy Hill Hearth, a correspondent for the New York Times, finally convinced the Delaney sisters to be interviewed for a Sunday feature, the reaction was more than anyone could have imagined. Soon a publisher came calling, and the book sold over 1.5 million copies. Next came the critically acclaimed Broadway play, which ran for 8½ months. At the time of their interview, the sisters were both over 100 years old. Bessie, the youngest at 101, was one of the first two black woman dentists in the United States. Her sister Sadie, 103 then, was the first black woman to teach home economics in the New York City public schools. After moving from North Carolina, where their father was the first black minister of the Episcopal Church, the sisters spent their working lives in the city, meeting a host of remarkable people including W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Eleanor Roosevelt. In a remarkable three acts, the sisters recount their family story, their successes, the humiliations they suffered because of their race, and the wonderful people they met and worked with in the course of their extraordinary lives. Micki Grant, an award-winning author and composer, who plays Sadie, and Lizan Mitchell, who plays Bessie, reproduce the inspirational oral history of the maiden sisters as if they were siblings themselves, finishing each other's sentences and anticipating each other's every need. If there's a more honest history of the Twentieth Century in America around, I haven't seen it. From Innocent Thoughts— The Shadow Theatre Company, Denver's first professional black theatre company opened its doors with a production of William Downs' Innocent Thoughts, a tale of a black lawyer and his expert witness, a Jewish anthropologist, who meet in the context of a murder trial and learn to come to grips with the racist views each has of the other. Jeffrey W. Nickelson as Ira Aldridge, a one-time independent black civil rights lawyer turned corporate attorney, and Matt Cohen as Arlen Weinberg, a liberal Jewish Ph.D. candidate, who still owns his father's slum properties, give explosive yet grounded performances as they convincingly wrestle with deeply felt issues between two strong, vastly different sub-cultures. While some of the arguments that the playwright draws from everyday life are sometimes nothing more than the reiteration of shallow bigotry, and in other cases over-simplifications that still pass as the truth, the basic questions are there for the taking: How do two groups which both have histories of persecution, and which shared an activism for common causes in the late '60's, find themselves so often at odds today? Although the play deals with the power struggles between two minority groups it never discusses the overriding economic and political assumptions both groups are making. While they never see that they both are victims of the same machine, they do eventually understand on an emotional level they have common enemies. At least that's a step. From Spunk— Smokebrush Theater's production of Spunk, now playing at Eulipions based on three short stories of Zora Neale Hurston adapted by George C. Wolfe, author of The Colored Museum and Tony Award winning Jelly's Last Jam, and currently Artistic director of Joseph Papp's New York Shakepeare Festival. Zora Neale Hurston was born to a family of sharecroppers in 1891. Later, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black town in America. During the Harlem Renaissance, she began collecting Southern black folklore, for which she was criticized by other black writers because she remained faithful to the dialect in which they were recounted to her. From Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In 'Da Funk- From the grief of the slave ships to the uprisings that led, temporarily, to the banishment of the use of the drum by slaves and through the horrors of slavery and the carpetbaggers, and even the lynchings and riots, tap, like the blues, grew as an expression that preserved the soul. From Blues for an Alabama Sky— What was Harlem really like in 1930? Was it like the movie The Cotton Club, or countless other interpretations done by white writers? Perhaps they caught part of what was going on, but if you're interested in an insider's perspective, the Denver Center Theatre Company's current production of Blues for an Alabama Sky has got it. Written by Pearl Cleage, a black woman, for the Cultural Olympiad preceding the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Blues for an Alabama Sky is filled with rhythmic language, colorful characters, collective dreams, and the hard truths of being black in America during the Great Depression. From Big River— Free At Last! Echoing the words of Martin Luther King, Huckleberry Finn's traveling companion, the one-time slave Jim, captures the essence of his battle to live as a man in a country institutionally designed to deny him those rights… While the literati may still be waiting for the great American novel, just folks will tell you it's already been done. It was written over an hundred years ago by a clever humorist from Joplin, Missouri named Samuel Clemens. Better known by his nom de plume, Mark Twain, Clemens' Huckleberry Finn, upon which Big River is based, tells us as much about America today as it ever did—the sure sign of a masterpiece… Big River speaks the troubled soul of a great country, brimming with compassion and optimism, embroiled in racism and greed… The genius of Clemens' story lies in his ability to get the reader to question, through Huck's eyes, the whole notion of slavery and bigotry. All sorts of excuses were and are used to justify racism and property rights over human rights, but in the end Huck simply follows his own heart, something that the so-called religious folks seem to forget is supposed to lie at the center of the teachings they presume to follow. From Riff Raff— Black males have the lowest life expectancy of any group of people in the United States. The reasons for this are inherent in the cycle of prejudice, poverty, violence, and chemical abuse. Most Americans, however, have little interest in trying to understand the insidious nature of these conditions. Not content with allowing this neglect and willful ignorance to continue, the noted black actor and now playwright Lawrence Fishburne penned Riff Raff, an explosive, in your face examination of three inner city males attempting to cope within the limited options available to them. From Waiting to be Invited— On the heels of Martin Luther King's holiday and as we head into Black History Month, it's appropriate that we set aside time to recall the faith and courage of those who were willing to sacrifice in order that they and their children might live a world free from bigotry and oppression. There are many names that we naturally associate with this struggle including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Reverend King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and others. The beauty of Sherry Shephard-Massat's Waiting to be Invited, which received it's World Premiere last Saturday at the Denver Center, is that its heroines are people that you and I have never heard of. Based on a true story that included Ms. Shephard-Massat's grandmother, Waiting to be Invited follows four black women on the day they plan to integrate the lunch counter in a prominent downtown Atlanta department store in the early '50's. On a simple, yet cleverly designed roundtable set that serves as the changing room of the factory where they work, the bus that takes them downtown, and the park where they gather their nerve before going to lunch, the ladies detail their commitment to and air their fears over what they are about to do. Their animated discussion ranges from good-naturedly getting each other's goat, with zingers that would make Bill Cosby jealous, to serious moral accusations, all brought to life by Shephard-Massat's loving recreation of the joyousness of the regional dialect. From The African Company Presents Richard III— The African Company was the first African-American theatre company in the United States, opening the African Grove theatre, in what is now the South Village in New York City, in 1821. This play, which both dramatizes and chronicles the company's history, was written by Carlyle Brown, and first performed in 1987. Forty years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, the creation of a black theatre, even in the midst of the nation's most heterogeneous metropolis, was more than white theatre producers could handle. The polished oratorical and theatrical skills of the actors attracted full houses of whites and blacks and thus threatened the success of white theatres, eventually leading to its closing by authorities… While the African Company's dream of performing Shakespeare may have been vexed, their trials did lead Brown, their producer, to have his own play King Shotaway performed, a first for an African American. The African Company Presents Richard III is a unique and moving statement on the empowerment that theatre can bring to a disenfranchised community in their struggles to be free. from Minstrel Show: The Lynching of William Brown— The worst race riot in the history of Nebraska is the subject of the current work presented by the Front Row Center Productions. Minstrel Show: The Lynching of William Brown is told as an eye witness account by two black men to the audience that they install as an investigatory committee. David Lewis and Jonathan Wilson, straight from a successful albeit controversial run in Omaha, where the events actually took place 79 years ago next month, are extraordinarily engaging as they mix the sordid facts with selections from their top hat and tails song and dance act. The horror of thousands of white Omahans, gathered in a carnival atmosphere, storming their county courthouse to drag an elderly, crippled black man to his death for a crime he couldn't have committed is a powerful reminder that the recent events in Jasper, Texas (the dragging death of a black man), or even Bosnia for that matter, are part of a long history of humankind's bigotry. And yet, without such testimony we surely have no chance of evolving past such bestial behavior. From Born Yesterday— Fifty years after it was first written, Born Yesterday laments the same sad state of affairs in our nation's government: Bucks have more to say about how it's run than ballots. We still haven't figured out that campaign reform means no private monies controlling democracy. "They" may say it's their constitutional right to spend their money to buy politicians, but I say that ain't "one man, one vote". In fact, even the Supreme Court has ruled that money isn't protected under "Free Speech." From Chicago— On a deeper level, it's a spectacle about the clueless cult of celebrity, the cynical manipulation of justice, and sex as a commodity. Ultimately, these very themes that give the musical its swagger and style also rob it of any sympathy and redeeming value. For in celebrating what Chicago stands for we de facto condone the decadent state of our country's "bought and paid for" legislative, judicial and executive branches and the confused and manipulated public that allows the withering of its freedoms. The live band, clever pantomimes, vaudeville routines, and marionette shtick aside, Chicago then seems much like the USA today, with little redeeming vision to offer us a way out, only a banal acceptance of cynicism and greed. If you think not, tell me why we tolerate a Congress that refuses to address campaign reform and gun control in any meaningful and lasting fashion. From All My Sons— When the American Century reached full bloom following the Allies' victories in the summer of 1945, the future was painted with glowing visions. Prosperity and success were simply available for the price of hard work, and the American Dream was within reach of anyone who could follow the prescription. For Arthur Miller, however, something was drastically amiss, and he wrote about it incessantly, including two plays that are currently in production in Denver: All My Sons, Industrial Arts Theatre's current offering at The Denver Civic Theatre, and the national touring production of Death of a Salesman, with Hal Holbrook, at the Auditorium Theatre. Perhaps our greatest living playwright, Miller explores the devastation that is left behind by generations that worship material gain over all else as the determiner of success. In All My Sons, written in 1949, the fates of two families are tied to events that took place at a factory both fathers worked at during the war. Faulty aircraft parts had been shipped out to meet government production quotas and keep lucrative contracts, resulting in the deaths of twenty-one young pilots. Two men are convicted, yet one is released after appeals. From Julius Caesar— "Their story is our story," The National Geographic proudly boasted of the Roman Empire it worshipfully recounted in two special issues a year or so back, and truly, the mantle of Caesar's world-enveloping imperialism that had been passed down through the European colonial powers now lies squarely upon America's shoulders. from The Adding Machine— One of the most famous scenes in the silent movies was from Modern Times, where Charlie Chaplin gets caught in the gears of industrial machinery. During the same era, the playwright Elmer Rice found the relentless quantification of life by our economic engine equally debilitating, and captured it in the metaphor of The Adding Machine, now in production by The Director's Theatre in Boulder. Given a decidedly late Twentieth Century twist by director Jeremy Cole through the use of multiple television monitors, and video and audio playback, including taped appearances by many of metro Denver's finest actors, The Adding Machine reminds us of just how paltry our efforts have been to loosen the tyranny of capital and technology over human affairs. from Three Hotels— If there was ever a generation that thought its idealism would change the world, the baby boomers were it. Of course, this did not go for the entire generation, but a significant portion certainly believed this—and it was a portion significant enough to stop an imperialist war in Southeast Asia and get branded communists for starting Earth Day. So what happens when these folks age, have children, and run into the social realities of multinational corporations and saving for their children's college education? These are some of the questions that lie behind playwright Jon Robin Baitz' Three Hotels, currently in production at the Nomad Theatre in Boulder. Kenneth and Barbara Hoyle, former Peace Corps volunteers, are a globetrotting corporate couple. Kenneth has worked his way up the ladder to a vice president of a baby formula company whose principal markets are in the Third World. While Kenneth has long ago rationalized away any conscience that he may have had, Barbara resists such complacency while continuing to be supported with the proceeds from Ken's activities... One of playwright Baitz' remarkable achievements in Three Hotels is the manner in which he takes an intensely political subject and invests it with human scale and interest. The production consists of three scenes, each a compelling monologue, performed without intermission. From Evita!— With the American political season in full swing and the promises flying thicker than politicians around a pile of pork barrel legislation, it's informative to compare our time-honored process to that of one of our neighbors to the South—Argentina! And what better way to immerse oneself in the electoral charade than to enjoy Andrew Lloyd Weber's razor-sharp satirical musical Evita! now in production at Boulder's Dinner Theatre. Evita! is, of course, the life story of the sometimes Madonna, sometimes Jezebel of the Pampas—Eva Peron. Did I say Madonna? You may remember that the pop star queen played this role on the silver screen a few years back, stealing scenes and songs from her fellow actors in much the same fashion as the real life title role subject stole the hearts and wallets of her fellow countrymen. Eva Duarte connived and cavorted her way up the social hierarchy of Argentina until she finally had her man—General Juan Peron. With the media savvy and charismatic Evita leading the way, the two of them charmed and bilked the country from the mid-40's through the early 50's. From Was He Anyone?— It's only been a couple of weeks since we've witnessed the Great Western Powers do a turnabout with their rescue mission of Rwandan refugees. Suddenly, over a million hungry, besieged people don't need as much help because they have dragged themselves over an invisible line. This is by way of saying that the amount of red tape and bureaucracy that gets in the way of charity and relief efforts is often so overwhelming that the human suffering which motivated us in the first place gets lost in the shuffle. From Titanic: A New Musical— The story and book by Peter Stone draws clear class lines between the passengers, which are reflected in the architecture of the boat and the shepherding by the crew. And we learn, in fact, it was the arrogance and greed of the owners of the mighty ship, with their concern over marketing their product, that regrettably caused this great calamity. Scrimping on life boats so as not to unduly clutter the 1st class deck, and pushing the Captain to make New York in six days to compete with its German counterparts, the Titanic was forced to steer a northerly course through the Atlantic, ignoring iceberg warnings from other ships. When the telling moment came, there were simply not enough lifeboats to save the likes of elite likes of John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim and hundreds of middle class sightseers and hope-filled immigrants. What a telling metaphor for the ship of state that caters to wealth at the expense of life and limb. Titanic, A New Musical, is a trim, fit, vessel, that faces the tough questions of this monumental disaster head on, in an exuberant and telling presentation. From The Importance of Being Ernest— While his life may have ended tragically, Oscar Wilde left behind many wonderful works, including the frothy and scathing The Importance of Being Ernest. Wilde had a fascinating love-hate relationship with privilege: While he adored the finer things in life, he despised the shallow conservatism and artlessness that those of means usually display. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde has a marvelous time both playing with and skewering the idle rich. From Angel City— Sam Shepard is a well know film actor and powerful playwright who has given us such classics as American Buffalo, Buried Child, and Fool for Love. Back in the '70's, at the front end of his career, Shepard went through a frustrating spell in Hollywood and out of that experience fashioned a sardonic look at the dream machine that generates the images of unattainable perfection which drive American materialism. The piece, Angel City, is now running at the Bug Theatre. Like so many of his political and artistic contemporaries at that time, Shepard's take on the movie capital of the world was one of cynicism, outrage, and surrealism. Even today, Hollywood is an easy target for those who enjoy pointing fingers while failing to see that the devil, indeed, is the shadow of the image reflected in one's mirror… However, Shepards' script offers us little new in the way of insight into Hollywood's moral decrepitude. Witch hunters can rant and rave all they want about gratuitous violence—and find communists or non-Christians behind it all—but the fact is, Hollywood is just a reflecting what it takes to support an society that depends upon economic expansion and consumption of nearly half the world's annual use of resources. Luckily for us, Shepard turned his clever mind inward, and went on to write some very insightful plays. From Of Mice and Men— In the heartland of the wealthiest nation on earth, in the midst of the longest sustained period of economic growth in American history, it's easy to forget that there was a time in this country during our parents' and grandparents' lives when there was barely enough money and food to go around. And no one captured those trying days better than John Steinbeck in novels such as Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men. From Tango— Even during the most repressive eras, theatre has usually managed to find a way to cleverly evade censorship, preserve freedom of thought, and provide social criticism. In modern times, whether within states that use propaganda and mind control as a matter of course, or within societies that think they're free but are chained by conformity and materialism, it becomes increasingly more difficult to cut through the walls of emotional protection to reach truths that, hopefully, we're all still capable of understanding. Tango, now in production at Germinal Stage Denver, is the best known work of Polish born Slawomir Mrozek. The play was sensationally received in 1964 before it was banned by the Polish government. Tango manages to ask serious questions in an indirect manner, that is, in an attempt to avoid censorship. Although there are elements of the theatre of the absurd in Tango, it is not the sort that we find in Beckett, Pinter, and Ionesco who, in speaking to people who thought they were free, found it necessary to warp time and dialogue. Mrozek's originally intended audience suffered no such illusions. Here, the absurdity arises from circumstance and character, much like life in an authoritarian state. From A Tale of A Tiger— They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Even saber rattlers like Ronald Reagan paid credence to this idea. That's why Nancy's husband kept the likes of Dario Fo out of the country as long as he could. Fo, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997, knows how to tell a story that cuts through class lines and knee jerk ideology to the crux of the human condition, a subject with which most politicians are uncomfortable. From Picasso at The Lapin Agile— Steve Martin is a very funny man. He is also a fine dramatic actor and accomplished playwright. It's easy to see why he has decided to devote the-time-he-has-to-write to the theatre: He has a lot to say and the stage is the place he can state his case unhindered by the commercial constraints and shallow audiences of television and, to a large degree, film. From Chapter Two— When the NBC censors and Joe McCarthy finally had their way and shut Sid Caesar down for exercising his right to free speech, and the cast and crew went their separate ways, Neil Simon is the one who ended up on Broadway. Chapter Two, now running at the Nomad Theatre in Boulder, is the piece that marks the beginning of Simon's graduation from comedy with a message to drama with a punch line. From Luminarias— In her own words Evelina Fernández describes her play Luminarias, now running at El Centro Su Teatro, as an exploration of "the Love and Rage that...Chicanas/ Chicanos feel." In Fernández' case, her love comes from life itself—to be shared with friends and lovers, but her rage stems from the disenfranchisement of her people who lost their homeland in southwest portions of North America to Europeans. Hundreds of years later in Los Angeles this means that gringos still have more money and power than Latinos. Oftentimes this leads to violence and hatred on both sides. Sometimes, however, folks become friends or lovers despite this history. In Luminarias, Andrea is a Chicana lawyer, split between her seething political convictions toward an imperialistic culture and her spiritual acceptance of the differences and similarities among all peoples. From Barrio Babies— The creed of America is that it is a melting pot, but the reality is that most of the melting that has gone on has been a result of the heat generated by those who are being denied a place. Each minority has had to struggle to have its voice heard. What gives courage to each generation which renews the struggle is often found in the art and literature of those who preceded them. Barrio Babies, now receiving it's world premiere by the Denver Center Theatre Company, is just such an ode to the struggle of Latinos in Hollywood… Reyes' script, which begins as his personal story of growing up Puerto Rican, ends up, through the successive intervention of outrageous studio producers, being rewritten from Caucasian to Chicano to Cuban flavored plots, all calling for stereotypical, demeaning characters. Each turn of the plot is set to catchy Latin rhythms that include tango, salsa, cha-cha, tex-mex, and afro-cuban played by the live band flanking both sides of the stage in elegant elevated crows' nests… Despite the high spots of catchy tunes, hot rhythms, splashy sets and polished acting, Barrio Babies still needs work before it fulfills it's scheduled date with Broadway. While the show makes a point of focusing on the shallow patronizing treatment that Hispanics receive in Hollywood, when the protagonist Rey is given the opportunity to show us a glimpse of what he would do when given the chance, the plot inexplicably returns to the same satire that got us here. What catharsis demands is a scene with Rey directing from his original script—a gritty scene that speaks a universal message. In that would be the proof that a minority has risen above ethnocentrism and its own narrow interests and found the means to flavor its humanity in its own unique manner. Only in this would it be showing us that it is focusing on something other than its own victimization. From Peter Pan— One of the most remarkable achievements of the 20th Century was the fulfillment of humankind's dream of controlled flight. As everyone believes, this was first achieved by Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. But the preceding year, J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan flew from London to Never Never Land and back and continues to do so daily in the hearts and minds of millions of children. This feat may be deemed impossible by any self-respecting aeronautical engineer, but it's actually quite easy. "You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they lift you up in the air." Of course, most adults just scoff at this notion, but that's because they have made the mistake of growing up. Somewhere, somehow, they lost their sense of play and childlike sense of wonderment and awe of the world around them. Well, there's still time to repent. Former world gymnastic champion Cathy Rigby and her husband, Tom McCoy, have once again brought their tour of Peter Pan to Denver, this time to the Buell theatre. From Cinderella— There are all sorts of children's stories. Some have morals to tell, like Aesop's Fables; some are simply silly and fun, like Mother Goose; still others are meant to give us hope. Into this last category fall the fairy tales, such as Cinderella. Even the names of the characters are dead giveaways for their functions: Prince Charming (the knight in shining armor), the Fairy Godmother (the angel of mercy), the stepmother and stepsisters (the demons), and of course, Cinderella herself, (the rags to riches girl)—now all common everyday terms used to denote specific, archetypal roles. From A Christmas Carol— Every year at this time the Denver Center Theatre Company reprises its polished masterpiece, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. But unlike the Nutcracker Ballet, and The Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol does not indulge the childhood fantasies of Sugar Plum Faeries and Jolly Old Saint Nick. Instead, Dickens addresses the part of Christmas that has to do with the unassuming teachings of the man whose birth is associated with the holiday, a message that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with love. And that's really what has compelled me to go back year after year. The last two years the production has also been blessed with the finest performances of Scrooge yet, by Richard Risso. The key to Risso's success here seems to be that he captures the wounded boy within the erascible old man of Ebenezer Scrooge, so that when he is finally dragged through the hereafter by the spirit of Death his childlike rebirth is completely within character. When he wakes up and discovers it's Christmas morning, why you could jump up and click your heels! From A Christmas Carol— Charles Dickens' reputation as a great man of letters is rightfully secured by such works as David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, and A Tale of Two Cities, but it is with A Christmas Carol that Dickens is regularly remembered by the Western world. Dickens loved to travel and give dramatic readings from his work, and this penchant contributed to the immediate popularity of this magnificent seasonal tale, which he performed regularly for 20 years. Often lost among Christmas celebrations is the influence that A Christmas Carol has had in shaping the way we make merry and exchange cards and gifts… In the course of this annual event we've been treated to a number of first rate actors' interpretations of Ebenezer Scrooge. All the more reason to go see Richard Risso's performance which, in my estimation, is the finest of all. What makes Risso's Scrooge so convincing is his ability to let us see the hurt child within himself that led to his irascible, scornful behavior. Later, when Scrooge undergoes his transformation, it is the release of his suppressed boyishness that convinces us he has changed. It makes me wonder why we don't remember Scrooge as the man transformed, not the way he was. From The Nutcracker— If ever there were a holiday ritual meant to exalt the delights and dreams of children, The Nutcracker ballet is it. Since it was first performed in St. Petersburg, Russia in December of 1892, to Tchaikovsky's fanciful Suite, The Nutcracker has become one of the foremost money-makers for ballet companies world-wide, to a large degree underwriting much of their other work. The ballet first came to the United States in 1940, and though it took a while to catch on, it has established itself with a vengeance, as evidenced by the variety of productions performed along the Front Range each holiday season. From The Civil War— No event in U.S. history has had a more profound and deeper effect than the Civil War, and the repercussions are still with us today. Witness the controversy over the Confederate flag in South Carolina, Mississippi, and elsewhere, the institutional racism still plaguing our schools and courts, and the far reach of the industrial behemoth that was largely solidified during this period. Yet, most Americans have very little understanding of these forces and how they continue to buffet us on a daily basis. This lack of clarity led Broadway composer and record company executive Frank Wildhorn to write this piece, The Civil War, The Broadway Musical, for his son. And though it started out as an educational exercise, it quickly joined Wildhorn's other two current successes, Jekyll and Hyde and The Scarlet Pimpernel, on Broadway… The entire cast is filled with splendid voices. And while some of the choreography falls a bit flat, the overall impact of the piece is not only very moving, but offers a number of insights into The Civil War and its echo throughout our history. As composer Wildhorn had hoped, this production goes a long ways toward healing the most fractious event in national history. From Die Fledermaus— Opera has the deserved reputation of being a presentational form, produced in a long-favored style where the focus was on the singing, with acting and stage direction kept to a minimum. This habit, thankfully, is not only no longer being fostered, but moreover, it is being destroyed with a vengeance. While Opera Colorado has, due to the in-the-round strictures of Boettcher Concert Hall, been forced, up until this year, to fortify the dramatic elements of its productions, it is now Central City Opera's turn to show its theatrical flair. In it's current production of Johann Strauss, Jr.'s Die Fledermaus, director David Gately has orchestrated one of the funniest, most delightful productions I've ever seen, in the opera or theatre. At its debut, Strauss' Die Fledermaus shocked conservative Viennese critics with its frivolity, wit, and contemporary dances, exactly the qualities that make it so popular. The story revolves around a disenchanted married couple that end up, unbeknownst to each other, attending the same ball in disguise. The action is filled with physical comedy, mistaken identities, impeccable timing, hyperbolic accents, clever schtick, and very inventive hilarity. From Other People's Money— Since it's introduction, money has always stirred strong human emotions. "Show me the money." "Money doesn't talk it swears." "Money Can't Buy Me Love." "Thou cannot serve both God and mammon." "If you have money you are of the elect." It's easy to see very quickly that talking about money is like discussing politics and religion. It stirs the gut and kindles passion. Money can humble spiritual philosophies, just as the Industrial Revolution did to Christianity. What place do the money lenders have in the temple, or the temple of democracy for that matter? Such are the questions that arise out of Cat & Mouse Productions' presentation of Other People's Money. In purely economic terms, Other People's Money is about the abstraction of value into purely numeric terms, equating right thinking and so-called economic progress. In this atmosphere, quality of life is something you can buy. Does this remind you of some place you've been? From Kingdom— Walt Disney was a curious storyteller who turned a talking mouse and detailed animation into a major studio and a theme park. In Walt's wake, however, the quality of the Disney product suffered, caught in the miasma of Norman Rockwell's America. After years of declining profitability, Michael Eisner took over and the next thing you know there are magical kingdoms popping up in Paris and Tokyo to mixed reviews by the locals. In the Denver Center Theatre Company's world premiere of Richard Hellesen's Kingdom, we are brought inside the corporate headquarters of a similar entertainment company that, coincidentally, started in an orange grove and ended up bumping into the sprawl it had created in the first place… If this were just a play about the greed and cynicism of the Disney Company, we could shake our heads, "tut, tut," and go on, but Kingdom is an indictment of a whole culture that feeds the acceptance of this type of behavior and the homogenization of diversity. From The Lady from Dubuque— Hunger Artists Ensemble Theatre opened it's season last Saturday night with The Lady From Dubuque, three-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Edward Albee's drama on dying and loss. The Lady From Dubuque herself is a sophisticated guest that arrives at the home of a young couple to aid in the wife's transition as she dies from a terminal disease. Why is this lady from Dubuque of all places? As industrialization seems to produce estrangement from natural cycles, including Life and Death, apparently Albee suggests an Angel from the farm country, for surely Iowa is the heart of what was agrarian America, would be best suited to represent this everyday force. The intrusion of this perfect stranger from Dubuque into the lives of the young woman, Jo, her husband, Sam, and their friends, throws the group into an uproar. Is she Jo's mother? Her husband says she's not, but their friends are charmed and let her ease Jo's pain. Does it matter if Jo is her mother at all? Or can spiritual midwives, like hospice volunteers, substitute for family? From The History of the Devil— Speaking of those who abuse the deity for their own angry and selfish reasons, who is it that they blame for everything they disagree with? Why the Devil, of course! Kind of makes you wonder what this entity did to deserve all this abuse, especially when so many have used the name of God to perpetrate daily atrocities worse than his. In The Lida Projects' opening production of the season, The History of the Devil, we get to attend the trial of the so-called fallen angel himself who has sued to be returned to heaven. All this makes perfect sense if you consider that the dark one is no more separate from The All and The Everything any more than anything else in the universe, so why shouldn't he be reconciled with his parent? Well, for one thing, those who blame the Devil (as "other") for their own misbehavior, rather than accepting responsibility for their own shadow, find it in their self interest to get a guilty verdict pinned on Lucifer—all because he has the tough job of testing our worthiness at every turn. And when we turn away from a loving response and violate others and ourselves, the Devil makes a easy mark for our blame because it was his test that we failed… While playwright Clive Barker's drama has it's persuasive points, especially that Hate is what creates Hell and that while God forgives us it's people that don't, there are a number of theological loose ends that leave us wanting for a more holistic cosmology that would help us overcome our instinctive "self" orientation and help advance human spirituality. Nevertheless, History of the Devil provides great food for thought. From The Playboy of the Western World— One of the hardest dialects (in the theatre) to simulate consistently is Irish, but when it's done well the payoff is handsome. The tonal beauty, vivid expressions, and melodic patterns are a joy to hear. So, the Upstart Crow's production of The Playboy of the Western World held particular interest for me because the playwright, John Millington Synge has a reverential ear for the richness the Irish bring to our language. In 1907, Synge wrote, "In Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender; so that those of us who wish to write start with a chance that is not given to writers in places where the springtime of the local life has been forgotten, and the harvest is a memory only, and the straw has been turned into bricks." From The Beauty Queen of Leenane— What is it about the Irish dialect that has produced so many great poets and lyricists? Is it its Gaelic roots? Perhaps it's the climate that produces the lilt that makes every conversation a song? Could it even be the wee people? Regardless, when a new Irish writer comes along, folks flock to hear his or her work, in the hope that the next Yeats, Joyce, Shaw or Wilde is at hand. From Spunk— Smokebrush Theater's production of Spunk, now playing at Eulipions, is based on three short stories of Zora Neale Hurston adapted by George C. Wolfe (author of The Colored Museum and Tony Award winning Jelly's Last Jam, and currently Artistic Director of Joseph Papp's New York Shakepeare Festival). Zora Neale Hurston, born to a family of sharecroppers in 1891, family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black town in America... Later, during the Harlem Renaissance, she began collecting Southern black folklore, for which she was criticized by other black writers because she remained faithful to the dialect in which they were recounted to her. From The Cripple of Inishmaan— Perhaps no other breed of writers are as scrutinized as the Irish. Writing is, after all their pastime in the way that painting is French. No doubt, Sheridan, Shaw, Wilde, Joyce and Yeats have had something to do with this perspective. To these immortals you can add J.M. Synge (Playboy of the Western World), Brian Friel (Dancing at Lughnasa), and Sean O'Casey (Juno and the Paycock) as evidence of a surfeit of linguistic wealth from one island. The latest Irish wunderkind, playwright Martin McDonagh, is now being evaluated for his worthiness to be mentioned in the same breath. Not but two years ago, at the tender age of 28, McDonagh's breakthrough work, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, was the toast of London and New York. It seems, though, that McDonagh's unadorned honesty has prodded a few critics to reconsider whether the bestowal of the laurel wreath was perhaps premature. Despite whatever doubts may have arisen in snobbish quarters due to his razor-edged tongue, McDonagh's gifts continue to exhibit themselves. His latest effort to reach us, The Cripple of Inishmaan, which opened last week at the Denver Center, is a story filled with jolting surprises, sweet lyricism, and memorable characters. From The Playboy of the Western World— Tir Ná nÓg's current production is J.M. Synge's classic The Playboy of the Western World, a tale rooted in the thick Gaelic lilt of the Aran Islands. Gaelic enjoys the distinction of being a non-Indo-European language, and to this derivation we must attribute its magical and foreign nature. Like so much of the great Irish storytelling, this piece basks in hyperbole and understatement, pulling at us with stark realism and pushing us with elfish mirth… Director Martin McGovern has assembled a convincingly ethnic and charming cast. In fact, the only drawback to the production is the authentic thick brogue that everyone uses but O'Neill, who flavors his speech so as to remain understandable. It might be noted here that theatre dialect is at its best when it is representational, not verité, and though this is an Irish Theatre company, the audience is not comprised of Aran islanders. Sadly, significant moments of the story were unintelligible to much of the audience, taking the edge off a number of excellent performances and some of the most musical and rich language ever written for the stage. From The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde— It was also disturbing that in it's present staging Dr. Henry Jekyll's obsession with his animal nature becomes, instead, an obsession with the drug that acts as a catalyst to the Edward Hyde within him. Jekyll becomes a caricature of a poster boy for the D.A.R.E. campaign, prancing about the stage, poking himself with a syringe in any available appendage. Rather than seizing the opportunity for making Jekyll & Hyde a metaphor for man's struggle with his shadow, this production instead leaves us stuck in Victorian limbo, abandoned at the altar, much as Jekyll's betrothed. From Buried Child— If there's a contemporary American playwright better than Sam Shepard at exploring the ramifications of the loss of love and the resulting obsessions on mind and family, I haven't seen him or her. City Stage Ensemble's current production of Shepard's Buried Child, directed by Laura Cuetara finds the rhythm and sense of a repressed secret's dramatic march through and decimation of a family. Although this family's crimes are horrific, many "normal" families have near-equally devastating suppressed memories of "buried children". From Misalliance— Ostensibly, it is the story of a dull bourgeois English family whose wealth is accumulated by the father in the business of underwear, just prior to the first world war...that is until a light plane falls into their greenhouse. But below the surface, Shaw's inspired honesty concerning the family and the raising of children is anything but dull. Freedom to learn and develop according to one's own soul may be the basis for his point of view, but his illustration of this point is a wild tale of people raised in anything but such an atmosphere. As Shaw said, "All great truths begin with blasphemies," and I'd have to agree with him. For example, what gets passed off on a day-to-day basis as normal, say, having to do with church and state, in general has very little to do with spirituality and democracy. So, in particular, Misalliance is Shaw's take on the relationship between parents and children. Indeed, Shaw prefaced this work, as is his norm, with a lengthy essay, this one entitled "Parents and Children". To quote Shaw again, "The right to knowledge must be regarded as a fundamental human right." Yet this is not the way Shaw perceives that most of us bring up our children. "There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children," Shaw quipped, "but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst." Overall, the idea of producing one of Shaw's parlor pieces in the round works well as a metaphor for the playwright's all-encompassing intellect and unpredictable plot. Again, Shaw writes, "Moliere's technique and mine is the technique of the circus with its ring-master discussing all the topics of the day with the clown. It is however, sometimes difficult on the audience, as the vocalizations rotate forward, backward and to the sides. From Dearly Departed— Have you noticed that the phrases "dysfunctional family" and "dysfunctional behavior" have fallen out of use lately? Certainly this can't be attributed to any decline in the incidence of deplorable or simply clueless behavior. No, rather we don't use the term "dysfunctional family" anymore because what we associate with this type of behavior has become so commonplace. Perhaps this epidemic of spiritual and cultural poverty is partially a result of industrialization itself. Thirty years ago, Marshall McLuhan commented that what was once considered eccentric in small town America becomes dangerous when transferred to the fast lane of urban society. That is part of what is so refreshing about the reprise of the Avenue Theatre's 1992 hit Dearly Departed. Starring many of the original cast members, Dearly Departed transports us back to the rural South, where local characters grow like topsy, posing no threat to anyone but themselves and the emotional lives of their acquaintances. From Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?— When Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was first produced in 1962, the country was scandalized by the raw language and behavior of the characters. Despite its critical acclaim and the commercial success of the play on Broadway, the Pulitzer committee refused to honor the playwright (though it did so for four other plays, a few of which pale beside this one). Now in production by Shadow Theatre Company, Denver's resident African-American theatre company, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? reveals that behind all the surface fireworks, it's really a play about humankind's incredible capacity for self-deception. From Fakulty Frolix— Now that school's out for the summer, there are lots of kids celebrating their disengagement from, how shall we put it, less than inspirational educational relationships. After our parents, our teachers often end up being the most influential people in our lives, for better or for worse. In the case of the professors we encounter in Germinal Stage Denver's Fakulty Frolix, a collection of three one acts, these are decidedly not pedagogical role models, yet they are unfortunately all too familiar. In his customary cerebral manner, Director Ed Baierlein has woven together characters from Anton Chekhov's On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, Maria Irene Fornes' Dr. Kheal, and Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson into a cohesive, if surreal, triptych that depicts the psychological menagerie at play behind what passes for instruction… At a time when education has become increasingly ineffective in teaching our children personal and interpersonal skills, Germinal Stage's three one acts go a long way toward illuminating the skewed values that lie at the heart of this male-dominated tenure system. From One Foot on the Floor— We all know a farce when we see one, but describing the essential ingredients are another matter. The French seem to be particularly adept at this art form, and to a lesser degree, the English. Occasionally, even American playwrights are successful at it. For my own part, the recipe seems to take shape starting from some very simple little white lies, and through the compounding coincidences of time and place, creating some very compromising, embarrassing, and down right hilarious situations. We laugh not just because it's funny, but because it's often at the expense of some less than sympathetic character. From Moon Over Buffalo— Farce often relies on a number of techniques, including physical comedy, mistaken identity, and multiple door sets to create juxtapositions of characters that cause preposterous (and hopefully hilarious) situations to develop. To be sure, devices of one sort or another are a common modus operandi for even the greats. How many times did Shakespeare use the ruse of identical twins? "The Fifties—Emergence of the Empire From Night of the Iguana— The '50's were a time of The Organization Man. There was a formula for material success, as well as a prescription for spiritual deliverance. In the wake of World War Two and the apparent defeat of fascism, God was smiling down upon us. Or was he grimacing? Alcoholism, abuse and bigotry were rampant, and Tennessee Williams was in the cat bird's seat to tell us all about it. "The Night of the Iguana," Williams later reflected, "is a play whose theme, as closely as I can put it, is how to live beyond despair and still live." In his final masterpiece before taking up seriously with the bottle, Williams plays out his generation's repressive sexual and religious practices in a run-down motel somewhere South of the Border. From How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying— Americans in the Fifties were people that took themselves very seriously. The economic miracle that grew out of the industrial and military successes of World War Two gathered a certain giddy arrogance from its indulgences. The Vietnam War was nowhere in sight, and Brown v. The Board of Education had only begun to desegregate the nation's schools. Enter J. Pierpont Finch, a young man with a plan. Though only a lowly window washer, he is armed with the determination of Horatio Alger, the scruples of Billy Sol Estes, and a secret weapon: a little book entitled How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. How to Succeed, the Broadway revival of Frank Loesser's How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, is an updated and still satiric look at the rigid, often arbitrary, and sometimes downright silly practices of modern corporate life. From Orpheus Descending— Though spread out over three acts, William's Orpheus Descending is a very coherent and focused portrait of the ravenous passions of the mid-fifties Southern culture. Repressed sexual tensions, limited economic opportunities, and religious hypocrisy all contribute to self-hatred that finds expression in racism. From Laughter on the 23rd Floor— As if the collective hangover from World War II and the Holocaust wasn't enough, the '50's ran smack into the Korean War and Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities—the pot calling the kettle black; A communist witch hunt...Finding Satan under every rock—a very interesting psychological phenomena otherwise called projection. Admiring this successful political tactic, Richard Nixon made his way to the top with foils Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs... The '50's were also a time when creativity flourished on live television, until corporate sponsors, with the help of Congress and the commercial networks, removed art and social criticism from the airwaves, "dumbing it down" as it were. Today, it seems, very few Americans have any idea what they're missing. From Our Town— RiverTree Theatre's Our Town, directed by Mary Chandler, takes playwright Thornton Wilder's own description of the play to heart—it takes place on a nearly bare stage with the simplest of props—and accomplishes what Wilder says it sets out to do: "It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life." Wilder does this by giving us the everyday folk of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, doing what is their habit each day, between 1901 and 1913. That is, the unthinking routines of our lives that remove us from the significance of each and every moment—for what we really have to spend in this life is not money, but time: A well chosen thought for this season. From Picnic— On the surface the '50's may have been a time of order and moral certainty in America, but beneath this repressive facade lay all sorts of smoldering passions and dark secrets. In the midst of this tug-of-war William Inge carved out his fame with his Oscar winning screenplay Splendor in the Grass and his Pulitzer Prize winning play Picnic. Picnic, now in production at the Arvada Center, is a day in the life of a small town that, at first glance, might have appeared right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Everything seems aright when we first meet these Kansans, that is, until a handsome drifter shows up on the eve of a Labor Day celebration. From Bye, Bye, Birdie— There probably was no greater schism between generations than that which began in the late '50's, lasted through the '60's, and drew to a close in the early '70's. Every would-be social philosopher of that era has a theory about what caused this cultural battle: people who believe in beating their children blame it on the so-called permissiveness that they identify with the teachings of Dr. Benjamin Spock; others point toward the Vietnam War or marijuana as the culprit; on the younger side of the fence, fingers are pointed at the hypocrisy and materialism of the generation running the show. But one thing each side can agree upon, the difference between the generations at that time is clearly defined by music. From the time that Elvis Presley began to turn on white people to his imitation of black music, the line was drawn in the sand. When Elvis was drafted into the army, Elvis' handlers did their best to make good thing out of what threatened to be a dent in their commercial approach to cultural transformation. The musical Bye, Bye, Birdie, now in production at the Littleton Town Hall Arts Center, is based on that event. From Grease— Ruminating about the "good old days" seems to be a habit of those who are dissatisfied with the present, wary of the future, and blind to the past. Take the '50's for example, which often seem to be held up as some kind of tidy, well-mannered period. As long as one turns a blind eye and deaf ear to racism, chauvinism, the Cold War, nuclear testing, suppressed emotions of every variety, and denial, then sure, the '50's were great. The best thing about the '50's is making fun now of what went on then. Recently, we've seen a couple of pieces that did this very well, i.e., Bye, Bye Birdie and That's Still Too Loud. Following this groove, Country Dinner Playhouse has just opened Grease, which did so well on Broadway and the silver screen in the '70's. As to be expected, the Playhouses' talented cast enjoy every minute of sock hops, slumber parties, pomade, teased hair, leather jackets, and juvenile delinquency. Grease, though, has an edge. Unnecessary ethnic bashing remain in the scrip, and ultimately, what was once a satire about adolescent excesses now cuts very close to home as we now see the results of unchecked high school caste systems which lead to psychological battering and violence. Like many American musicals, Grease is in need of a re-write if it's going to mine the humor in its subject matter and present a less mean-spirited view of growing up. After all, the play never purports to be much in the way of serious social commentary, just light-hearted after dinner entertainment. From The Young Man from Atlanta— Harrison Foote is undoubtedly one of America's least known most decorated playwrights. He has won two Oscars for his screenplays for Tender Mercies and To Kill A Mockingbird. His The Trip to Bountiful was produced for television, theatre and cinema. And there are many, many more. Presently, his 1995 Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Young Man from Atlanta is in production at the Arvada Center. In his notes to the play, director Terry Dodd compares Foote's work to painters Edward Hopper and Grant Wood where, beneath seemingly straightforward simplicity, lie volumes of emotional subtext. And that is the key to this production. Featuring William Denis, a current member of the Denver Center Theatre Company's Tony Award-winning ensemble, as Will Kidder, Dodd's production easily sends us back to the repressed '50's, where everything seems so tidy, composed, and civilized on the surface, belying an emotional cauldron boiling just beneath the surface. Denis' performance as Will is powerful, all about the old school of Horatio Alger, a handshake, a man's word, and free enterprise ("…There's no stoppin' a man with vision and competitiveness," he says)…that is, until the company for which he has worked for forty years lets him go. Then his failing health and the unspoken emotional repercussions of his adult son's death begin to catch up to him. Sandra Lafferty as his wife, Lily Dale, is the epitomy of the sheltered housewife of the era, stiffled by the social mores of the times and the South Texas locale. Joey Wishnia, as Pete, Lily Dale's stepfather, draws a convincing portrait of the genial elder statesman of the family. The supporting ensemble work from Mark Devine, Julie Payne, David Russell, Debbie Lee, Jordan Gurner and Ruthay is all excellent. Ultimately, though, Foote's play is about the consequences of refusing to express one's feelings in the present and running away from the truth. The deep seated racial divisions that are evident in the Kidder's treatment of their hired help, and their refusal to deal with the truth about their son's relationships or even facing the changing economic times, eventually come back to them in a way they can't ignore. Here, Foote's remarkable ability to find redemption in everyday life leaves room for his characters and the audience to find their own way home. From The Common Pursuit— British playwright Simon Gray, though not particularly well known in this country, has written a number of cultured, emotionally resonant pieces including the West End and Broadway hits Butley, Otherwise Engaged, and Quartermaine's Terms... As the years go by and the cracks and flaws begin to show in these characters—the "best and brightest"—it is the palpable caring between such friends that gives The Common Pursuit meaning and sustenance. While the words are exceedingly well chosen, what matters more is how they are spoken, and in this case the shadings of tone and inflection are remarkable.
Fundamentalism and Religious Intolerance From Inherit the Wind— Intolerance towards the opinions or beliefs of others has been a central theme of human history. In an attempt to free us from the tyranny of those who would impose their views on the rest of us, the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States attempted to legislate the freedom to think, speak, and teach as we so choose. This intent, however, has not prevented those convinced of their righteousness from attempting to limit such individualistic expression. Inherit the Wind, now running at the Arvada Center, is the story of just such an attempt. Based on the famous Scopes Monkey Trial that took place in Tennessee in 1925, Inherit the Wind tells the tale of a young schoolteacher who dares to introduce his high school science class to the teachings of Charles Darwin. This act runs counter to the laws of state, and sets in motion a trial pitting the literal interpreters of the English translation of Genesis against the discoveries of modern empiricism. From Galileo— Humankind has walked on the moon, the space shuttle regularly leaves the atmosphere, and a semi-permanent space station orbits the earth; we receive visual transmissions from satellites at the far reaches of our solar system, and our probes have landed on Mars and Venus and beyond. All of these achievements are traceable, one way or another, to a revolution that began with Copernicus and Galileo. But while today we may find it an annoyance that Patrick Buchanan and his dim-witted ilk can't reconcile scientific discovery with spiritual amazement, in Galileo's time the belief that the earth traveled around the sun was punishable by death. Denver Center Theatre Company's current production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo explores the great scientist's passion for inquiry, his exaltation in life's pleasures, and his spiritual strength in the face of the dogmatic ignorance and the cynical worldview of the religious authorities of his day. Set in the company's Space Theatre on a slightly domed, rotating stage amidst planets and arcs designed to simulate an armillary, that is, a mechanical model of the solar system, Galileo celebrates the wonderment of our incredible universe and the joys of asking questions. Initially written by Brecht after his flight from Nazi Germany, and updated after the splitting of the atom and Brecht's own questioning before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Galileo also exposes the double edged repercussions of science and the dark impulses of political and religious intolerance. From Reading the Mind of God— Reading The Mind of God captures the relationship between Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, scientific pioneers whose work help lay the foundation for Newton. Much like Brecht's Galileo, which we saw last season at the Denver Center, the forces of darkness are represented by greed, egotism, ignorance, and the inflexible doctrines of the Church which, as it turns out, are only peripherally related to the teachings of Jesus. Brahe spends his life amassing the greatest collection of star observations on earth, and is reluctant to share the results with Kepler, who is a genius astronomer and physicist. On his deathbed however, Brahe relents and Kepler, with the help of Brahe's calculations, eventually reads the mind of God, that is, discovers the elegant equations which represent the motion of the stars and planets. Under the deft direction of Greg Ward, Douglas O'Brien as the bombastic Brahe and Brian Freeland as the inspired Kepler magically reinvent this stormy and earth shattering relationship that irretrievably led to the proof that Copernicus was right—the sun, indeed, is at the center of our solar system (which by the way the Church recognized formally about 15 years ago). From Dancing at Lughnasa— But the trials of the family—one sister is retarded, one has a love child (that's Michael), and two lose their jobs—take place against a much larger picture of economic deprivation and the narrow moral latitude of the Roman Catholic Church. The few pleasures that the sisters have—listening to the radio, dancing, partaking in the annual harvest festival (la Lughnasa, an ancient Celtic rite)—are dampened by the overriding so-called religious strictures imposed by the oldest sister Kate, a school teacher and the principal breadwinner. This is further complicated when the girls' long lost uncle, Jack, a one-time Catholic missionary turned native in Uganda, shows up, horrifying Kate and the locals at what they term his "paganism". Whether it's the intermittent and short-lived music of the radio, the nearly forbidden dances and harvest festival, or the exuberance of Jack describing tribal rites, all these passions fall victim to the harsh realities of the social forces of the day. From Eye of God— Playwright Tim Blake Nelson's approach, to what is turning out to be a common scenario of violence mixed with religious fanaticism, traps us within a story that collapses upon itself, mixing time sequences until we anticipate, but can't prevent, the events that unfold before us… Joel Stangle as Tom Spencer, the ex-con who has found Jesus, is convincing as both a contrite murderer and violent bible thumper. (Interestingly, this week a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes documents the behavioral ties in the Conservative Christian movement to violence. How these people get away with calling themselves Christians only goes to show us how forsaken the teachings of love and tolerance have become.) From The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde— At the time that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his second major novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in 1886, psychology was a relatively simplistic new social science and morality was decidedly black and white. One hundred and fourteen years later, it seems, not much has changed. The Broadway road show of Jekyll & Hyde, which opened Tuesday night at the Buell Theatre, spotlights the polarized life of a promising young London doctor who, in his quest to extricate the instinctive so-called "evil" element from humans becomes the epitome of it himself. If this sounds a bit melodramatic, your right, it's a sign of both when it was written and its author's style. From Shakespeare's R & J— One of the sure signs of great playwrighting is that adaptations of the work add to the relevancy and understanding of the message. A good example of this was the Director Ed Baierlein's production of Tennessee William's Suddenly Last Summer performed as Japanese Noh Theatre last fall at the Germinal Stage Denver. This is not unlike the re-interpretation of great compositions that goes on constantly in jazz. In the theatre, no playwright is adapted and re-interpreted as much as Shakespeare. After 400 years, this compliment speaks for itself. One of the most heavily adapted plays by the great bard is Romeo and Juliet. At the time it was first performed, it was revolutionary to place romantic love above the social conventions of duty to family and arranged marriages. The Theatre on Broadway's current re-staging of Shakespeare's R & J is no less revolutionary today. Shakepeare's R & J, which had a successful run in New York a couple of years ago, begins in a Catholic boarding school with four young men who take respite from the oppressive regimentation and authoritarianism imposed upon them by spending their evenings rehearsing Romeo and Juliet. Finally, one evening, they doff their ties and school sweaters and perform the entire play. As the play progresses, it becomes clear that the relationship between the two young men playing Romeo and Juliet is not just play acting, but their heartfelt real life affection for each other. At first this is more than the other two players can tolerate and, much like the Montagues and the Capulets of the story or, for that matter, society in general, they seek to separate and shame the pair. But love is love, whether it's between opposite sexes, the same sexes, and all the variations in-between under the sun. That this production is able to transcend these issues, and make us see that love, not sexuality, is the issue, is a tribute to the astute direction of Nicholas Sugar, the fine work of the cast, and the playwright's astute vision. From Executive of Justice— While the trial of those accused of murdering Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, remains to be played out, a dramatic re-enactment of another even higher profile hate crime against gays and their supporters is now in production at the Theatre on Broadway. In 1975 San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White, a former Supervisor himself. Emily Mann's Execution of Justice, details the trial of White, and the aftermath following the verdict. Directed by Chip Walton, who won the Denver Drama Critics Award for Best Director two years ago for Angels in America, the play is an explosive revisitation of the shocking bigotry exhibited by the courts and police force of San Francisco before the city's transition to the somewhat kinder, gentler politics we know it for today. The well matched ensemble keeps a roaring pace, underscoring the urgency of the events and the feverish emotions that polarized the Bay Area, and Walton's imaginative use of video equipment and exemplary direction adds to the charged atmosphere of the piece. If the trials of the '90's haven't convinced you that the legal and political systems in America still have more to do with manipulation, money, and prejudice than with justice, then the experience of the Theatre Group's Execution of Justice will surely raise your concerns. From The Laramie Project— At the very time that the Colorado legislature attempts to pass a law banning gay marriages, as if by doing so they could legislate who their deity favors in this life, the Denver Center Theatre Company has opened the world premiere of Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project, based on the hate-crime/murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. The play is a result of a remarkable project undertaken by the Tectonic Theatre Project of New York, the same group, under the artistic direction of Moisés Kaufman, that developed Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, which was so popular that the Denver Center ran it both this season and last, helping make it the third most produced play in the country last year. The Tectonic Theatre Project made six trips to Laramie, the first in November, 1998, just four weeks after Shepard was brutally murdered by two locals, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. During their visits, the writers and actors on this project conducted over 200 interviews with the citizens of Laramie, including police officers, medical technicians, clergy, ranchers, the university community, and friends and acquaintances of Matthew Shepard. The result is a compelling three act performance and docu-drama as told through the hearts and minds of the Laramie community. Each of the eight actors recounts their experiences and feelings, and those of their co-workers, as a set-up for their re-creations of the stories told them by folks they met there. In doing so, they tell this tragic and, yes, inspirational story in a way that the so-called journalists who converged on Laramie could not. While the news media attempted to point fingers at Laramie as a hateful place for being the site of such an abhorrent event, the production makes it clear that Laramie was as shocked by the event as the rest of the world, a world in which such incidents are entirely too common everywhere. The Laramie Project not only captures more truth about the life and death of Matthew Shepard than the international press corps were able to do, but it does so with greater objectivity, using the words of those who live there and lived through it. Presented on a bare stage not unlike the workshops in which the piece was developed, with articles of clothing, video cameras, microphones and monitors as props, the ensemble of the Tectonic Theatre Project brings the people of Laramie alive in the intimate setting of the Ricketson Theatre. The dignity with which the town dealt with its tribulation and the courage and compassion extended by the Shepard family makes The Laramie Project a story that deserves to be retold as widely as the broadcasts that originally depicted the events which it recreates. From The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde— One hundred and four years ago, a kangaroo court posing as a series of trials took place in London, the result of which was the imprisonment of one of the most brilliant writers in the history of the English language—Oscar Wilde. Wilde's so-called crime was the fact that he was born gay in a society that had no means of understanding his make-up other than a series of prejudices based on pseudo-spiritual beliefs and civil laws that supported the institutionalization of this bigotry and hatred. This is, of course, nothing new. Two weeks ago we reviewed Execution of Justice, which is the story of the assassination of San Francisco Board of Supervisors' member Harvey Milk. Milk's murderer escaped with a handslap for the same sorry reasons detractors got away with this charade. As we speak, there's a murder trial in progress in Wyoming for a similar crime. And just last week here in Denver, the principal of Palmer High School in Colorado Springs turned down a student request for a gay club at the school with the pitiful excuse that if he approved their club, then he would also have to recognize devil worshipers, white supremacists and hate groups. Hmm. Seems to me those groups must already control the school district, not to mention our Colorado legislature. Last week, a panel of Senate Republicans killed a bill that would have recognized gay marriages. All of this is by way of saying that the Denver Center Theatre Company's production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, is as relevant today as it ever was. From Beirut— While the pace of the AIDS epidemic may have slowed in America, worldwide incidence, particularly in the Third World, continues to take victims at ever-increasing rate. Meanwhile, so-called moralists and pseudo-Christians continue to stymie efforts to distribute literature and condoms abroad. Amidst this atmosphere, fifteen years after it was first written, Alan Bowne's Beirut still captures the essence of fear surrounding this plague. From The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me— What does it take for society to drop its prejudices and live up to the spiritual and ethical practices promulgated by groups claiming to be religions and spiritual? Consider the dedication and organization it took to get women the vote in this country: It's not hard to imagine the excuses cooked up by those who, in ignorance of the manner in which the Bible was developed, opposed equal rights for women. Then there was slavery and institutional racism—how many years did this and has this gone on? More recently, there was Earth Day. Do you remember what the original celebrants were called? Communists! Now, it's a corporate sponsored event. So where are we with gay rights? We still have the Bible thumpers clinging to the prejudices of the words of strict tribal survivalists, electing representatives who are more than happy to spread this bigotry in the name of, of all things, Jesus, in trade for a vote and of course a few buck to line their pockets. Depending on the time in history you choose, try to imagine what it was and is like growing up female or black or environmentally conscious or now gay. If you don't get it, the Theatre on Broadway's current production of the New York hit The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me will help. It's not so much different than growing up straight, except that you are at home somewhere else on the genetic-psychological-emotional spectrum. This raises a lot of problems in a world where you can be persecuted for being born this way. From Red, White and Tuna— Texans are, of course, known for their love of guns and religious adherence to interpreting the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as guaranteeing the right of each citizen to possess more firepower than George Washington's original Continental Army. In Tuna, Texas, these needs are taken care of by Didi Snavely, the proprietress of Didi's Used Weapons, who dispenses sawed off Uzi's to any life form with a pulse. Didi's mangy hairdoo and camouflage patterned plastic raincoat serve as the perfect springboard for actor William's hyperactive, trigger-happy, nicotine addicted viper… Into this hot bed of Bible Belt conservatism drive Amber Wind-Chime and Star Bird-Feather, two former Tuna residents who changed their names in the early '70's to reflect their new values. How these vegetarian hippies fare in para-military barbecue country is anyone's guess. It should come as no surprise that Texan's are humor-challenged given the unbearable heat and humidity, fatty diets, scorpions, intellectually-deprived politicians, declining football teams, and lingering embarrassment over the Alamo that they must put up with. Thank goodness that Sears, Williams, and Howard know how to mine this treasure trove of dysfunction. While some of the pot shots miss the mark, and there are some dropped lines, there are plenty of zingers that will make your chaps flap. From Kindertransport— There have been many holocausts, but in our recorded history none so vast, coldly efficient and thoroughly documented as the one perpetrated by the Nazis. If one can place any value on such monumental acts of depravity, perhaps it is that by remembering them we can hope to learn lessons that will prevent any recurrence. Since my own family was touched by this terror, I've made an effort to come to grips with it through books, films, theatre, discussions and simple meditations. Much of the popular work on the holocaust deals very directly with the exterminations themselves, and the end of Jewish cultural life in Eastern Europe. Now, fifty-one years after the liberation of the camps, perhaps it is time to try to understand what happened to those who managed to live through it. From Good— How do good people end up doing bad things? I suppose when they make little rationalizations, one after the other, until they are so far along they can no longer stop. Hunger Artists Ensemble Theatre's current production, Good, is the tale of such a man. John Halder is a professor at a German university before The Third Reich takes over. His best friend is a Jew and his psychiatrist, yet he seduces himself into joining the Nazi party. C.P. Taylor, the gifted English playwright (And A Nightengale Sang and scores more), and a Jew as well, has crafted a masterpiece that is at once frightening and comedic. The play is filled with musical and physical comedy, and immense tragedy. How can this be? We need look no further than Bill Cosby's stand-up performances last week after the death of his son—laughter in the face of the void. Jeremy Cole, one of our most talented local directors, fluently blends a gifted cast led by Curt Pesika as Professor Halder. Pesika masters the soggy reasoning that allows nations to blind themselves to the terror they inflict on others. This play is not obviously just about one particular holocaust, lest we forget the world's deaf ear to Tibet, Somalia, the Amazon, Bosnia, or your backyard. You name it. From Nine Armenians— During World War I the Armenian people were nearly annihilated by the Turks. Millions died in a variety of insidious ways. Later half of what remained of Armenia was swallowed by Russia. Nine Armenians, just opened at the Denver Center Theatre Company, is the story of three generations of an Armenian family that fled this genocide and settled and prospered in America. As with all real life tragedies of this sort, those that survive are haunted by the experience, and struggle to gain any understanding from it. Playwright Leslie Ayvazian captures a family life that is both natural and representative of shared experience. From the elders to the grandchildren, the performances ellucidate the subtle transformations of immigration and assimilation, as well as the joys and pathos of the family. So, in addition to the play serving as a witness to the Armenian holocaust, it is also a celebration of Armenian culture. Like most cultures, family life centers around meals, and on opening night the press was given a gift of an Armenian cook book. It's easy to find the similarities with one's own culture, whatever it may be, in this family. It is also not much of a stretch to share Armenians' tragedy. From Cabaret— Mendes's desire to recreate the show with a gritty taste of pre-World War II Berlin dictated a number of interesting artistic choices, including using actors, not musical theatre denizens, for the song and dance numbers as well as for the Kit Kat Klub orchestra itself. The result is a natural, warts and all vision of a society about to collapse under the weight of a severely repressed national psyche, resulting in the most efficient death machine in history. From Corpus Christi— Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas in the 50's. It must have certainly been difficult for him as a man born gay in a town of macho football fanatics and other assorted roughnecks who deal savagely with anyone that doesn't fit into their narrow-minded vision of acceptable behavior. And all this in a place named after their professed savior. When McNally's play Corpus Christi opened in New York, Catholic organizations protested vehemently, and the theatre producing the piece received bomb threats. On top of this, the same Imam who placed a Fatwah on the head of Salman Rushdie for supposedly blaspheming Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses, issued a Fatwah on McNally for "blaspheming a prophet that is part of the Islamic heritage." I mean, does this sorry excuse for a religious teacher get the ironic hypocrisy of a professed believer in Jesus condemning someone to death. Who's casting the first stone here? All of this commotion is centered around McNally's retelling of the New Testament story with the interpretation of Jesus as a gay man growing up in Corpus Christi. Many of the critics and the audiences, however, found much spiritual and intellectual sustenance in the work. "Corpus Christi provides a frequently fascinating experience... It explores a quest for faith by a segment of the population—homosexuals—that has for centuries been excluded and condemned by the pious God-fearing." Eric Jackson, Time Out New York. "One of McNally's best, most moving and personal works...His updating of the Christ story is witty but not patronizing, as sober and cleansing as a dip in baptismal water." Richard Zoglin, Time. Of course, anyone who believes in the New Testament as the literal truth would be offended, because that point of view paints Jesus as a divine being, devoid of human frailties, in the context of eternal pronouncements made by desert patriarchs suffering from siege mentality. There is, however, ample evidence in The Essene Gospels which escaped the early editing of the Church authorities, that Jesus was, in fact, a human being who believed in love, both the divinely inspired and the humanly expressed versions. Whether or not he was straight, gay, bisexual, or non-sexual is beside the point. In the Theatre on Broadway's recently opened production of Corpus Christi, McNally's insightful choices of biblical text, which overlay the Texas-flavored setting, indicate that the playwright understands what many of his critics do not: that the Prince of Peace's message was first and foremost about love and acceptance. Director Steven Tangedal and his cohesive ensemble bring a natural and joyful affirmation to this message based on the same document that many currently use to preach intolerance toward those who don't fit in the their preconceived mold of sexual predisposition, social perspective, or racial stereotype. Charles Dean Packard's simple yet effective lighting and set design support the overall production objective of keeping the focus on the words and actions of a simple carpenter from a small town whose faith in the potential of the human soul forever changed our concept of spirituality. Playwright McNally's adventurous interpretation is a worthy challenge to all those who think they know what Jesus' life looked like, or would look like if he chose to reappear. Corpus Christi reminds us of the inherently radical approach Jesus expressed relative to the common beliefs of his time. No wonder the authorities of his day took offense, for their power and control was threatened by a teaching that challenged their cynical and greedy presumptions, all the while teaching its followers a new and simplified way to live and pray. As McNally's play reminds us and as the Roman version says, "Hold yourselves ready therefore for the Son of Man will come at a time you least expect," and I might add, "in a way you expect it not." From My Magdalene— A week ago, Good Friday, seemed like an appropriate time to take in the current production, My Magdalene, at the Nomad Theatre up in Boulder. As the title suggests, the play is a personal interpretation of the life and spiritual legacy of Mary Magdalene. Jane, a young married woman adrift in the late '60's and early '70's, has a near death experience as a result of an accident, which opens up access to the spiritual plane upon which Mary Magdalene dwells. Through this portal, Jane not only redeems this saint who has been so long disparaged by the church, but learns healing and meditative techniques from her. Although the research upon which this story is based is not accepted or understood by mainstream Christians, it is, nonetheless backed up by more evidence than the stories that got edited by the Romans and placed in The New Testament. In 600 AD, Pope Gregory pinned the label of penitent prostitute on Magdalene, though there are no references anywhere that confirm this. This position was reversed by the Catholic Church 1400 years later, in 1969. But The New Testament and The Essene Gospels, which have survived largely unedited, do tell us that it was Mary Magdalene that anointed Jesus. This would make her the high priestess from an esoteric tradition dating back from before The Flood. According to all four books of The New Testament, she was also the first to experience the risen Jesus and, according to the Essene text, written in the original Aramaic, she was not only first among the Apostles, but the beloved and partner of Jesus. These relationships are substantiated by the early Church texts of the Gnostics which were later abandoned by the patriarchal elements that won control of the Church. Be that as it may, the play itself stumbles in a number of areas while attempting to convey the significance of these historical events. First, the autobiographical basis of the story is never elevated to art, instead dwelling in the humdrum of the lives of the confused contemporary characters. Second, we can hardly believe that Jane's husband, Paul, would, as the son of a preacher and supporter of the Vietnam War, have been wearing long hair at this time. Third, the language of Mary, Jesus, and other ancient spiritualists is so stilted as to sap the interpersonal loving life out of them. Are we supposed to believe that these people spoke in the everyday tongue of Aramaic as if they were in the Court of King James? Fourth, there is entirely too much telling and not enough showing in the story line. And finally, the depiction of Jesus (whom they call Yeshua, which is close, but still not the proper Hebrew pronunciation of the man from Nazareth's name) comes off as the Anglo wonder bread version of the wide-eyed Semitic ascetic who revolutionized the foundation of Western religious tradition. From The Philanthropist— Philip is a philologist. He means what he says and says what he means. This makes him very vulnerable in a world where people's words and actions have little relationship to one another. From A Life in the Theatre— American playwright David Mamet (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, et al.) is a master of realistic (some might call it combative) dialogue, much of which he picks up from sitting in cafes and listening to the conversations around him. A prominent feature in Mamet's representation of dialogue is the discontinuity of our speech patterns, that is, how much we interrupt each other in our conversations and how this reflects our own lack of focus. The implications of this behavioral pattern are scary, particularly when seen in the context of George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, in which he posits that freedom is partially dependent upon vocabulary and conceptual diversity. Clearly, in contemporary society, the degradation of language through commercial intrusion, and the homogeneity of thought through mass media, makes us less insightful about our surroundings and easier to manipulate... One of the keys to successfully producing Mamet's plays is the exactitude of the timing exhibited by the actors as they work with the sentence fragments that the playwright metes out to them and cross-hatches with other characters. From Madama Butterfly— The philosophy of Manifest Destiny, that America has a God-given right to rule the Western hemisphere and any other place where the populace is perceived to be "less developed" than our own has been around since the early 19th Century. It led to the aggressive western march of Europeans across Native American land, the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican American War, and even the threat of war with Canada to secure the incredible expanse that makes up our current U.S. borders. This zealotry didn't stop when the ports of San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle had been secured. In 1853, with a show of American naval force, Admiral Matthew Perry began the process of opening Japan to trade with the Western powers. Following the Civil War and the industrialization that it stimulated, American expansion and so-called "gunboat diplomacy" continued in the Far East, with acquisition of the Philippines, and in the Caribbean, all following the Spanish-American War. This then, is the political setting underpinning to Giacomo Puccini's masterful opera, Madama Butterfly, Opera Colorado's winter production, which opened last Saturday. The turn-of-the-century story revolves around a geisha, Cio-Cio-San, who marries a visiting American naval officer, and the tragedy that results from his frivolous attitude toward their marriage and Japanese culture in general. This theme is not unlike the behavior of "The Ugly American" so poignantly reflected in the novel of that name written some 50 years later. From Pig— And speaking of pop culture, judging by the success of such films as American Beauty, it appears that a growing number of citizens of the wealthiest nation on earth may be ready to explore the angst and ennui generated by their materialistic existence. Whether they know what they're up against, or whether they're willing to actually face the remedies for such diseases remains to be seen. This week two plays opened in Denver that reflected this exploration, and both, in their own way, were calls for help. From As Bees in Honey Drown—
"Up on Housing Project Hill That's how Bob Dylan described the scene back in 1965 in "Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues" on his Highway 61 album, and things haven't changed much—fortune and fame are the drugs of choice of the spiritually deprived. Thirty-five years later, playwright Douglas Carter Beane finds the inhabitants of New York City still wallowing in this sorry state in his wry off-Broadway hit As Bees in Honey Drown, now running at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. From inna beginning— Over the years the Denver Center Theatre Company has attempted in various ways to encourage the art of play writing and the production of new and/or experimental works. They've held annual readings from which new productions were selected and mounted, and sponsored an in-house Playwrights Unit from which new and experimental pieces have been staged. As it goes in theatre, many of these new works are never heard from again. Occasionally, however, something incredible comes out of all this hard work and a production is mounted across the country and, perhaps, overseas. In the past couple of years, The Laramie Project and Waiting to Be Invited are two such works. Well, hold on to your hat folks, because we've got another hot property on our hands—Gary Leon Hill's inna beginning, which not only captures the dizzying overload of information, out of control materialism, and spiritual bewilderment that is the Millennium, but does so using innovative techniques befitting such an ambition. Hill and his co-conceivers, director Jamie Horton and composer Lee Stametz, along with their supporting craftspeople, take us on a multimedia roller coaster ride along the subways, highways, and bi-ways of New York and the minds and hearts of some of its most eclectic inhabitants. In our breakneck journey we encounter Dodge, a ruthless yuppie fast lane publishing CEO, whose reckless quest for ever more money, power, and status results in a derailment that alters his life. Along the way, he meets new age healers, a guitarist channeling music of the spheres, the timekeeper at the National Institute of Standards in Boulder, and a host of other refugees reeling from the maelstrom of the cybernetic age. From The Miser— If laughter is the best medicine, then Molière may be the theatre's best physician. Whether the subject is the church, the medical profession, the state, other instruments of power and dogma, or just our everyday hang-ups of greed, hypocrisy, or pretentiousness, Molière is relentless in getting us to laugh at ourselves in recognition of truths we would not otherwise face. Molière plied his trade during the reign of Louis XIV, managing to take elements of Italian commedia dell'arte and French farce to a new level, while ingratiating himself to the crown and honing his steely wit. As his security grew through his fluffy, entertaining and lucrative court performances, Molière's social critiques became more incisive at the public theatres in Paris. In The Miser, Molière holds up the mirror of greed through Harpagon, a wealthy widower who holds money above love, family, and friendship. Moore glides effortlessly from domineering skinflint and compulsive tightwad to comical tramp, mindless egotist and clueless lover—in all, a nouveau riche, cultureless bourgeois gentleman. From Richard III— When a vacuum of resoluteness is left by good men, then shall the ambitious and thirsty for power seize the state. Richard III, in Shakespeare's drama, is such a man. Richard is no indecisive Macbeth, prodded to the crown, nor a Lear whose power leaves him bereft of sensitivity. No, Richard, crippled and hunchbacked by birth, shunned by those who should have encouraged him, knows what he wants straight away. Through deception, sophistry, and physical violence, Richard eliminates everyone that stands between himself and the throne. Though history may dispute this portrayal, much the same way that apologists have maligned Oliver Stone's films on Nixon and JFK, it fits Shakespeare's political and artistic purposes. As always, poetic license speaks truths greater than the surface facts. From The Madwoman of Chaillot— When the world's gone mad, perhaps madness is the only sane response. Industrial Arts Theatre's current production of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot explores this paradoxical yet compelling argument for radical actions. In a world where rivers burn, breezes bring tears to our eyes, and the greedy and cynical claim to follow divine teachings, Giraudoux's heroine, Countess Aurelia, lives in a Paris of the mind, untouched by the Industrial Revolution and the Reformation. She is surrounded by friends from every walk of life—artisans, politicos, beggars, le bourgeois, laborers and peasants. When these friends complain to her that their world of refined salon conversation, street artists, and joie de vivre is being systematically poisoned by those who would drill for oil in the Louvre if they thought it would fill their coffers, Countess Aurelia responds with a wave of the hand and pooh-poohs their alarm. Anyone that is so driven by money, she assures them, can easily be done in. From Fables— Joseph Campbell spent a lifetime researching the parallels between the mythologies of different cultures. Despite the difficulties of this task (given the destruction of much of civilization in the catastrophic events of approximately 13,000 years ago [including huge floods and an axis shift probably caused by the proximity of a large gravitational body]), Campbell eventually succeeded in clarifying and reestablishing inter-cultural connections. In Fables, the latest creation from Pavel Dubruvsky and Per-Olav Sorenson, the Denver Center Theatre Company's resident playwrights, we are given the hope that the play will freshly illustrate and elucidate many of the same shared stories that persist around the world. And while the talented and clever multi-cultural cast create a host of memorable moments, Fables lacks any cohesive sense, other than magic, of the unifying themes in world literature and myth. As with all their collaborative efforts over the past few years, including Stories, Star Fever, and Beethoven and Pierrot, Dubruvsky and Sorenson have created imaginative and beautiful scenes. Kathleen Brady as the Monster that emerges from the on-stage Pond is uproariously ridiculous; another beautiful interlude included a seductive modern dancer who all the while plays a soulful saxophone; and what midway would be complete without a Vaudevillian with endless one-liners? And that's the problem with Fables—it's really a series of fables, rather than a cohesive representation of human storytelling. Perhaps this is the playwrights' point—that mirth and skill are enough. Perhaps, but that would make a circus of the theatre. From The Rez Sisters— Theatre, like cinema and much of the rest of our culture, generally suffers from a lack of leading roles for women, so Her Acting Group has spent much time and effort searching out plays that are the exception. The Rez Sisters, now running at the Ralph Waldo Emerson Center, not only provides seven such roles, but in addition is written specifically for Native American women. Surrounded by poverty, alcoholism, boredom and infidelity, each of these seven sisters from the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reservation has dreams of an escape from these depressing circumstances, and though each of their visions is different, they all depend upon winning The World's Biggest Bingo Game that will soon be played down the turnpike. United in their excitement over the possibility of solving all their problems in one lucky evening, the women utilize every possible avenue to raise the money for their trip until they finally have enough to go. The Rez Sisters deals honestly and directly with a number of issues that cut across the entire contemporary experience of surviving Native American tribes, and includes some excellent performances. What little hope survives on the Reservation is grounded in the relationships that develop between the inhabitants. The Rez Sisters, if nothing else, provides a basis for building from these simple truths. From My Magdalene— A week ago, Good Friday, seemed like an appropriate time to take in the current production, My Magdalene, at the Nomad Theatre up in Boulder. As the title suggested, the play is a personal interpretation of the life and spiritual legacy of Mary Magdalene. Jane, a young married woman adrift in the late '60's and early '70's, has a near death experience, as a result of an accident which opens up access to the spiritual plane upon which Mary Magdalene dwells. Through this portal, Jane not only redeems this saint who has been so long disparaged by the church, but learns healing and meditative techniques from her. Although the research upon which this story is based is not accepted or understood by mainstream Christians, it is, nonetheless backed up by more evidence than the stories that got edited by the Romans and placed in The New Testament. In 600 AD, Pope Gregory pinned the label of penitent prostitute on Magdalene, though there are no references anywhere that confirm this. This position was reversed by the Catholic Church 1400 years later, in 1969. But The New Testament and The Essene Gospels, which have survived largely unedited, do tell us that it was Mary Magdalene that anointed Jesus. This would make her the high priestess from an esoteric tradition dating back from before The Flood. According to all four books of The New Testament, she was also the first to experience the risen Jesus and, according to the Essene text, written in the original Aramaic, she was not only first among the Apostles, but the beloved and partner of Jesus. These relationships are substantiated by the early Church texts of the Gnostics which were later abandoned by the patriarchal elements that won control of the Church. Be that as it may, the play itself stumbles in a number of areas while attempting to convey the significance of these historical events. First, the autobiographical basis of the story is never elevated to art, instead dwelling in the humdrum of the lives of the confused contemporary characters. Second, we can hardly believe that Jane's husband, Paul, would, as the son of a preacher and supporter of the Vietnam War, have been wearing long hair at this time. Third, the language of Mary, Jesus, and other ancient spiritualists is so stilted as to sap the interpersonal loving life out of them. Are we supposed to believe that these people spoke in the everyday tongue of Aramaic as if they were in the Court of King James? Fourth, there is entirely too much telling and not enough showing in the story line. And finally, the depiction of Jesus (whom they call Yeshua, which is close, but still not the proper Hebrew pronunciation of the man from Nazareth's name) comes off as the Anglo wonder bread version of the wide-eyed Semitic ascetic who revolutionized the foundation of Western religious tradition. Nihilism and Theatre of the Absurd From Endgame— Following the fire-bombings, mass exterminations, and other depravities of World War II in Europe, the continent was fertile ground for a variety of philosophies born of despair and nihilism. The Theatre of the Absurd was certainly of this lineage, though perhaps it's unfair to say that it represents complete hopelessness. Certainly, Ionesco and Beckett discovered humor in the human condition, even if they found little meaning in it all. From The Collection— In the aftermath of World War II, an utterly decimated and spiritually bereft Europe searched for meaning, and into this void arose nihilism, existentialism, and theatre of the absurd. This is the context for much of the work of Becket, Ionesco, Sartre, Camus, and Pinter… While Pinter is a master of understatement in revealing the underpinnings of relationships, his cynicism and lack of hope is evident and that, ultimately, wears against the thoughtful direction, precise acting, and what incidental comedy he uncovers. Despondency over the everyday violence and general crassness so evident in our world is understandable, but these are conditions that we created. If we abandon hope, we are then deserting that part of ourselves which alone is capable of redeeming that which we have spoiled. The choice is ours. From Racing Demon— A recurring theme in Western arts and criticism revolves around the failure of a God made in our own image from preventing bad things from happening to us. In the past couple of seasons, Marisol, Angels in America, and Don Juan in Hell, are just a few examples of this motif. Along these lines, the Denver Center Theatre Company's regional premiere of David Hare's Racing Demon covers the difficulties of individuals trying to find their unique paths within the ecclesiastical boundaries of the Anglican Church. During the past couple of generations, the Church of England, as it's known there, has broadened it's acceptance of differences among its clergy. In Racing Demon, the church fathers, in an act of revenge against what they consider revisionism, have decided to make an example of a vicar who has exhausted their patience through his crisis of faith. If this sounds more like the maneuverings of a political party rather than a religious institution that claims to market spiritual truth, that's because it is… Racing Demon, like the frantic shuffle of the card game after which it was named, is about what happens to friends when an organization based on dogma comes between them. Directed by Anthony Powell, the stellar cast delivers a thoughtful and soul searching story. From Daughters of Lot— According to Old Testament lore, the daughters of Lot, having lost their mother to God's wrath for looking back at Sodom, were eventually alone in the mountains with their father, away from that which their God scorned, and believed it their spiritual duty to procreate to continue the seed of the righteous, even if it be with their father. The Lida Project's production of Daughters of Lot is set in a time of moral crises of equal proportions, in a city run by warlords and rape gangs. Is this post-apocalyptic or now? A man is a prisoner of three women, accused of horrendous crimes against his sister, to which he seems to admit...but in the second act, we might question whether his actions are not in the same sacred vein as Lot's daughters, given the alternatives. The spiritual judgment of others is difficult, and often confusing, with those claiming to be the most righteous sometimes quite the opposite, and those seemingly the antithesis of apparent religious standards performing the most blessed acts. From Misalliance— Below the surface, Shaw's inspired honesty concerning the family and the raising of children is anything but dull. Freedom to learn and develop according to one's own soul may be the basis for his point of view, but his illustration of this point is a wild tale of people raised in anything but such an atmosphere. As Shaw said, "All great truths begin with blasphemies," and I'd have to agree with him. For example, what gets passed off on a day-to-day basis as normal, say, having to do with church and state, in general have very little to do with spirituality and democracy. From The Man of LaMancha— In English, the word "quixotic" is often used to refer to an impractical idealist, or one who is hopelessly romantic or chivalrous, but in Miguel De Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha one is unmistakably left with the impression that there is no lofty goal that cannot be realized, and therefore to be quixotic is perhaps to be saintly. This delightful and humorous story has, of course, been immortalized as part of American musical theatre as The Man of La Mancha. The story is a play within a play, and begins when Cervantes is thrown in jail by the Inquisition for heretical writings. There he is in danger of being ravaged by the incorrigible inmates. Instead, he convinces them to perform a theatre piece he has written, which staves off their onslaught of him until he is called before the pseudo-moralistic tribunal that represented itself as Christian morality in medieval Spain. From Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat— With so many biblical stories being taken literally these days, despite the historical evidence of the censorship and editing that has gone on, it's refreshing to see a piece of theatre that manages to have light-hearted fun with an old tale and still manage to honor the moral at the heart of it. Such is the tenor of the Arvada Center's annual production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. From The Crucible— At the height of the McCarthy hearings in the '50's Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trials. The story's parallels to the inquisitions perpetrated by the House Un-American Activities Committee are patently clear—in both cases the groups in power use mass hysteria to skewer innocent people who refuse to bend to their totalitarian ideology. From Present Laughter— Wouldn't you say that there are certain people that just come off as larger than life? It's not just their celebrity or talent that gives this impression, but perhaps those qualities in combination with their personality, their joie de vivre, their savoir faire, that sets them apart? From An Inspector Calls— Did you ever see the play or movie Six Degrees of Separation? The premise is that any of us is only six people away from connecting with any other person on earth. The obvious example of this is the idea of networking in business, where you research business referrals from friends until you get a connection to the person whom you're trying to reach. Well, if this idea is valid, what implications does this have for how we treat each other and the responsibility we have for what happens to others—that is, at what point are we our brother's keeper? For example, growing number of so-called religious people have become politically active, and yet the conservative representatives that they elect are distinctly uninterested in supporting social programs. Isn't there sup |