The Denver Project

Before the current credit crisis precipitated by the deceptive and speculative mortgage practices of the financial powers that be,¹ Mayor John Hickenlooper and "Denver's Road Home" program had reduced chronic homelessness in Denver by 36 percent.

As the fallout from the crisis—an alarming foreclosure rate and the country's faltering economic health—threatens these inroads by placing increased pressure on community resources for the homeless, support for such programs becomes even more important. To this end, Curious Theatre Company has engaged the uniquely talented Bronx playwrighting team of Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz to draw attention to the issue.

If you aren't aware of the homeless issue, its by design: the ruling corporate elite would rather not advertise the failures of a system while they're soaking us for every penny; that's not good for business nor our collective image or self concept.

One of the reasons why this coverup goes unchallenged for the most part is simple: homelessness makes us uncomfortable. It tells us things about ourselves that we'd rather not hear. We would rather ignore the situation and hope it goes away (for a recent citation, see Alternet). Of course, this strategy will get us nowhere.

Sapp and Ruiz' approach is to demystify the homeless by opening up their world and their minds, wisely avoiding the dry facts or playing on our guilt, even when flavoring the mix with a "professional" (i.e., a social worker's) opinion.

The resultant production is a hauntingly beautiful blend of story, song, poetry, and rap that captures the mentally askew, dreamy, stream-of-consciousness aspects of homelessness—along with the harsh realities of the street—in a manner that no strictly linear narrative could possibly have tendered.

After much research and a year's worth of on and off workshopping, The Denver Project is Sapp and Ruiz's best long-form effort to-date, achieving a musicality and lyricism rarely found in such free-form collaborative efforts.

Tyee Tilghman as Tie Photo: Michael Ensminger

Tyee Tilghman, as the itinerant Tie, whose entire life is packed into one shopping cart and a vivid imagination, is the throughline in an representative drama culled from personal interviews and late-night ventures along the lonely streets and walkways that harbor the Denver's homeless.

Tilghman's captivating storytelling, along with director Dee Covington's gritty staging, put us right there under the bridge with our displaced brethren, braving the elements and the dangers of the night, trying to hang on to our dreams when all else, including our dignity, has been stripped.

Jude Moran as Tank Photo: Michael Ensminger

Tie invites us to eavesdrop on his mind and tune in to his "musical ear syndrome." No sooner do we suspend the bounds of our button-down world, than we journey back with a married couple (Jude Moran and Misha Johnson) as they deconstruct the unraveling of their lives and loss of their home.

John Jurcheck as Cuffs Photo: Michael Ensminger

The "real world" is never far away: Ty is hassled by a cop; a clueless real estate developer (John Jurcheck) obsesses over golf on his Bluetooth device, while justifying his greed by arguing that there will never be enough to go around.

Blues riffs and depression-era melodies ("Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?") follow, including stunning vocal work by Candy Brown, Misha Johnson, and Jaime Lujan. The harsh realities of street begin to hit us: murder, robbery, heroin, alcohol, mental illness, and post-stress syndrome (Vietnam and, we expect, Afghanistan and Iraqi veteran castaways).

Candy Brown as Boa Photo: Michael Ensminger

Tilghman's fight choreography, first with a young punk (Akil LuQman) and later with a gang of shadowy figures, is both visceral and eerily detached. Brian Freeland's quirky atmospherics and Charles Packard's arrangement of industrial debris add to the disjunctive mood.

As these homeless folks remind us, we ignore their plight at our own risk: "Sometimes, when we look at you, we see ourselves as we used to be ..."

Curious Theatre Company's production of The Denver Project runs through June 21st. For ticket information: 303-623-0524 or www.curioustheatre.org.

Bob Bows

¹ In case you didn't notice, Congress and the junta doled out four times as much money to those responsible for this scam than they did to the taxpayers in the form of a rebate, the so-called economic stimulus supposedly designed to reverse the damage.