The Pitmen Painters

A synopsis of The Pitmen Painters, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, has a familiar sound: based on a true story, it’s about coal miners who take up painting and astound the art world. But this is not The Full Monty (unemployed British steel workers triumph with a male striptease), Calendar Girls (Yorkshire housewives raise money with a nude calendar) or even Billy Elliot (though that film about a coal miner’s son seeking fame as a ballet dancer is by the writer of this play, Lee Hall.)

 For one thing, it’s no rags-to-riches tale with a big triumphant ending. More impressively, it isn’t a movie, and in its present form wouldn’t work as one. The Pitmen Painters is a peculiarly engaging piece of live theatre.

 It’s 1934 in Ashington, a coal mining town in the north of England. Five men gather after work for a class sponsored by the Workers Educational Association, an organization backed by labor unions and universities that still exists in a thousand UK communities.

 Three are lifelong coal miners: George (played by Lincoln Mitchell,) Oliver (Craig Benson,) and Jimmy (Jerry Nusbaum.) Harry (Gary Sommers) is the Marxist dentist, and a character identified only as “Young Lad” (Joseph Hunt) is unemployed. That he says he’s never had a job is just about the only suggestion of the ongoing Great Depression.

 These men have requisitioned a course in art appreciation, but when their teacher, Robert Lyon (JM Wilkerson) shows up from King’s College, they aren’t interested in his slides and references to the Renaissance. They want to be taught how to look at a painting and know what it means. They want to know the secrets “of what’s going on.”

 Lyon decides that looking at paintings is not the best way for them to focus on such questions. He suggests they paint their own pictures, and they do. The dynamic first act centers around the paintings they produce (images of these works projected above the stage are of the real Ashington Group’s paintings.)

Through their sometimes heated, sometimes funny discussions, we learn about each of them, their lives as miners and their community, while they explore perennial questions about art and life. They talk about everything from where meaning resides (the painting, or the viewer?), intention and effect, and inevitably art, identity and class.

 Even if their vocabulary doesn’t always ring true, they deal with weighty questions through the experience of painting as real and practical work. (Jimmy paints something yellow because he had a lot of yellow paint, which according to Gertrude Stein was the secret of Picasso’s Blue Period.)

 All of this is surprisingly mesmerizing, thanks to the writing and the live interaction physically in front of you. It turns out that entertaining ideas can be entertaining. There is some emotional and plot development, particularly when a wealthy art collector (Cassandra Hesseltine) offers Oliver a stipend equal to his miner’s pay just to paint.

 But partly because these are true events, the second act is more diffuse, and aspects of British history are probably obscure for a U.S. audience. Still, the conflicts of individual and community, specifically in a working class context, may well resonate in Humboldt County.

 The cast is uniformly engaging. Craig Benson is especially effective in the most individualized role. Joseph Hunt is impressive in switching from a working class to upper class character (and accent) for a key scene. Lillian Damron steals her scene as a model who scandalizes the puritanical miners by insisting on posing in the nude. The Pitmen Painters is ably directed by Peggy Metzger and James Hitchcock, with scenic design by Jack Shay, lighting by Michael Burkhart, costumes by Catherine L. Brown, sound by Jon Turney and properties by Laura Rhinehart. It continues at Redwood Curtain weekends through March 9.

The Real Pitmen Painters: the Play and the Reality

The play begins in 1934 in Ashington, a coal mining town in the north of England.  The Great Depression, which began with the New York stock market crash in 1929, had spread worldwide.  England had not fully recovered economically from World War I so it was not as hard a fall, but the consequences were still severe, especially in places like Ashington.  Unemployment in the coal mining north reached 70%.

Though the worst of the Depression may have been over by 1934, it's still odd that it doesn't factor more in this play. It was a horrific time.  In his book The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell details the conditions: lack of food and fuel, terrible sanitation and housing, and the general drab deadening drag of life.

 The Depression is not even mentioned by name.  (One character refers to "the recession," an odd choice of word, especially since it wasn't a familiar term for some years yet. It was more likely to have been called a "slump" or the Great Slump.) One suggestion of the impact is that the youngest character ("Young Lad") says that he's never had a job in his life, even though he looks for work every day. Yet the conditions of mining plus the Depression were factors that helped make socialism popular among the working class, which is embedded in this play.  The Marx-quoting dentist in the play is something of a joke, but it's not unrealistic.

There are references to the cramped, damp, dark and dangerous mining conditions, and the fact that the older characters started in the mines at the age of 11 or 12.  Boys would not start quite that young by 1934--a law passed in 1917 required children to stay in school until 15.

Beginning in the mid to late 19th century, the British government began consciously expanding educational opportunities. There were new colleges to educate the lower middle class, partly because growing industrialization required more technicians and "scientists" (a word that was born in this period.) Eventually the working class was included.

Also in the mid 19th century, the Cooperative Movement became established in the UK, and particularly in the industrial north of England, where local co-ops formed an association.  Cooperatives functioned in different ways in different places and times, but education for workers was an early priority.

By the turn of the century, universities were offering extension courses.  So it happened in 1907 that university extensions, the Cooperative movement and particularly trade unions combined to form the Workers Education Association.This is the group that sponsors the art appreciation course that is at the center of The Pitmen Painters.  

  The WEA grew quickly to 70 local branches, and by 1945 there were 800 branches. The Workers Education Association continues to this day, with nearly a thousand centers in the UK.  Throughout its history, the WEA campaigned for worker education, and it was instrumental in getting that 1917 law passed extending the compulsory school age, as well as other laws, such as the 1944 Education Act which promoted equal educational opportunities for the working class.

George--one of the characters in the play--is comically officious, and concerned about the WEA regulations.  But the WEA did have careful regulations.  It centered on a system of tutuorials for classes of no more than 40 members who committed themselves to participating for three years.

There was a WEA art appreciation course that began in the Ashington YMCA in 1934, involving at least  the people named in the play (5 of the original 13.) Ashington had a concert hall, a theatre (home to the Ashington Labour Players) but no library and certainly no art gallery or museum.

 They'd just completed a course on evolution, and--as in the play--a college art instructor, Robert Lyon, came to teach them art appreciation.  He started with slides and lecturing.  In the play he gives that up almost immediately, but in reality it took a few classes for him to come up with the idea of the class members doing their own paintings and talking about them.

Though the play uses images of actual Ashington Group paintings, it probably takes some liberties.  In the play, Jimmy paints a picture of whippets, which he may well have.  But the best known painting of that subject produced by this group was by George Blessed ( a later member not in the play. His nephew is the famous British actor Brian Blessed.)  This might partly be because much of the early work didn't survive.  Having paintings around was often wasted space in a working class culture.

They did formally call themselves the Ashington Group in 1936, and they became somewhat famous in the art world through the 1940s, though they were mostly known as "the pitmen painters."  Though their fame slipped, they continued painting.  By the time they were rediscovered in the 1970s, they had accumulated a large collection of work.  It was writer William Feaver whose book led to their resurgence, and it was his book (which Lee Hall found in a secondhand book shop) that eventually led to this play.  A Guardian article recounts Feaver's eureka moment:

  Their rediscovery began in the 1970s when Mr Feaver, then teaching in Newcastle, noticed some Geordie pensioners at an exhibition in the city's Laing art gallery. "They invited me up to their hut in Ashington and I was amazed," he said. "There were all these paintings, cobwebby and in stacks against the wall, which they called their permanent collection. They spat on their fingers - there was a lot of spit involved with the Ashington Group - and rubbed the paint so that I could see what they looked like when they were clean.

"When you're a critic, you often get invited to discoveries which people describe as wonderful. This is the one occasion in my life when that was absolutely the case. The best of the group would certainly have gone to art school today. Their dedication was humbling."

Oliver Kilbourn and original member Jack Harrison in 1982

The play spends most time with Oliver Kilbourn, generally considered the most talented painter among them.  He never left Ashington, and continued to participate in the painting group.  The play makes much of his opportunity to take a stipend to paint, and his decision to remain in the mines instead.  This may raise all sorts of issues for Americans in or from working class cultures.  The relationship of the individual to the community, and the community's attitudes towards individuals with different ambitions, can be very complicated.

 The play refers to this, and is suggestive, though it goes past it pretty quickly.  But it can be a major issue.  It certainly was where I grew up.  At the time this play is set, my father was growing up in a coal company town in western Pennsylvania.  His father and grandfather were coal miners.  Though the coal mines are long gone, and even the steel mills and much of the other industry, the area retains a working class cultural cast, and certainly did when I was growing up there (though not in that town.)  I suspect there are resonances of this for some of those who grew up in Humboldt County as well.

But Kilbourn himself apparently did not stress this issue.  He claimed to like mining, and he believed that the mines gave him his subject.  Others had painting skills and education, but no subject, he insisted.  It was better to have the subject and acquire the skills.

Kilbourn was the last surviving original member when he managed to preserve the collection before his death in 1993. In 2007 their permanent collection was exhibited and housed in the Woodhorn Colliery complex, with a ceremony officiated by Princess Anne.

The play ends with a scene that is probably puzzling to most Americans, especially in the context of what "socialism" has come to represent these days.  But in England, the period just after World War II was a time of promise and hope, especially for the working class.  The postwar Labour government nationalized coal, steel, rail and utilities, in an attempt to consolidate and modernize these industries, and revive the economy. It was not a controversial move. For workers, especially miners, it meant immediate improvement in working conditions and safety.  Miners were given paid vacations and sick leave for the first time.  The National Health Service was about to begin, bringing free medical care to people who could never afford it.

An historically-minded British audience would know this, and also know that this hope--and the ethic of we're all in this together-- didn't last.   In fact, Lee Hall's film Billy Elliot takes place during the 1980s of union-busting and Maggie Thatcher's budget-cutting and aggressive capitalism that was its antithesis.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell'Arte International second years present Contents Under Pressure: A Night of Adaptations Thursday (Feb.14) through Sunday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo. The Dell'Artisans adapt a poem by Shel Silverstein ("The Devil and Billy Markham"), a short story by The Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum ("A Box of Robbers") and a story by the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut ("Welcome to the Monkey House.") Themes and treatment include sexually explicit stuff, so no adults, please. It's pay what you will and if all that isn't enough, there's a Valentine's Day Drink Special, a potent brew called "Love Potion #9." Reservations: 707 668-5663 ext. 20, www.dellarte.com. 

 Redwood Curtain opens their new season with The Pittman Painters, a play about a group of British miners who become art world sensations, by Lee Hall. Co-directed by Peggy Metzger and James Hitchcock, it features Craig Benson, Gary Sommers, Lincoln Mitchell, Jerry Nusbaum, Cassandra Hesseltine, JM Wilkerson, Joseph Hunt and Lillian Damron. Previews are Thursday and Friday (Feb. 14 & 15), with official opening night on Saturday at 8 p.m. Performances continue weekends through March 9 boxoffice@redwoodcurtain.com or call 443-7688.

 This is the final weekend for Songs for a New World at Ferndale Rep. Reservations: 1-800-838-3006 or 786-5483.

 Also the final weekend for American Buffalo at North Coast Rep. Reservations: 442-6278. www.ncrt.net.

This North Coast Weekend

For one night only--Saturday (Feb. 9) at 8 p.m.--Dell'Arte hosts the visiting company PerpetuoMobileTeatro of Italy, presenting Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale, The Ballad of the Little Match Girl.  The performance features storytelling, acrobatics, mask-theatre and music. It's in Italian with English subtitles. Tickets are $10. There's limited seating in the Carlo, so reservations are recommended: Dell'Arte Box Office (707) 668-5663,www.dellarte.com.

  

Continuing this weekend: the musical revue Songs for a New World at Ferndale Repertory Theatre. Described as a song cycle about dealing with the unforeseen in life’s defining moments, it’s the first produced work of composer Robert Jason Brown. His next show, Parade, won the Tony for Best Score. His later musical The Last Five Years has been produced locally in the last three years by both the Humboldt Light Opera Company and Redwood Curtain.

 Directed by Dianne Zuleger, Songs for a New World  features Alex Moore, Brandy Rose, Craig Waldvogel, Elena Tessler, Jessi Shieman, Jo Kuzelka, Luke Sikora and Qaiel Peltier. Jo Kuzelka also designed the costumes, and Liz Uhazy designed the set and lighting. Live music is provided by Justin Ross & Laura Welch, keyboards; Tamaras Abrahms, percussion; Bobby Amirkhan, bass. It runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through February 17. Reservations: 1-800-838-3006 or 786-5483.

Also continuing: David Mamet's American Buffalo at North Coast Rep, featuring JOSH Kelly, James Read (both pictured) and Joel Agnew.  See review posted below.

To Phrase A Coin: Mamet's American Buffalo

This is a slightly longer version of  my review in the NC Journal of American Buffalo currently at NCRT.  It also includes a correction--it's Josh Kelly, not Mike Kelly in the cast.  I'm sorry for the error.  On the other hand, hearing about it has been the only way I've learned that anybody read the review.  As I've mentioned here, I'm not fond of every column I write, but I'm okay with this one.

 David Mamet’s plays of the 1980s were warily praised as uncomfortably kinetic portraits of mostly white men jostling on the precarious edge of the American dream. His 1984 drama about a cutthroat band of real estate salesmen, Glengarry Glen Ross, won the Pulitzer Prize. But it was his 1977 Broadway debut that first ignited controversy while making his reputation. That play was American Buffalo, which is currently on stage in an entertaining production at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka.

 Set entirely in Donny Dubrow’s urban junk shop, the story involves a plot to steal a possibly valuable buffalo head nickel. At first Donny is set to send Bobby, his young assistant, to do the job. But Walter “Teach” Cole, a regular at Donny’s nighttime poker games, wheedles his way into the action.

 According to New York Times reviewer Frank Rich, the original 1977 staging (with Robert Duvall as Teach) was tense and brutal, but the 1981 New York production (with Al Pacino as Teach) revealed dour humor and spiraling absurdity. The fast pace set by director Michael Thomas at NCRT unlocks even more of the humor and humanity in the play.

 These days, Mamet is polarizing for his political statements--so much so that there are people who wouldn't go see any of his plays because of them-- and his most recognized recent work is for film and television. These early plays were also controversial, though for other reasons.  His characters casually deploy ethnic and sexual slurs, sometimes in absurd combination with what is idiomatically if idiotically called “mature language” (or even just “language.”) Mamet’s language (beyond but including the “language”) is stylized street talk, and it’s the most important element of the play. It’s also basically musical, so everything depends on the rhythms. The NCRT cast ably sings the score.

 There’s a nice mix of vocal pitches in the three strong voices of James Read, Joel Agnew and Josh Kelly. Kelly has a way of disappearing into his roles, but his Bobby in this play is memorable. Agnew has a reputation for talking fast, and he needs that skill for the mouthy, jittery Teach, who reveals his confusion, desperation and self-doubt with every assertion. James Read as Donny has never been better, and his strong performance re-balances the play, which has tended to tilt towards Teach in those first productions.

 Mamet’s dialogue sounds ruefully or ridiculously authentic, but like Hemingway’s or J.D. Salinger’s, there’s artifice involved. Changing the rhythms changes the meaning. Earlier productions were famous for their long pauses, which allowed for more emphasis on non-verbal aspects.  More meaning came from movement and the physicality of the actors, as well as what the pauses themselves might do to the rhythm and pace.

 This production reveals a clownish pathos in these familiar, conflicted men, as they struggle to negotiate friendship and self-interest while doggedly dodging their final failure. There’s playfulness in these rude arrays of common words, denying and then suggesting that some fitful spirit and residual humanity struggles to survive.  All that is there in the words which this production present, but other approaches might well emphasize the darker side in other ways.

 Defining these impressions comes later—when the play is on, it is often mesmerizing and consistently entertaining. Calder Johnson designed the set, David Tyndall the lighting, Rae Robison the costumes. Dianne Zuleger recorded some tasty saxophone licks. American Buffalo continues at NCRT weekends through February 16. Reservations: 442-6278. www.ncrt.net. It’s for adults—that “mature language”, and brief stage violence.

This North Coast Weekend

On Thursday (January 24) at 8 p.m., North Coast Rep opens David Mamet’s American Buffalo, directed by Michael Thomas, and featuring James Read, Joel Agnew and Josh Kelly. Director Thomas describes the play as a "fascinating study of the dynamic, puzzling and perhaps frightening relationships between three men who happen to be crooks." The play is intended for adults and contains strong adult language.  The run continues Fridays and Saturdays through February 16, with Sunday matinees on February 3 and 10 at 2 p.m.

Also beginning Thursdays,  Dell’Arte reprises Three Trees with Joe Krienke, Stephanie Thompson and Lauren Wilson.   Three down and out clowns become involved in a war.  My review of the 2011 performance is here--it was two years ago almost to the day.  "The show contains mature content. Recommended for adults and brave children 12 and older."  One weekend only, Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  In February, Three Trees travels to Sacramento for the American College Theatre Festival Region 7 conference.


  On Friday (the 25th), Ferndale Rep opens Songs for a New World, a  musical revue about emotions and choices by Jason Robert Brown. Directed by Dianne Zuleger, it features Alex Moore, Brandy Rose, Craig Waldvogel, Elena Tessler, Jessi Shieman, Jo Kuzelka, Luke Sikora and Qaiel Peltier. Live music is provided by Justin Ross & Laura Welch, keyboards; Tamaras Abrahms, percussion; Bobby Amirkhan, bass. It runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through February 17.

  On Saturday (the 26th), Redwood Curtain presents their annual fundraiser, a dinner buffet and live radio show, Zounds and Gagged, at Blue Lake Casino. Reservations: (707) 443-7688 or redwoodcurtain.com.

Pick Yourself Up

There are columns I mean to write someday.  When an idea becomes more fully formed, and there's an occasion for it, sometimes I actually write them.  And sometimes somebody else does it for me.

David Denby's piece in the New Yorker about the movie version of Les Mis says a lot of what I would have said concerning my feelings about certain musicals.  These days I probably would have said it more delicately but then, not as well.

First Denby trashes the movie, which he'd seen without having seen any stage version or hearing the music beforehand.  Then he trashes the story and the music.

He notes that the story "stripped of its social detail and reduced to its melodramatic elements, no longer makes much sense..." Which goes for some other musicals.  But it's what he writes about the music and the general approach to musicals that I want to copy:

I was so upset by the banality of the music that I felt like hiring a hall and staging a nationalist rally. “My fellow-countrymen, we are the people of Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin! Cole Porter and George Gershwin, Frank Loesser and Burton Lane! We taught the world what popular melody was! What rhythmic inventiveness was! Let us unite to overthrow the banality of these French hacks!” (And the British hacks, too, for that matter.) Alas, the hall is filled with people weeping over “Les Mis.”

And now, the real point: our great musicals were something miraculous. They were a blessed artifice devoted to pleasure, to ease and movement, exultation in the human body, jokes and happy times, the giddiness of high hopes. Even the serious musicals, like “Carousel” and “West Side Story,” had their funny moments...  If you want emotion in a musical, please, if you’ve never seen it, catch the George Cukor version of “A Star is Born,” in which Judy Garland (John Lahr agrees with me on this) produces the single greatest moment in film-musical history. Late at night in a club, when she thinks no one is listening (while James Mason lurks in the shadows), she sings the Harold Arlen torch song “The Man That Got Away.” Overwhelming.

He offers a cure "for those suffering from absorption in “Les Mis.”

 Download the Astaire-Rogers “Top Hat” from Amazon. Throw it on a big screen if you can. Or download “Singin’ in the Rain,” with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, or “The Band Wagon,” with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, or “An American in Paris,” with Kelly again. I will tell you right now that these movies will not make you cry. But if you’ve never seen them before, they may open an entirely new path to pleasure. See them twice, and you will put aside the maudlin nonsense of “Les Mis” forever.

"Requiem" in Arcata: An Interview with Ursula Osborne

Ursula Osborne (Kowinski photo)

At the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside (Arcata), beginning on Thursday January 10, an ad hoc group of familiar North Coast actors will present the first English language production anywhere of Requiem, a play by Heinrich Liebrecht about his experiences in Nazi concentration camps and afterwards. In part—and improbably—it is a love story.

Liebretcht’s concentration camp memoir in book form has been called the most vivid of all such accounts in its presentation of everyday life. It was translated into English by Arcata resident Ursula Osborne, who also translated Liebrecht’s play and guided it to this first performance. 

This is the subject of my Stage Matters column to be published in the North Coast Journal on January 10.  What follows is more background  and my interview with Ursula Osborne.

The background is from the Xlibris site, the publisher of Osborne's translation of Liebrecht's memoir,  Not To Hate But To Love That Is What I Am Here For: My Path Through the Hell of the Third Reich.

Heinrich F. Liebrecht, born 1897, participant in WW I, judge in Berlin, removed from office in 1933 for political reasons. Until 1941 co-worker at the law office of the US Embassy, then arrest, torture, concentration camp. Time spent in USA after the liberation. 1949 he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany. He served in diplomatic service as Consul and General Consul, and after retirement lived in Freiburg where he died in 1989.

The translator, Ursula Osborne, née Solmitz, was born in Hamburg Germany in 1927. She left for England with her siblings in 1938 in a Kindertransport. She lived in England until 1944, at a boarding school, called Bunce Court, where her aunt was a teacher. Meanwhile the Solmitz parents remained in Germany until 1941, and during that time Heinrich Liebrecht and Lies became their special friends. Liebrecht remained a lifetime family friend after WWII, through exchange of letters, and postcards, and visits in California and Germany. Ursula, her husband and two sons met him in Freiburg in 1969, and continued the friendship with visits and exchange of letters.

  Ursula earned a BS degree in Chemistry from UCLA in 1948, became a U.S.A. citizen in 1949, worked intermittently in chemical labs and taught in California public schools and in the Peace Corps at a high school in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. All along she continued to cultivate an interest in her native language, German.

The following is an edited version of my interview with Ursula Osborne at her home in Arcata on December 14, 2012.

Heinrich Liebrecht 1942

"Liebrecht and Lies [Elisabeth Hertz] got married very soon after my parents left Germany in 1941. Lies got pregnant. She was from Hamburg, he was from Berlin. They were in Berlin but they couldn’t find a place to live. They literally pushed a perambulator from house to house trying to find a place to live. It was hard to find nutrition for the child. It was 1942 when they decided they had to emigrate, to get out of the country with the child.

There was a Chilean doctor from the Chilean embassy who told them he could get them a passport, drive them to Italy in a limo, “I’ll take care of you.” But he was a crook, and was in cahoots with the Nazis, too. They kept asking him when are we getting out. It seems almost incredible to me that a man as intelligent as Liebrecht believed Velasco, this man, but he did. It was the only chance he had to get out of the country.

The last time they were supposed to meet him, it was a ruse. Where he had led them to believe he could help them was an office that was a Gestapo office. Liebrecht and Lies went there. Right away they saw what it was. They saw some Jews with their faces to the wall. Liebrecht wondered how can this be that these five Jews aren’t able to overcome the one Gestapo, but they just stood there.

He told his wife to run. She hesitated but she left. She did end up going to the Berlin zoo and committing suicide. But he didn’t know what happened to her. Liebrecht tried to physically overcome the Nazi official, and thought the other Jews would help him but they didn’t. He was taken to a prison and left there for a long time. He describes the prison in detail and how he was tortured.  Finally he was released and put in a facility where Jews were assembled to go to Theresienstadt." (Photo above: Liebrecht in 1940, photo taken by Elisabeth Hertz before their marriage.)

Theresienstadt to Auschwitz

"Theresienstadt was supposed to be a model camp that the Nazis were showing to the Red Cross and the outside world to show that concentration camps aren’t so bad. Actually it also was a transition camp from which people were eventually sent to Auschwitz.

Liebrecht was put on a transport to Theresienstadt. He didn’t know anything about his child or his wife or his mother. But while he was there his mother arrived at Theresienstadt. She thought it was a great thing that she had gotten to join him there. Some weeks later a caretaker brought his child. He could take his child to see his mother on her deathbed. The child was 2 ½ years old and didn’t know him, he had to win her back and become a good father to her.

  He chose Boszi [Weiss] who was head of the infants home to be her foster mother. Boszi said she couldn’t do it because she already had two foster children, but she relented, and the closeness between them evolved. He would go visit her every evening. He would bring her bread for her and the child. His job in the camp was as a potato carrier, and working with others who worked with food he could sometimes get things.

Then his turn came [to be sent to Auschwitz.] Boszi said I’m not going to let you go alone, I’m going with you. He said that can’t be, they won’t let you. She said I figured out a way—if we are married I can go. She went to Leo Baeck and got him to marry them, they had a little wedding, a camp marriage which allowed her to go along. She insisted on it. The child and I are going with you, we aren’t going to let you go alone.

Liebrecht went with the men who were going to the work camp, and Boszi went with the women and children going to the gas chamber. That’s how they did the division at Auschwitz. Liebrecht didn’t know exactly what had happened to them. After the war when he went back to Theresienstadt he found an old woman on her deathbed who told him.

As Boszi and Liebrecht’s daughter were waiting to go to the gas chamber, the Nazis called for a nurse—they needed a nurse. She stepped forward with the child and said I’m a trained nurse. The Nazis said we can use your services but the child can’t go with you. So she said everywhere I go the child goes. So she and the child walked into the gas chamber together. She could have saved herself but that wasn’t what she was about. I believe that story."

  Ursula and Heinrich Liebrecht

"Liebrecht was a friend of my parents in the early 1940s. My parents introduced me to him. Then when my husband and children went to Germany on a sabbatical, they said you have to visit Liebrecht. At that time he was in Freiberg
 as a lay Jesuit. His wife was baking a cake when we got there. He insisted on taking out us to the Cathedral in the bitter cold. He pointed out the gargoyles and so on, he was very amused with everything.  Then we came back and had cake and hot chocolate.  My sons were 14 and 16, and he was so friendly with everybody that my sons really took to him. They became friends and went back to visit him again later.

After our sabbatical trip he wrote to us. He wanted us to come back and lecture there on what people in the United States thought about the world. We didn’t feel up to that, but I corresponded with him from that point on. That was the winter of 1969. In the 70s he wrote to me that he was writing his memoirs, and asked if I would like a copy when they were published. I said of course. I was teaching gifted students then, and I gave some enrichment lessons in German, and corresponding with people in Germany was part of that. I asked him if he would correspond with one of my students, and he agreed. He enjoyed it very much.

When he died I was in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea, in the highlands, teaching chemistry. The caretaker for my house in Arcata sent me the his book that had arrived there from Germany. It was his memoir that was published posthumously.

  Some of my colleagues in PNG were De La Salle brothers and Sacred Heart nuns. One of the brothers knew German and he also read the book. When I read it I was very taken by the way that Liebrecht, who had been born a Jew and converted to Catholicism, had at the end of World War II a very significant conversation with Leo Baeck, the chief rabbi in Germany, who was in the camp with him at Theresienstadt. They had met there and had a lot of conversations there.

  When the war ended he went back to Theresienstadt because he was trying to find out what had happened to his daughter, so he met Leo Baeck again, because he was still there. Baeck had not been deported to Auschwitz as Liebrecht was. In this conversation they talked about vengeance and forgiveness. So it was the rabbi who convinced the Catholic that it was a time for forgiveness, not an eye for an eye. That impressed me. So I translated that section of the book right away, right there in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, so I could share it with all my colleagues, not just the German ones.

When I came home I put it aside for a long time. But in 2008 I translated the whole book. I published it with Xlibris as a translation. In the postscript it’s mentioned that he had also written a play. I’m not sure if Liebrecht wrote the postscript or someone else did. But he didn’t think the play was polished enough to publish."

The Play

My son started looking for the play and found that the Leo Baeck Institute had a manuscript, so we sent for a copy. It had a playbill for a performance in Salt Lake City in 1982 in a German theatre. I was intrigued, and when I went to a conference there with the Unitarian Universalists about four years ago, I wanted to know where the German theatre was.

It turned out to be a private home, started by a man and a woman who had been actors in Hamburg. They converted their living room into a theatre for the German speaking people of the city, Mormons mostly.

I discovered this because the playbill had the names of the actors in that premiere performance, so I looked in the Salt Lake City phone book and found the name of the man who had played Liebrecht. It turned out he had died, but his widow was living in the same house with the same phone number. She invited me to the house. It looked like walking distance from where I was staying but it was June and very hot. I walked up and up the hill and had to rest for awhile under a tree. But I finally got there.

  We talked and talked, and she showed me photos of the play and the costumes. We became quite good friends. She said she had lymphoma and would be dead in a year, but as far as I know she’s still alive. I would like to invite her to the play here.

  At the time they did the play, Liebrecht was the German consul in San Francisco. His area included Salt Lake City, so he came there and told them about the play. But when they performed it, he never saw it.

Fairly soon after I got back I translated the play from German to English. But because Liebrecht didn’t think it was performable, I started looking for someone who might be interested in making it performable. I met John Heckel when he was at the HSU theatre department and he pounced on it. But nothing happened for awhile, and then we started meeting regularly to read the manuscript and talk about it. He and Fran Wittman made suggestions for changes, and from that stage it has evolved.

I haven’t met the actors yet. I want to go to rehearsals. My bad hip doesn’t make it easy, but I’ll go."

His relationship with Boszi Weiss

"His relationship with Boszi Weiss is the central relationship in the play. It’s also in the memoir but it didn’t really become as clear to me from the memoir how close the sexual relationship was. I didn’t see that until I learned more about it in the play. At the end, the Gestapo asked her whether the child is her child. She said, I’m the mother of the child and I’m pregnant by the father of the child. She was carrying another child.

There’s a place in the memoir when Liebrecht first noticed her in Theresienstadt, she had a special way of moving her head to move her hair out of her face. She was Czech. She came in the early days of settling when they were allowed to bring all kinds of equipment, like musical instruments.

There’s a scene in the play that happens after the time covered in the memoir. It’s at the consulate in San Francisco, and Liebrecht is talking to his secretary. He talks about women’s rights. The beginning of the play is different, too. Boszi asks him how it was when he was growing up, so he talks about his early life. His memoir doesn’t. He talks about the youth movement in the “teens” and the young people’s idealism. She asks about his first sexual encounters. He talks a lot about the young women he was with when he was still in the military. He was in the German army in World War I—my father was, too. Liebrecht got the Iron Cross on the western front. He encountered these women on leave.

I’m convinced the play is close to how life was for Liebrecht, and the relationships are very real. He had a very sincere and humanistic outlook, an incredible kindness towards other people. I was intrigued by his choosing Catholicism—a man who was born before 1900 choosing to become a Catholic at the end of World War I. I still don’t really know how it happened. But it was a sincere conversion—not just to avoid the troubles that were already happening. I think he liked the ritual rather than the dogma. He liked being with other people observing the ritual together."

How Ursula Got to Arcata

"My husband, Clyde Osborne, taught chemistry at Long Beach State. He retired in 1976, his health was not good. I was still teaching in southern California but he wanted to retire to somewhere with big trees, like those he knew in his childhood in Bremerton. He grew up near the naval base there. We visited our son at Humboldt State and thought the redwoods were big enough. So we retired here."

R.I.P. 2012

These days actors become famous for their work in movies and on television.  But many of the famous who died in 2012 were also stage actors, and not only at the beginning of their careers.  British actor Joyce Redmond was nominated for an Oscar for her film performance as Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier in his Othello, though she was later most famous for the notorious eating scene with Albert Finney in the film Tom Jones.  But she maintained a classical theatre career, as is typical in England.

What's less organized (and less known) is that American actors can do the same.  Celeste Holm made her stage debut opposite Leslie Howard in Hamlet. One of her last performances was in the comedy I Hate Hamlet.  Charles Durning won his acting stripes in Tennessee Williams, as did Ben Gazzara (photo directly below Durning.)  He was the original Brick in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.  Gazzara played in O'Neill and Odets, and probably did more stage work than was good for his screen career.

Lupe Ontiveros used her visibility as a TV and film actor to further stage possibilities for others as a founding board member of the Latino Theatre Company in Los Angeles. Someone else who wanted to expand the theatre community was British playwright John Arden, who Michael Billington notes was probably "ahead of his time." But texts last, and the work can be revived.  Stage performances disappear however, so it's a further irony that these actors will live on through their movie and TV performances.   

Other theatrical personages who died in 2012 include actor Ernest Borgnine (another actor who started out in Tennessee Williams), playwright and musical adapter Mark O'Donnell (I saw one of his plays in New York many years ago, and had a long funny interview with him), composers Marvin Hamlisch and Richard Adler, designer Eiko Ishioka, playwright Jack Richardson, director Gunnar Eide, actors Jack Klugman, Joan Roberts, Jerome Kitty, Patricia Kennedy.  May they rest in peace, and their work live on. 

The Year That Was: Topical and Timeless on North Coast Stages

A version of this year-end retrospective appears in the North Coast Journal "Top 10" issue.  I didn't do a top ten, though.  It's not practical.  Though I see a lot of shows, I don't see everything, so it wouldn't be fair.  And I've got multiple conflicts of interest when it comes to HSU shows.  But it's not fair to ignore those shows either.  So this is my compromise.

“Drama is a mansion with an almost infinite number of rooms,” wrote Michael Billington, the great drama critic for the Guardian. “I see no point in shutting off any of them.” As I’ve noted on other occasions, there are gaps in the North Coast theatrical ecology. But it’s worth noticing the variety that does exist, and that this past year’s productions supported and altered that ecology, however subtly.

Dell’Arte pioneered “theatre of place” on the North Coast, and this year saw a unique example in the second version of Mary Jane: The Musical. It’s unique precisely because it’s the second version. Dell’Arte has brought shows back before, updating their topical and local references. But this time they re-conceived a show from just the summer before, and so the 2012 version was actually the product of two successive years, which resulted in a deeper (and darker) show. I still recall their Blue Lake: The Opera as the more successful production (a coincidence of talent, music and story), but certainly Mary Jane is more relevant to local identity and its future.

Another successful “theatre of place” show was Women of the Northwest at the Arcata Playhouse. It also was a group effort, part of the national fascination with “devised theatre” that worked in these two productions, with adequate time and thorough process.

  It wasn’t so successful in the Dell’Arte holiday show, The Fish in My Head— well-performed and produced, but so disjointed that it’s the first show I can recall that got me to root for the villain: the guy who wanted it to make more sense.

  This year also brought an unusual number of topically relevant dramas written by actual playwrights: Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room at Ferndale, Justin Lance Black’s 8 and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus at HSU, for example. HSU and College of the Redwoods also contribute classics (Moliere at CR, Noel Coward at HSU) and a glimpse of a different cultural approach in HSU’s version of the Sanskrit drama Shakuntala. A theatrical ecology is sustained by educational inquiry for both participants and audience.

   Humboldt Light Opera Company added to its high quality contributions with Damn Yankees and Cinderella. Redwood Curtain continued to concentrate on small cast contemporary American comedies, but took a few more chances this year with plays of challenging form and content, such as Circle Mirror Transformation, Dusty and the Big Bad World, For Better and The Language Archive.  These forays work largely because Redwood Curtain nurtures a high level of acting.

  Our two community theatres (Ferndale and North Coast in Eureka) have the words “repertory” in their names, which refers to producing shows from “the repertoire,” or the roster of successful plays (artistically, commercially or both) of the accessible past. There are a lot of judgments involved: some shows are too big (and expensive) or too small, too new (rights are unavailable) or too old.

But how old is too old? Looking back at this year yields a rule of thumb. Dramas can be quite old, though Shakespeare is about the limit. This year we got a searing drama from the 1950s (Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep) and a mystery from the 1940s (Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at North Coast Rep.) Comedies and musicals are usually more recent. Which is another reason that North Coast Rep’s production of the pioneer musical comedy Anything Goes was so fascinating.



There are few if any Broadway musicals older than Anything Goes that get produced anymore. In fact, only 3 previous shows are generally classified as modern musicals (Show Boat in 1927, The Band Wagon in 1930 and Of Thee I Sing! in 1931.)

Songs have since been stolen from other Cole Porter shows for this version of Anything Goes, and the script is not exactly the same as the show that premiered in 1934. That script began with legendary Brits P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton but the Broadway version was quickly assembled by its director Howard Lindsay with a press agent named Russel Crouse.  They were so successful at it that they themselves became a legendary Broadway writing team.  The script was revised for the 1987 revival by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse, Russel's son and the author of one of the great books on U.S. presidential campaigns and the press, The Boys on the Bus (1972).  I knew him for a few years around then.

Anyway, the changes in the latest, the Tony-winning 2011 version that’s on tour into 2013 seem to be in musical arrangements, etc.  So I don't actually know who is responsible for my favorite bit of dialogue.  Asked by a ship's officer if he'd seen infamous racketeer Snakeyes Johnson somewhere on the ship, one of the characters says he saw him at the mizenmast. “ But this ship doesn’t have a mizenmast.” “Oh. It must have been somebody else.” 

The constant in all this is Cole Porter.  His songs have not changed. His music is timeless, but his lyrics are very topical—particularly in one of this show’s most famous songs, “You’re the Top.”  They haven't been revised, so the lyrics are still a kind of mini-tour of 1934. While some of the places and the famous people named in the song are still well known, others mostly aren’t. Quite a few clever references go right by a lot of the audience nearly 80 years later.

 So how does the song still work? It was interesting to watch how Molly Severdia and Erik Standifird relieved anxieties by acting out contemporary reactions to some references in their performance of the song, a highlight of the North Coast Rep production. For instance, they gave the line “You’re broccoli!” the icky vegetable look, but in 1934, broccoli was new to the U.S. and quite fashionable.

They simply ignored other references, like Jimmy Durante, a showman who was often parodied into the 1960s. In fact some lyrics are now so obscure that there are several online attempts to track down their meaning. There was a long and involved theory about “you’re a drumstick lipstick” (which involved ice cream and kissing) until somebody uncovered an old ad that showed that Drumstick lipstick was a 1934 brand name.

 Still, it isn’t necessary to know that moisture-proof cellophane was a modern miracle in the 30s to laugh at the exuberant brilliance of “You’re the National Gallery/You’re Garbo’s salary/You’re cellophane!” The strange alchemy of the topical and the timeless in a play that lasts is one of the wonders of theatre, as it is in other arts. So it’s a vital part of our theatrical ecology.

This North Coast Weekend (or Two)

Only new show this week is the Dell'Arte School's MFA second years performing their Character Projects ("some comic, some tragic, all unique")  Thursday-Sunday (Dec. 6-9) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo. Pay-what-you-will, reservations and information 707-668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

For a second and final weekend at Gist Hall Theatre, Shakuntala, presented by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance.  Thurs-Sat (Dec. 6-8) at 7:30 p.m., Sunday Dec. 9 at 2. HSU Stage.

Also continuing: Anything Goes at NCRT.  Last performance is Dec. 15.www.ncrt.net.

The Dell'Arte holiday show A Fish in My Head returns to the Carlo for its last performances Thurs.-Sun Dec. 13-16 at 7:30.  $10/8. www.dellarte.com.















And at Ferndale Rep (sorry, I never got a photo), Annie, which closes Dec. 16.
www.ferndalerep.org.

In a holiday event associated with Humboldt Light Opera Company, their Women's Chorus (known officially as The Babes) presents their annual Christmas concert on December 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Arcata United Methodist Church (1761 Eleventh Street.)  "Donations accepted at the door."

This North Coast Weekend

 

Opening on Thursday November 29 for two weekends, HSU Department of Theatre, Film & Dance presents the magical love story from India, Shakuntala.  Though this epic fairy tale (with gods, demons and heroes) is a cultural icon in India,  it’s seldom seen on stage in the U.S.  Playwright and HSU department chair Margaret Thomas Kelso adapted it for the contemporary American stage. Directed by Rae Robison, it also includes original music by Brian Post. Rose Gutierrez and Mark Teeter head a cast of 20. Brian Post composed the original music.

“This is a family-oriented show,” Kelso said, “so we’ve scheduled it for the holiday season. There’s singing, dancing and masks in an exotic, romantic and fanciful story.” Shakuntala is performed in the Gist Hall Theatre at 7:30 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays Nov. 29-Dec. 1 and Dec. 6-8, with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on Dec. 2 and 9. 826-3928. http://HSUStage.blogspot.com.

Also opening on Thursday, last year's Happy Family returns to the Arcata Playhouse for The Larry Welcome Happy Holiday Extravaganza.  This year another family member appears, Frank Happy’s twin brother, Larry Welcome.  It's their now-traditional combination of comedy, music, mistaken identity and holiday tips (and elves, don’t forget the elves.)

  Lynne and Bob Wells are back, along with Jacqueline Dandeneau, David Ferney, Amy Tetzlaff, Amelia Davide, Cora Dandeneau and Jeremy Santos. Tim Randles, Tim Gray and Marla Joy provide the music, and in another tradition, there are a couple of different special guests for each performance. The Arcata Playhouse holiday show runs two weekends: Thursday-Saturday Nov. 29-December 1, and Friday and Saturday Dec. 7 & 8 at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday December 9. 822-1575. www.arcataplayhouse.org.

Meanwhile, the musical Annie continues at Ferndale Rep, and the musical comedy Anything Goes continues at North Coast Rep.  Dell Arte's holiday show, The Fish in My Head, is on the road (see schedule in post below.)

This North Coast Weekend

When Black Friday comes, so will two stage openings. The 1977 musical Annie opens at Ferndale Repertory Theatre on Friday (November 23.)   With a story based on the popular 1930s comic strip, it’s set in the Great Depression, featuring an 11 year-old orphan heroine, a mean orphanage director, a beneficent millionaire and a singing-and-dancing President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And it ends on Christmas.

With music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, Annie was an immediate sensation and has been a theatrical staple ever since. The latest Broadway revival just opened in early November, providing New York critics with opportunities to muse on optimism after the hurricane and the politics of rich and poor. But basically it’s a big, very child-friendly musical that Ferndale produces with a cast of 24, featuring Craig Benson as Daddy Warbucks, Andrea Zvaleko as the evil Miss Hannigan, Kristi Peifer as Daddy’s faithful personal assistant and Jeff Kieser as the comic villain, Rooster. Ariel Vergen and Marina Benson will play Annie. Kate Haley directs, with choreography by Linda Maxwell, scenic design by Calder Johnson, costumes by Taylor Depew, lighting by Greta Stockwell and music direction by Justin Ross, who also conducts the live band.

The NY Times review of the new production there (which led with the audience response to the cute dog) noted the number of little girls in the audience.  Of course, there are a number of little girls in the cast as well, and this play has incubated a number of child stars.  Among those who appeared over the years were Sarah Jessica Parker, Molly Ringwald and Alyssa Milano.

  Annie runs Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons from November 23 through December 16. 1-800-838-3006. www.ferndalerep.org.

Also opening November 23 is the North Coast traditional Dell’Arte holiday show for all ages, that begins in Blue Lake and travels up and down 101 from Scotia to Cave Junction, Oregon for mostly free shows. This year it’s an original fantasy called The Fish In My Head, created by the ensemble of seven actor/musician/acrobats: Janessa Johnsrude, Ryan Musil, Jacob Trillo, Meridith Ann Baldwin (all seen in last summer’s Mary Jane: The Musical), Rux Cantir, Anson Kalani Smith and Anthony Arnista. Directed and designed by Ronlin Foreman, it’s a fish story about transformations and adventure that starts out in the humdrum but escapes to the bottom of the sea and off to the moon, and back.

Opening weekend performances at the Carlo Theatre in Blue Lake (Friday and Saturday, Nov. 23 & 24 at 7:30 p.m.) are free, though audiences are asked to contribute non-perishable food items to be donated to local food banks. That goes for the touring shows, too, which reach an estimated seven-to-ten thousand people, many of them school children.  Then The Fish in My Head returns to Blue Lake Dec. 13-16, with tickets priced at $10 and $8. Ticket outlets include Wildberries Marketplace, Pierson Building Center and Moore’s Sleep World. Also: 707-668-5663, ext. 20. www.dellarte.com.

Meanwhile, the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes continues at North Coast Rep.  My review is in this week's NC Journal.

Fish in My Head Full Schedule

Nov. 23, 24 Blue Lake, CA DAI’s Carlo Theatre 7:30 PM FREE
Nov. 26 Klamath, CA Yurok Tribal Headquarters 6:00 PM FREE
Nov. 27 McKinleyville, CA McKinleyville High School 7:30 PM FREE
Nov. 28 Arcata, CA Van Duzer at HSU 7:30 PM FREE
Nov. 30 Trinidad, CA Trinidad School 7:00 PM FREE
Dec. 2 Point Arena, CA Arena Theater 4:00 PM $10/8
Dec. 4 Redway, CA Mateel Community Center 6:30 PM $10/5
  Dec. 5 Scotia, CA Winema Theater 7:30 PM FREE
Dec. 6 Orick, CA Orick Community Center 5:00 PM FREE
Dec. 7 Burnt Ranch Burnt Ranch School 12:30PM FREE
Dec. 8 Eureka, CA Eureka Theater 7:30 PM FREE
Dec. 10 Cave Junction, OR Lorna Byrne Middle School 7:00 PM FREE
Dec. 13- 16 Blue Lake, CA DAI’s Carlo Theatre 7:30PM $10/8

This North Coast Weekend

 

Tonight (Thursday Nov. 15) North Coast Rep opens the classic Cole Porter musical, Anything Goes.   Like many movies of the period, this 1934 show is an escapist comedy involving love and high jinks among the hilariously wealthy. This time some romantic criminals are added to the mix-ups aboard an ocean liner, with Cole Porter tunes that are simultaneously topical and timeless. Its latest Tony Award-winning Broadway revival was in 2011. Lauren Wieland directs the NCRT production featuring Eric Standifird, Keili Simmons Marble (also the dance director), Clayton Cook, Molly Severdia (also the music director) and David Simms. Anything Goes plays for a solid month of weekends, November 15-December 15. Tickets and information: 442-6278. www.ncrt.net.

This is the last weekend for Dusty and the Big, Bad World at Redwood Curtain.

It's Not Easy ReLiving Bush

I do my best each time in my reviews, though I'm not always crazy about the result.  Some pieces I do particularly like, and this is one of them--it appears in this weeks NC Journal.  I've probably mucked it up with some additions, but it has a proper Election Day theme.  I did bury the lead, however, which is VOTE!

Dusty and the Big Bad World, now on stage at Redwood Curtain, is loosely based on real events: the 2005 decision by PBS not to air a segment of a children’s program (Postcards From Buster) dealing with lesbian parents, under pressure from the Bush administration. Playwright Cusi Cram, who worked for an associated program (Arthur) then, engages in some score-settling, puts words of one actual participant in another’s mouth, and inaccurately impugns the motive of the PBS president at the time (who admittedly is an old acquaintance of mine.) But on the whole, Cram uses the situation to create an independent, thoughtful and lively work of theatre that entertains ideas as well as the audience.

  First we meet 11-year-old Lizzie Goldberg-Jones (played by Alissa Barthel) who talks into her video camera about why she should win the contest to be on the animated PBS children’s show Dusty, along with her family: because her little brother really likes it, and “TV is important.” It might distract him from being teased about their “two dads.”  (The TV is important line turns out to be a major theme--not an unexpected one from a writer who is still involved in television.  Another biographical tell: Cusi Cram was herself a precocious and cute child TV star.)

Next there’s Marianne Fitzgibbons (Dianne Zuleger,) a sunny but formidable presence who tells us at length how much she loves her new job, which turns out to be Secretary of Education. Her cheery demeanor towards her troubled secretary Karen (Carrie Hudson) is edged with menace, but the doubleness of her response to Karen--apparently real feeling along with shrewd coldness--goes a long way towards making the character of Marianne more than caricature.   

Marianne—whose zealous fundamentalism becomes increasingly clear-- already has her sights on the Dusty episode resulting from Lizzie winning the contest. She means to squelch it, and to cancel the series entirely. This puts the show’s producer and self-described paranoid liberal Nathan Friedman (Nathan Emmons) on the bubble, along with the show’s protective creator, Jessica Fields (Tisha Sloan.)

Playwright Cram gives these characters dimension and individuality, and this superb group of actors gives them even more. Dianne Zuleger inhabits her role to a truly scary extent. Nathan Emmons and Tisha Sloan are immediately convincing, and Alissa Barthel provides the not entirely innocent burst of light that redeems the adult-made muddle. But it’s Karen who becomes the moral center of the play (as a troubled child she wore green socks everyday to remind her of Kermit the Frog and his song, It's Not Easy Being Green.)   Carrie Hudson’s compelling performance takes us on that journey.

    How all this is a comedy with a partially happy ending is hard to describe. Some invented aspects of the plot are weak, but the script is witty and emotional, with lots of ideas flashing amidst the politics, confessions and intrigue. The characters are believable and memorable.  Marianne is an especially impressive character, especially as Zuleger plays her.  She's almost archetypal at times, and also very much like some of the political and religious fundamentalists in and around the Bush administration I've met--that combination of ingredients that people like me find unfathomable.

Reliving that Bush atmosphere wasn't easy, even for the length of this play.  But it is well-timed to motivate the one action we can take to prevent its second coming.  (Hint: vote! Save Big Bird!)

This play had its premiere performance in Denver, where the director apparently hyped it up with elements of farce. However,  I felt Redwood Curtain director Jyl Hewston made the right choice of tone—subtle and straightforward, letting the play and the actors carry the evening.

Scenic design is by Daniel Nyiri, lighting by Michael Burkhart, costumes by Laura Rhinehart, sound by Jon Tunney. Dusty and the Big Bad World plays weekends at Redwood Curtain through November 17.

   Dusty and the Big Bad World is one of three plays on North Coast stages this fall based on real events, involving similar issues. Eureka High just closed The Laramie Project, about the 1998 torture and death of a gay student that led to the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2009. The third play was 8, about Proposition 8 and marriage equality, presented by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance to a big crowd at the Van Duzer on Thursday.  There was a lengthy discussion afterwards as well. These plays have at least one real world message in common: vote.

Apropos of Dusty and this message, a real world girl very much in the same situation as Lizzie's little brother in the play--bullied by classmates because of her "two dads"-- wrote a letter to President Obama asking what she should do.  This is President Obama's reply ( and recall that he was raised by a single mother along with grandparents):

"In America, no two families look the same. We celebrate this diversity. And we recognize that whether you have two dads or one mom what matters above all is the love we show one another. You are very fortunate to have two parents who care deeply for you. They are lucky to have such an exceptional daughter in you. Our differences unite us. You and I are blessed to live in a country where we are born equal no matter what we look like on the outside, where we grow up, or who our parents are. A good rule is to treat others the way you hope they will treat you. Remind your friends at school about this rule if they say something that hurts your feelings."

This North Coast Weekend

 
8, the marriage equality play, gets its one and only North Coast staged reading at HSU tonight, Thursday, November 1.

In a 2010 trial, the federal court judge found that California Proposition 8 (passed in 2008) could not amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages, because it violates provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Though the Supreme Court is yet to weigh in, this case made same-sex marriage a Constitutional right.

That trial is the subject of 8, a play by Dustin Lance Black, whose script for Milk—the movie starring Sean Penn about San Francisco’s Harvey Milk--won the Academy Award. After celebrity-rich readings on Broadway and in Los Angeles, the Foundation for Equal Rights granted permission for staged readings throughout North America (and beyond.) The HSU Department of Theatre, Film & Dance pursued and got the opportunity to produce it for the North Coast. Each local theatre gets the spotlight for one night. In the week just before Arcata’s turn, there were readings scheduled in Des Moines, Baltimore, Anchorage, Austin and Minneapolis.

  As in readings elsewhere, the emphasis is on involving the whole community, beginning with the actors. So at HSU participants include Michael Fields, James Floss, James Hitchcock, Christina Jioras, Susan Abbey, Michael Thomas, JM Wilkerson, Elisa Abelleira, James McHugh, Catherine L. Brown, Sam Machado, Juan Carlos Contreras and Shea King. Clint Rebik directs, with set and lighting by Katie Dawson.

“People need to witness what happened in the Proposition 8 trial,” said playwright Black, “if for no other reason than to see inequality and discrimination unequivocally rejected in a court of law where truth and facts matter.” This staged reading is a benefit for the Foundation for Equal Rights. It’s followed by a panel that will lead audience discussion. 8 is on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU on Thursday, November 1, at 7:30 p.m. Donation is $5. Box Office: 826-3928. More information: HSU Stage and Screen.

Also this weekend, Humboldt Light Opera Company's KidCo opens the musical Once Upon a Mattress on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Forum Theatre at College of the Redwoods.  It's also onstage Saturday.

On Sunday the road company for A Chorus Line comes to the Van Duzer at HSU for two shows, at 3 p.m.. and 8 p.m., through CenterArts. 

Dusty and the Big Bad World continues at Redwood Curtain.  I review it this week in the NC Journal.