October 2006

Dear Subscriber:

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE fall is already here; wasn’t it just summer? As quickly as the stifling heat has turned to crisp breezes, our production of Ace has moved on to charm audiences in Cincinnati just as much as it did ours here in St. Louis. I’ve never received so many positive messages about a show before, and the entire creative team and cast were honored by the wonderful reception that you gave them throughout this premiere production.

WE’RE VERY PROUD of having been able to open the season with Ace. It’s not often that a new musical is in such good shape at its first meeting with an audience, and an amazing cast only furthered the work that was done here. Your responses were thrilling to the performers, and your comments were quite helpful. Some changes that are being considered now, most of them very subtle, may find their way into the show in Cincinnati. The larger ones involve the number “Life Can Be Cruel,” which you may recall was sung by three women at a KMOX microphone. This song may be set on the playground and sung instead by the kids alone. Additionally, “Joie de Vivre” may become primarily a men’s song rather than a women’s number, with that whole scene continuing as a work in progress. Again, we are privileged to have been a part of this developmental process and thank you for your role in it.

MANY OF YOU ASKED how the bed made its moves, and here is how Nichelle Kramlich, our technical director, describes it:

Many people have asked me how the bed moves, and I have been tempted to answer “trained theatrical squirrels” because the true answer is so technically complex (and actually the downstage pivot point mechanism is known as a “turtle” in our industry). The complexity comes into play because the choreography required the bed to move and rotate independently and at differing speeds. The bed was on a separate pallet, one corner of which was attached to a steel shaft connected to a motor beneath the stage. This motor and shaft controlled rotation. In order to facilitate upstage and downstage movement, however, the first motor was attached to a second that moved the entire structure (bed, pallet and first motor). Both motors were controlled via a computer running specialized software that allowed us to enter distance cues in inches and rotation cues in degrees.

There was one additional mechanized component of the bed’s movement. Because the control shaft was located on one corner of the pallet, the opposite end required a separate guide and braking mechanism. For this we used a pneumatic cylinder attached to an inline-skating wheel that could be lowered and raised via remote-controlled dimmer switches. When the wheel was lowered parallel to the bed’s movement it served as a guide and when lowered perpendicular, it served as a brake. During each performance, the computer and dimmer switches were operated by stagehand Rick Shetley.

Trained theatrical squirrels, indeed. We move now from this new story of fathers and sons to a timeless telling of the unique bonds and responsibilities of brotherhood that reach beyond blood ties to encompass shared visions of life and dreams for the future.

OUR SECOND SHOW on the Mainstage is John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, an American classic of both literature and stage that still wields great power and humanity nearly seventy years after its first publication. Its story of two men looking for their dreams during the Great Depression not only examines the lives of itinerant ranch hands and traveling companions George and Lennie in tight focus, but also frames a microcosm of the larger landscape at that time. This country was (and in many ways, perhaps still is) an environment in which dreams of a better life abounded, and yet the loneliness of the countryside and independence of the American spirit stood in direct conflict against those dreams that they fueled. In the face of this catch-22 scenario, Steinbeck paints a beautiful portrait, not merely of a roaming ranch hand and an “imbecile giant” (as the 1962 Nobel Prize committee referred to Lennie), but that of two men who have put aside their separate pursuits out of devotion to each other and a common dream.

THE REAL BEAUTY, though, lies in Steinbeck’s—and in turn, his characters’—discovery of the amazing restorative power of storytelling. George and Lennie’s goal of buying their own farm and “living off the fat of the land” is not unique. Who doesn’t yearn for financial independence and self-sufficient living? What makes these men noteworthy is that together, they speak their dream into being. Over the course of the play, George tells Lennie “how it is with us” on three separate occasions and has clearly spoken the same words countless times before. George repeats the story, not because Lennie doesn’t remember (this is the one thing that is firmly fixed in his mind), but rather because he does. In the midst of lives that bring them new beds, new jobs, and new conflicts every few weeks, these men have only two constants: each other and their joint aspirations for something more. By repeatedly sharing those dreams aloud, they have made them real. Essentially, we are told that a dream shared is a dream realized, even if we never see physical fulfillment of that goal, because the telling gives birth to hope. This is why Lennie implores George, “It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on now.” This is why we gather in theatres. This is why we read great books. We are urging performers and writers to, “Go on now”, not because we don’t know the story but because we are living it and need to hear its communal resonance spoken aloud. We need someone else to say, “Yes, that’s how it is with us.” Steinbeck affirms this view of literature in his 1962 Banquet Speech for the acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature:

Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches—nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tin-horn mendicants of low-calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species…

[T]he writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

WRITERS AND STORYTELLERS like Steinbeck and George are not merely doling out powerless mantras for innocent Lennies to repeat, though. Instead, they are arming us with tools to manipulate our own landscapes and perhaps more importantly, prompting us to look beyond our immediate desires in the interest of a long-term pursuit. We learn to weigh the freedom of independence against the rewards and responsibilities of living a shared dream. George laments, “if I was alone, I could live so easy,” and yet he confides in Slim, “You get used to goin’ round with a guy and you can’t get rid of him. I mean you get used to him an’ you can’t get rid of bein’ used to him.” George and Lennie’s dream is palpable enough in their minds to affect the way that they live. George surrenders his personal freedom to oversee Lennie, they choose to stay in a job that they loathe and Lennie makes the best conscious effort that he can not to speak or act out of turn—all with one goal in mind—fulfillment of their hope deferred. Genuine hope is tangible enough to alter behavior and change reality. So tangible, in fact, that even as George fires that single, merciful shot at the play’s close, Lennie can say earnestly, eagerly, “I can see it, George.  I can see it! Right over there!” And because he does, the dream becomes reality.

STEINBECK CREATED A WONDERFUL visual representation of this need for humanity to aspire beyond what seems prudent or even possible in what became his second signature, “Pigasus.” His widow, Elaine, explains the faux-mythical creature’s origins:

The Pigasus symbol came from my husband’s fertile, joyful, and often wild imagination. After his signature on letters or inside his books, he would draw a fat little pig with wings, and lettered his name, “Pigasus.” John would never have been so vain or presumptuous as to use the winged horse as his symbol; the little pig said that man must try to attain the heavens even though his equipment be meager. Man must aspire though he be earth-bound.

At some point, he began to write “Pigasus” in Greek letters, and he added the motto, “ad astra per alia panic,” “to the stars on the wings of a pig.”

GEORGE AND LENNIE’S EFFORTS to extract themselves from the lives that they lead to create a fresh future are, pragmatically speaking, as futile as the heavenward journey of Pigasus, but Steinbeck’s affinity for the winged pig and ours for these brothers of circumstance are born out of the hope that their bold and brave aspirations birth, as much as for the realities that they fulfill.

EDWARD STERN DIRECTS this powerful production with a cast that is all new to us except Dane Knell, who was recently in Humble Boy and The Crucible. Paul Shortt designs the rugged set with Depression-era costumes by Kristine Kearney. James Sale casts the lights of the Salinas Valley, and Chuck Hatcher provides the sounds of a working ranch.

OCTOBER HAS BECOME our busiest month, with a full slate of theatre opening in all three of our venues. Shakespeare’s R&J is our second Off-Ramp production and opens at the Grandel Theatre on October 20. This unconventional treatment of Romeo and Juliet explores the play through the curious, untrained eyes of four prep school young men who discover a forbidden copy of Shakespeare’s text at their highly regimented school. It is a play that captures their spirit and minds. Their literary journey is replete with danger, comedy and sexual tension, and at moments the whole idea can recall the novel A Separate Peace or the more hazardous moments in Lord of the Flies. They start reading the play in secret, probably as little more than an act of rebellion, but, in a testament to the power of the work, their dabbling quickly turns to an urgent enacting of the piece. They discover, without the aid of Cliffs Notes or Harold Bloom, the humanity and love in the story as well as Shakespeare’s great poetry. And as in the days of the Bard, all the parts are played by the men. It’s an inventive look at Romeo and Juliet using a great deal of Shakespeare’s actual text peppered with some lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and selected sonnets as part of the dialog. I think you will be moved by this deeply felt approach to this great romance/tragedy. Paul Mason Barnes (who directed Stones in His Pockets for us) directs four very talented young men in this poignant production.

ON OCTOBER 27 WE OPEN our first Studio Theatre production, the world premiere of Carter W. Lewis’s play Ordinary Nation. We commissioned this local playwright to craft a play for us, and he has produced a wonderful new work that tells the rich story of a St. Louis family who are funny, even as their lives move toward crises. At the tenuous helm is Nation Jones, an economics professor who isn’t too successful in getting his book published or keeping his ex-wife from marrying a local politician with national aims. Nation’s father, G.J., is an old style book-maker who takes his work seriously and passes on the family trade by getting an assist from his granddaughter, Frankie. She is a sharp one and can make book and gamble like a pro. Frankie would love to see her parents reconcile, and she takes a non-traditional approach to the classic parent trap. Let’s just say that her prowess with cards has political implications as well as personal ones. She is quite a character, especially when she is teaming up with G.J. in taking bets.

LEWIS HAS WRITTEN A RICH and clever script that explores a family and circumstances that are anything but ordinary. We’re quite pleased to be able to include the piece in our season. It has gone through several readings and workshops and is ready for an audience, to be sure. Andrea Urice, who is on the faculty of Washington University, is directing the play.

OF MICE AND MEN WAS PRODUCED at the theatre in the early 1970s, and so we thought it only appropriate to include this very fine work in our 40th anniversary season. Ordinary Nation is a brand new play which also is fitting into the anniversary season as a way to look to the future with exciting new pieces. Shakespeare’s R&J has had long runs Off-Broadway in New York as well as in the West End of London and will play quite well in our Off-Ramp season. There’s much to see and think about at the theatre this month, and I hope you’ll be able to join us for all of the excitement.

See you at the theatre(s),

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director

P.S. Don’t forget, Big Sky Café is now providing food service in the Loretto-Hilton Center lobby prior to each Mainstage and Studio show. Meals and snacks are available starting one hour prior to showtime. This is also a good time to place your advance drink order, so it’s ready for you during the intermission. You can look at the current menu on The Rep’s website.