All Over the Map

Intiman Theatre is producing the world premiere of a new stage adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son, but it’s not the script they originally intended to use. The Seattle-based theater’s plans to stage an adaptation by Cheryl L. West were dashed when a rights dispute resulted in her withdrawing her script a week and a half into rehearsals. “I love Cheryl and her work,” says director Kent Gash. “I think she made the only decision she felt she could make, and it was not made lightly or capriciously.” Still, the withdrawal put the director in a very awkward position, and he praises Intiman for making a commitment to continue working with him and his entire cast. Though Gash and company toyed with the idea of doing something completely different, it soon became clear that they really wanted to present a stage version of Native Son.

Gash has written or co-written several musicals, and Intiman artistic director Bartlett Sher suggested he might want to do his own adaptation. “In the great tradition of Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street, I’m tap-dancing my way through writing this thing,” says the playwright/director. The Intiman production is not a musical, but it does feature an original blues score by Chic Street Man. Though a previous stage adaptation by Paul Green exists, Gash was unhappy with the way it seemed to mute Wright’s voice, so he went back to the original novel for inspiration. “Richard Wright lays the groundwork,” he states. “His dialogue in the novel is magnificent, pungent, and very idiosyncratic in terms of character.”

Written in 1940, the novel is a searing account of racism and its connections to issues of poverty and class. It tells the story of a young, African-American male named Bigger Thomas, who inadvertently kills the daughter of his white employer. His attempts to cover his crime are soon exposed, and he goes on trial for murder. As for the use of music in the Intiman prodcution, Gash remarks: “There are some really interesting and extraordinary things that cannot be expressed in prose but can be manifest onstage through music. It’s another way to show us what Bigger is going through and what many of the other characters are experiencing.”

Gash believes that Native Son is as timely now as when it was first written. “We’re in a very complicated place right now,” he says, “and one of the most dangerous ideas out there is that race isn’t really an issue anymore. I’m hoping that people experience through the play the extraordinary breadth and specificity of Wright’s voice, and how insightful he is about human behavior. There are times when we’re appalled or challenged, but what Richard Wright demands is that we not turn our heads away — that we look with clear eyes, unflinchingly.”

— D.B.

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Mark Rydell is best known as the director of such films as On Golden Pond, The Rose, and Cinderella Liberty, but he also has an impressive acting career that extends back to the 1950s. This facet of his talent is currently being showcased in Moving Right Along, a program of three one-act plays at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.

The project has Rydell working in some very heady company; one of the plays stars stage and TV favorite Marlo Thomas, and two of them were written by the legendary Elaine May, a longtime friend of Rydell’s. “A play called Killing Trotsky, by Jan Mirochek, was submitted to Elaine by her agents,” Rydell explains. “Elaine so adored it that she decided, because it’s a short play, to write two companion pieces [titled ‘On the Way’ and ‘George Is Dead.’ “]

Rydell appears in both “Killing Trotsky” and “On the Way,” playing two different characters. “In the former, I’m a starving, passionate, artistic playwright, and in the other one, I’m a wealthy Republican in a limousine on his way to the airport to take a plane to Aspen for the weekend,” he says. “I talk on the phone to my wife, who turns out to be Marlo’s character in ‘George Is Dead.’ I also discuss with the driver many issues that relate to the essential idea that things change.”

May is directing both of the playlets in which Rydell appears. Does Rydell ever have a problem withholding his directorial input when he’s hired as an actor? “No problem at all,” he replies. “The key to good acting is to surrender to the character, to the issues of the play, and to the director. Here, it’s a matter of making a commitment and surrendering to a brilliant talent like Elaine May. She’s an incredible humorist, very wise and extremely perceptive. If she weren’t involved in this, I would never be in San Francisco in an apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. I’d be in Los Angeles preparing a movie.”

— M.P.

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“Anybody who has been in combat is haunted by the likelihood if not the absolute reality that they contributed to the death of innocent people,” says playwright Willy Holtzman. “If there is forgiveness for that, I wonder if there can also be a generosity of spirit toward people who considered themselves soldiers of the left in the ’60s and ’70s?” This provocative question is at the heart of Holtzman’s Something You Did, now on stage at the People’s Light & Theatre Company, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Malvern.

The new work is loosely based on the real-life story of Kathy Boudin, a former member of the leftist militant organization Weather Underground, who went to prison for 30 years for her part in a botched armored car robbery that left three people dead. Allison, Boudin’s fictional counterpart in the play, was similarly imprisoned for her role in a bombing that killed an African-American police officer. Now that she’s up for parole, her case becomes a lightning rod for political controversy, particularly because rhetoric about terrorism is very different today than when her crime was initially committed. Says Holtzman, “I have my own politics, but I tried very hard to set all that aside when I wrote this play.”

Something You Did builds up to a confrontation between Allison and Gene, a former leftist who has become a staunch neoconservative. The playwright modeled the latter after controversial right-wing pundit David Horowitz. “David is a powerful thinker and a persuasive polemicist,” Holtzman comments. “Gene as David makes some very uncomfortable arguments that are not easily dismissed. Likewise, Allison makes some strong humanitarian arguments, but there’s always the fact that she shares responsibility for a fatal bombing. My mentor as a playwright was Cheryl Crawford, founder of the Group Theater, who pounded into me the need for theater to exist in a social context. Certainly, it should entertain; but, at its best, it should also challenge audiences and try to change them. The best plays are the ones that ask questions.”

— D.B.