You’re listening to a men’s chorale sing… say, a Bach cantata. The
music is
glorious and gloriously rendered but there comes a point at which the
men’s
voices fall still and in that rest you catch the sound of another voice
singing. This voice has a character different from the ones you had
been
hearing and the music it intones is different, too. It is beautiful,
not in the
way the Bach is but in its own, distinct way. Maybe it’s a soprano
winding
upward in an Andean folk melody or a husky alto belting out a blues
refrain.
This other voice has been there all the while, but its presence has
been hidden
by the force of the great chorale.
There you have, in a grossly oversimplified form, an image
of the
American theatre. It is an institution which has traditionally devoted
most of
its energy to producing Bach cantatas, that is, works by European and
American
men. This is not offered in judgment but as fact. A simple look at
what’s being
staged locally this season confirms it. Dramas, comedies, and musicals
by the
Shakespeares, Shaws, and Simons, the Gilberts and Sullivans, and
Rodgerses and
Harts, and Lloyd Webbers, and Rices, make up the majority of the
theatre
produced. Certainly, the “music” made by these artists is good, at
times
glorious, and worthy of production. It is simply that other music which
is good
and glorious in its own way is often lost in the sound of the
ubiquitous White
Guys, that there are dramas and comedies and musicals by young
playwrights and
women writers and artists of color and gay artists that are only heard,
if they
are heard at all, in the brief still moments of the cantata.
Well, this summer in Austin is shaping up to be one big
long break
in the usual music. All across town, theatres and independent companies
are
serving up plays written by women, gay men, African Americans, teens,
and
Latino Americans. To be fair, it isn’t all that unusual in our theatre
community to find productions written by folks other than Euro/American
males.
What is unusual is to find such works constituting more than half the
productions on the schedule, and that is precisely the case in July and
August.
What we have on our hands is an explosion of theatrical work – much of
it
brand-new – that comes from different perspectives than we
traditionally get,
and that’s exciting. It offers us the chance to go beyond ourselves,
into lives
with which we may have little experience. “One thing that theatre could
and
should do,” says director Mark Ramont, “is broaden our world,” and
these
productions provide plentiful opportunities to do that. If we needed
one more
compelling reason to see these shows, it may come from First Stage
Productions’
executive director Cynthia Taylor-Edwards, in words that are simple but
which
cut straight to the matter. “We’ve got to get to know each other.
That’s why we
fear each other. We don’t know each other.”
Miss Mary’s Trunk Show – Mary Lang (Esther’s Follies,
Jeffrey) and Roxy Becker (And Baby Makes Seven) put a new
spin on
some traditional folk and fairy tales in this comedy for kids, ages
eight and
older. Performances run through July 8 at the Dougherty Arts Center.
Aunt Rose – Georgetown writer Marc Bockmon penned this
family
drama shot through with comedy and mystery, which follows the citizens
of a
small town in East Texas in the 1940s as they puzzle over a murder and
what the
shadowy, slightly addled woman named Rose knows. Performances run July
13-22 at
Frontera/Hyde Park Theatre.
Kuka – Distinguished, nationally known theatre artist
Manuel
Zarate directs the world premiere production of his tale of a
Guatemalan artist
who is imprisoned for the political nature of her paintings.
Performances run
July 14-August 5 at Capitol City Playhouse.
Tabula Rasa – A new Southern Gothic drama by Dallas
writer Molly
Louise Shepard in which a young woman in East Texas in the 1970s
discovers her
love of photography, her Christianity, and her fellow human beings. A
staged
reading will be held July 16 at Chicago House.
BREAKING & Entering – In his debut effort, Austin
writer
Chris Navarro weaves magical realism into the tale of a young woman
whose
contemplation of suicide is interrupted by a pair of small-time
criminals
trying to dispose of a dead body. Performances run July 21-August 12 at
Planet
Theatre.
The Sisters Rosensweig – Wendy Wasserstein’s acclaimed
comedy of
three sisters mulling the meaning of success and love mid-life is given
its
Austin premiere by the Zachary Scott Theatre Center. Performances run
July
22-August 27 on the ZSTC Kleberg Stage.
No Mo’ Blues – Poet Sharon Bridgforth follows up her
deeply
lyrical and enormously successful celebration of African-American women
Lovve/rituals & rage with a one wo’mn show of “backwoods
herstory,
by-the-water/between-time/urban madness, and all-the-time lovvn.”
Performances
run July 27-August 5 at Frontera/Hyde Park Theatre.
The Warp Creed – Ignacio Lopez’s time-shifting,
culture-sifting
tale of Depression-era millworkers, present-day politics of fear, and
love in
the age of AIDS, staged in May by the University of Texas, continues
its
development in a staged reading by The Public Domain. The staged
readings will
be held July 28 & 29 at The Public Domain Theatre.
Black Power Barbie in Hotel de Dream and Earthbirths,
Jazz, and
Raven’s Wings – Two one-acts of African-American history and
visions,
the former by Shay Youngblood (Talking Bones), the latter by
Daniel
Alexander Jones (director of Talking Bones). Performances run
August
9-September 22 at Frontera/Hyde Park Theatre.
The Young Playwrights Festival – Capitol City Playhouse
produces
three more works by teenaged playwrights: Ironic Obsession, a
profile of
a wild photographer by Andrea Reiter; Two by Two, a comedy of
twins by
Emily Topper-Cook; and For the Love of Death, a Poe-ish story of
love
gone bad by Beau de Lozier. Performances run August 11-19 at Capitol
City
Playhouse.
Occasional Fits of Insanity – Austin writer Antoinette
Martinez’s
first play is a farcical comedy of sisters with guns dealing with
fianc�s and taking hostages in the Las Vegas airport
Performances run
August 11-19 at the Dougherty Arts Center.
3am. – Heather McCutchen, author of Alabama Rain,
draws us
into the lives of three generations of women as they struggle to
comfort each
other following the threat of a menacing intruder. Performances run
August
14-29 at Frontera/Hyde Park Theatre.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill – Lanie Robertson
provides
an evocation of one of the last performances by Billie Holliday,
complete with
jazz, blues, and pop standards that she made her own. Performances run
August
30-Oct 7 at Capitol City Playhouse. n
This article appears in July 7 • 1995 and July 7 • 1995 (Cover).