"Together with its harbinger, Millennium Approaches, Perestroika is the most important American play of the past 50 years. That said . . . it slouches toward what some might consider blasphemy and those put off by frank depictions of gay life and sexuality will be better off skipping this one.
"The Rep gambled much by putting it on. And won.
"Director Brad Mooy's realization . . . is nothing short of superb. He allows room for his actors to breathe life into some extraordinarily funny lines, to move like dancers through an uncluttered, evocative, runic set and to just be still in the middle of the stage, frozen like statuary. The ensemble cast is immaculate; every echoed footfall and half-swallowed line reaches the audience's ear, and even at its long length the play seems almost mathematically elegant . . .
"The Rep's production of Perestroika is a transcendent experience that ought to buy the company much good will and encouragement . . . . there is a moment in the play, when Roy Cohn has just died, when Louis, with the help of a ghostly Ethel Rosenberg, says the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, over his corpse. It is a testament to the power of the play, the actors and the production that this little scene--which must be so alien to the majority of theater-goers in Arkansas--required the opening night audience to hold its collective breath, to suspend all reservations, to enter the hospital ward and feel the wash of the evacuating spirit itself.
"It was a miracle."
-- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 16, 1997
One of the things that happens when we travel is that we become boosters.
We tell new friends and strangers about Arkansas, about Little Rock. Sometimes we upset their expectations and challenge their preconceptions of a place that at least some of them would have trouble finding on a map. We point out that we are not culturally deprived, that many of the amenities available to residents of the coastal megalopolis have analogs in the sticks.
We have Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. We have Arkansas Arts Center. We have a fine symphony orchestra. We have several restaurants that are on par with any in the country. We have long had a rich local music scene and a number of local filmmakers who seem inclined to collaboration. We have painters. We have writers. While it is obvious we are small and poor, our poverty is not of an aesthetic or intellectual variety.
This does not make us special, for talent is not an especially rare quality. You can find talent languishing everywhere.
Yet Arkansas is special. I noticed it when I first arrived here and it was the major reason I came back after spending time away. People here are more engaged with their local institutions than they are elsewhere--more supportive, prouder, more invested. That's one reason we have a relatively healthy local media environment--not just this newspaper, though if you travel you know how the Democrat-Gazette stacks up against others, but Arkansas Business and Arkansas Times and probably a dozen other publications who are going to be a little annoyed that they're not mentioned by name. It's not just the local TV news teams that get recognized in barbecue places here.
But there are leveling forces out there, and some of the same miracles that allow dirt-road kids entree to a world of images and ideas they might otherwise never encounter also conspire to homogenize America, to smooth away idiosyncratic qualities and regional tastes. The digital world that allows us to freely move through virtual space and time also tempts us to forget the here and now. When you have a thousand "friends" waiting for you online, why brave the playground or the junior prom?
I don't know. If I did I'd have suggestions. I'm as inclined to get takeout and watch Netflix as anybody else. More inclined, maybe. Give me my closest friend, my dogs, my guitar and a reliable Internet connection and I'm good.
Still, losing Arkansas Repertory Theatre--although good people are fighting for it--hurts. Even though I don't go there much anymore, even though I miss the days when Brad Mooy was doing interesting things in the black box as well as on the main stage, when some of the productions seemed to scare some people a little. But I never held it against them when they had a big musical--I figured they had to program popular shows to stay afloat. And I was proud of them for staying afloat.
I'm surprised that their strategy hasn't been working; that, as Eric Harrison has reported, even plays like Spamalot and Sister Act have failed to make their budgets.
I was always impressed with the quality of their productions, even when I wished their seasons were less safe. For instance, I wouldn't have believed I could be impressed with--much less enjoy--a show like Mamma Mia! Yet, despite the clumsiness of the plot and the way those familiar songs--with their phonetic English lyrics--were strung together in such an overt and obvious manner, despite the determined dumbness of the objectively bad musical, I was won over by the execution, by the display of craft on the stage. I enjoyed the Rep's Mamma Mia!
But if you can't make money putting on a show like that, how are you going to pay your staff? How are you going to keep the lights on?
Maybe you try to keep costs down. Maybe make do with a shorter season, fewer New York actors and more local people (because talent abounds). And don't put on a play just because you think it will draw a crowd. That strategy obviously hasn't worked. There may well be a natural constituency for a theater like the Rep here--but you don't serve that constituency by putting on shows designed to pull in casual theater-goers. Those folks are more likely to save up for The Lion King.
But the chief failure here isn't the Rep's; it's ours. We didn't support a worthy institution. We forced these compromises.
We lost.
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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 05/01/2018