BUFFALO RISING MAGAZINE REVIEW 3/3/10HARVEST
by Grant Golden
THE
BASICS: The Subversive
Theatre Collective has dug up an old Langston Hughes drama about striking
agricultural workers in Depression-era California, condensed it, and woven in
some of Hughes' more radical poems and a selection of vintage union songs.
This melange, brainchild of Kurt Schneiderman, Subversive-in-Chief,
plays weekends through March 20th at the Manny Fried Playhouse on Great Arrow.
HARVEST runs nearly two hours, with a single intermission.
Sunday evenings are Pay What You Can.
THUMBNAIL
SKETCH: Migrant cotton
pickers -- white, black and Hispanic -- band together in an attempt to get a
living wage out of the !@?#$%! farm owners, but their strike comes to a brutal,
heart-rending close. This is bare
bones "social drama", remarkably unsubtle.
That said, its heart is in the right place, and there are some sanguine
parallels to the present day.
THE
CAST: When you are
working as close as this to "old time mellerdrammer", it's difficult
to keep from turning in gross caricatures.
Those playing cops and farm owners here seem to be breathing fire, and
bellow endlessly. The big
advantage is that you can hear them above the Great Arrow building's noisy
heating system. Among the Good
Guys, I particularly liked Martha Rothkopf as Marty Dobbs, a tough-and-tender
Ma Joad type. Hasheen DeBerry
gives an appealing youthful zeal to emerging labor leader Mack Saunders.
And Gary Darling, straddling the Good/Bad divide, delivers three nice,
diverse characters, none overstated. Way
to go!
PRODUCTION
VALUES: HARVEST
is showpiece of sorts for the Subversive Theatre Collective, and Kurt
Schneiderman, working on an obvious shoestring budget, has done some good
things. For one thing, we're given a nice, palatable mixture of
scene, poetry and song. Schneiderman
gets punchy, in-your-face readings of many of the poems, which highlight
Hughes' relatively unknown radical side (There's an ode to Lenin, for
example). The set is rudimentary, but a central scrim is used to fine
effect in the farm owners' meetings, where the villains are seen only as
large, distorted silhouettes. Paul
Stephenson's period costumes pass muster.
Silver-haired Jean Dickson gives the interpolated union songs a mellow,
folky quality. I particularly
liked the Intermission Song, which I suppose was her own invention.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This
Rainbow Coalition play is way too black-and-white, and there is a certain
inescapable amateurishness to the proceedings, but kudos to the STC for their
enthusiasm, vision and daring. Union
members in attendance can be proud of their valiant, indispensable
predecessors. Chris Collins and
friends ...need not apply! Dwelling
on the positives, I'm rounding this one up to...
THREE OUT OF FIVE BUFFALOS!
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