Bummer (1995)

Promotional photo by Anthony Gray

Dobama’s Night Kitchen premiered on Saturday, September 23, 1995 at 11:00 PM with the original, ninety-minute, ensemble-written play Bummer. The work was written and performed by Tia Dionne Hodge, Dan Kilbane, Trishalana Kopaitich,  Keith Lukianowicz, Sarah Morton, and Charles Ogg, and I directed.

The previous spring, I was contacted by Dobama Theatre Artistic Director Joyce Casey to create a series of projects to be performed “late night” following their mainstage productions in an attempt to attract all the young people who were hanging out on Coventry.

For the three years I was managing the project, DNK featured new plays, long-form improv, and a variety of ensemble-written projects. The most cohesive of these, in my opinion, was 2001’s The Gulf, which has a tightly focused point-of-view on a particular event. This earlier piece cast a much broader net.

The mid-1990s represented a kind of return-to-childhood for many members of Generation X, an opportunity to review and revisit times long forgotten. This was the era of films like Dazed and Confused, which took place in 1976, and also Reality Bites which included a signature moment of twenty-somethings having an impromptu dance party in a gas station food market when My Sharona comes on the radio.

Bummers.

Big Fun, which opened in 1990 just up the street from the former Dobama space, was part of a burgeoning trend of upscale retro memory stores. Weezer’s entire first album is a salute to the year 1979 … and Smashing Pumpkins released a song called 1979. As a tribute to my entire tribe, I decided the first show would be a salute to recovered memories, with a title appropriated from a cartoon in Dynamite magazine called Bummers.

“1980?” [Hansen] asks. “Why not? It was a really strange year, not part of the ‘80s, not part of the ‘70s. It was a big transition period.” – The Plain Dealer

The only Bummer company member from Guerrilla Theater Co. was Keith “Lefty” Lukanowicz, Charles lived in my mod at O.U. The other four members I met for the first time through auditions, and each of them (Dan, Sarah, Tia and Trish) would become de facto DNK company members, participating one or more additional productions, Dan himself later taking on the responsibility of artistic director for the project. Auditions included, if you can believe it, request for a writing sample.

There were actually seven company members originally, because I am by nature superstitious, but one backed out right as we began rehearsals. However, I am also superstitious enough to let things progress the way they will, and did not replace her.

With this first project I was depending on methods of writing and performance I was accustomed to from my work in Guerrilla Theater Company, which had disbanded the previous year. Artists would write, we’d put the writing on its feet, then either keep what we’d written or go back to the drawing board. I had no experience in editing or rewriting, and with the six week rehearsal schedule I’d set I didn’t feel we had that kind of time. Just write, try it, then keep or discard.

Company in costume in front of Dobama

There was so much good material I balked at selecting only one hours’ worth of stuff, opting instead to cycle some material in and out over the course of three weeks, which may not have been the best decision, either. But as is, the material was amusing, ridiculous, poignant and touching.

Costumes were largely cobbled together from the thrift store, though we did get a new Rock and Roll Over ringer tee for Keith and a Daffy Dan’s Cleveland Rocks shirt for Charles.

Hansen says Hodge will wear a pair of Chic jeans, but she corrects him. “No! I have Sassoons, with one pocket and a snap!” Morton interjects that she wear the Chic jeans – aqua-colored – in the show. (The Plain Dealer)

Performed on the set of Dobama’s mainstage performance of George Walker’s Love and Anger (set in an industrial basement office) the show truly had the feel that the kids had taken over and were putting on their own show. And admission for this first production was three dollars.

Critical response was extremely generous for this fledgling project, an experiment in writing, performance and my nascent abilities in direction.

While a few of the early skits fall short of their intended effects, others shine with near brilliant writing, moving performances, smart timing and fresh creativity. (The Plain Dealer)

The best-written and most moving pieces are presented with a genuine appreciation and respect for young children and their inner-strength. (The Free Times)

 The show is warm, human and fresh. (Cleveland Scene)

The two scenes which stood out most for audiences and critics alike were Tia’s monologue on growing up the only African-American student in her elementary school class in suburban Aurora, and Sarah’s Interview about an eleven year-old trying to escape the foster child system. In this piece she sits alone on stage while two unseen parents kindly question her:

Visually shaken and frustrated, the child demands to know what she should say to finally be rescued – like other children – from this system. Aged by life’s ugliness, she says, “It’s not my fault I know more than they do.” (The Plain Dealer)

The show included a great deal of pop culture references, with a few notes of period pop songs covering each brief scene change, skits about Little League, kids playing at Charlie’s Angels and getting the lyrics wrong.

Most theater companies with any staying power generate their share of artists whose work outshines the humble origins. Recently I have been struck by how many Dobama's Night Kitchen artists have had great success as writers, even if their work in the Night Kitchen was not strictly writing. Notable examples include authors Tia Dionne Hodge (Play.Speak.), Celeste Ng (Everything I Never Told You), and playwrights Laura Jacqmin (Hero Dad), Sarah Morton (Night Bloomers), Caroline V. McGraw (Tall Skinny Cruel Cruel Boys), and Toni K. Thayer (Angst:84).

Sources:

‘Bummer’ tells how it was being a kid in 1980 Cleveland by Sheila Simmons, The Plain Dealer, 9/23/1995
Swing Poets give smart take on 1980 by Sheila Simmons, The Plain Dealer, 9/29/1995

Bummer Isn't One by Lenora Inez Brown, The Free Times, 10/4/1995

Happy talk about actors and acting by Keith Joseph, Cleveland Scene, 10/5/1995