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

Seven Ages: Music

Three weeks of rehearsal provide little time to waste time. After two nights of table reading, the tables have been pushed back and we are already on our feet.

This is not to the first time I have been engaged in a project that involves several playwrights writing on a common theme, and then striving through rehearsal to find their unifying threads. The Gulf certainly comes to mind.

Once we had written our tale, and decided upon their order (they are not chronological) each Seven Ages playwright was tasked with writing interstitial material, leading one story into the next. In this way, the in-between stuff is more interesting than if I had provided each of the segues.

However, it was inevitable that certain transitions appear too stark or abrupt. In each of these cases, the pleasing lubrication of music will help us slide from one fable to another. Our Touchstone, Bobby, has plenty of experience with the tunes from As You Like It, having played Amiens for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival -- twice.

I am looking forward to how we three, Annie, Emily and myself, may compliment his compositions ... if compliment is the right word.

The Gulf (2001)

Photo: Anthony Gray

In 2001, Dobama's Night Kitchen produced an ensemble-written piece on a unified theme inspired by the ten-year anniversary of the Persian Gulf War. I wrote one scene about an artist-based protest piece that went off the night before the war started on January 17th. These are some reflections on the original event, and a journal entry from the DNK production.

Originally written January 15, 2011

On midnight, January 16, 1991 I and a few dozen others participated in a performance art piece called Desert Scream, which took place next to Mem Aud. The director/creator of the project stated he was not commenting on this war (which had not yet begun, but would start the following evening, Eastern Time) but about war in general. When war happens, people die. Lots and lots of people. Horrors occur, people are displaced, there is great confusion and the loss of hope. That was the point.

Hundreds witnessed the event. A small number turned out with American flags to protest the protest, but they stood silently and watched, because there were no words to argue with, just images. And, you know, Peter Gabriel, because at that point in history, anybody staging a movement piece used that soundtrack. Everybody.

When the event was over, we the performers left, and the hippies took over. They started singing Give Peace a Chance and, I don't know, Kumbaya.

Okay, that was trite. They didn't sing Kumbaya. Sorry.

Speeches were made. And words failed.

Desert Scream
1991 Version
 

 

Originally written February 15, 2001

Saturday there was a large crowd (for this show) roughly sixty people. Included were the subject of Heather's "I'd See You Again" piece, the mother who served and her daughter, then 10 years old, now a student at CSU. They were both tremendously moved. The mother never knew what it was like at home during that time, she had no idea how tumultuous it was for us as well. She has boxes of stuff from that time, but she hasn't looked at any of them. Some are filled with letters from children at home.

Last night, closing night, "Leah's Vet" came. She had mentioned him several times, he was a medic, and she had written a play or two about his experiences but they just didn't fit. But he came anyhow, with his wife, who was also in the Marines during the war, and their young son.

Leah had said, a week or two ago before the show opened, that this man wanted to speak to us, all of us,personally, while we were still working on this. That kind of creeped me out. Leah had remarked that, despite his emotions, how moved to tears he was remembering stories for her, she was also virulently anti-Iraqi. I didn't want any of the actors spooked by the potentially emotive, possibly angry rhetoric that might be shared.

But he was there, and insisted on all of us, the entire company, gathering together so he could speak to us, last night. And what he had to say was how much he and his wife loved the show, how grateful they were that we remembered them. He said Sean's portrayal of "PFC Guttenburg" and his talk about "family" was right on target, and how Josh's "Gulf War Syndrome" series was also very important, how many vets have died from the Syndrome, and how no one cares.

He also invited us all to an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of the peace declaration (Sun., Feb. 25) downtown. Rumor has it they will be honoring Leah at the event.


Desert Scream
2001 "The Gulf" Version
I realized some things myself last night. Of course, I discouraged the marketing director from promoting this event through VA halls. I am anti-war, a pacifist, and just assumed what we said was potentially offensive to Gulf War vets.

That was assuming all (or most even) vets haven't also spent the past ten years wondering what happened, and why no one talks about it. Sure, it was a decisive victory, and when they came home everyone was all gung-ho, yippee, all those stupid parades, &c. ... that was a long time ago. They, too, wonder what it was all about, and why no one walks about it. The fact that we decided to mention it at all was enough to make at least these three veterans thrilled. And they were all wise enough to know we weren't dissing them. The government maybe, but not them.

I was so depressed going into this ... a play about a war? What was I thinking? This isn't Guerrilla Theater Company, you can't just sling half-baked generalized opinions around, not about this. But the crew was fantastic. And for once I knew how to get the results I wanted. I wasn't always sure, but I followed my instincts and opened myself up for commentary from people like Sean and others. The format worked, the materials worked, the artists worked.

Despite the small houses (and what did I expect) I am immensely proud of this show. I am proud of all the people who made it, I am proud of myself.

Oh, and I was right about not needed the "Patriotism" monologue. Those vets let us know the show already had "patriotism" written all over it.

Long Time Passing
by Leah Krauss