Play a Day: The Bloodless Jungle

Peter Lawson Jones

For Monday I read The Bloodless Jungle by Peter Lawson Jones and available at New Play Exchange.

Jones is a Cleveland icon, not only a playwright and an actor of the stage and screen, he is also a lawyer with an extensive record of public service, and he pours a great deal of his lifetime of professional experience into this play script about a State Senator running his first campaign for U.S Congress.

Bloodless Jungle was written a couple years back, and it is amazing (and demoralizing) how much has changed in such a short amount of time, but there is nothing dated about the plot. Our protagonist, Ethan St. John (great name) is a Frank Capra character, that rare politician who will not compromise his ideals in order to win an election.

Political dramas have become very popular. What I most enjoyed reading Jones's play is that he presents a slate of characters with varying agendas, from the unpaid volunteers to the highly paid operatives, each with distinct, vivid personalities. He doesn't traffic in types, providing each sympathetic arguments. It's hard to take sides, especially knowing what we know in today's political climate.

The unhappy question in the real world is, will "Mr. Smith" ever again even get to Washington?

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Slingshot

Kia Corthron

For Saturday I read Slingshot by Kia Corthron, and available at New Play Exchange.

The hero of this play is a well-intentioned, kindhearted lawyer. That's not a punchline.

The premise is an accident, on-the-job, a young man falls from a height and is seriously injured. His father, who must care for him alone, solicits the services of a high-powered corporate lawyer who, for personal reasons, will work pro bono for certain cases.

I respect lawyers. I have friends who are lawyers. I do not make lawyer jokes. I understand that in the United States, the general degradation of the term "lawyer" among the middle-class has been employed for the benefit of the corporate class.

You know the coffee story? The MacDonald's coffee story? Of course you do. Frivolous lawsuit. Adam Ruins Everything did a piece on that lawsuit recently, you should see it. But I already knew the real facts of the case, because I hate urban legends which perpetuate stereotype and ignorance, and when I hear tales where a corporation is the victim, I am naturally suspicious.

Politicians write laws. Lawyers interpret and defend the laws. We need our lawmakers and law interpreters to be educated, experienced, and competent in writing and interpreting laws. Above all, they need to have ethics and integrity. As a nation, we no longer understand nor appreciate that.

Corthron's play is taut and tense, with colorful and flawed characters, all essentially decent, their intentions clear and understood. It's a legal thriller without any of your cigar-twiddling villains. What's at stake is very real and urgent, and the conclusion uncertain up to the final moment.

Play a Day: Click

Jacqueline Goldfinger

Today I read Click by Jacqueline Goldfinger, which was recommended on the New Play Exchange homepage.

Plays about future technology are fascinating. We as theater artists are utilizing the most primitive of art forms to present, communicate, discuss devices and systems which do not yet exist, engaging the human imagination to fill in the gaps. CGI in film must show exactly what that world will appear like, or it fails, in theater we have no such limits or criteria.

On your imaginary forces work ... if you follow me.

Because we are not (as is the case in this text) not concerned with the technology so much as the effect it has on the human condition. The subject of this play is very troubling, as I have two adolescent children moving into the world armed and/or hobbled by such modern devices.

Ideally, our dramatic works will assist in the creation of a set of ethics, mores, rules. It remains to be seen.