Parallels and Contrasts
Posted by Martha Lavey on 4/17/2008
One of the interesting outcomes of our decision to program our subscription series across both our Upstairs and Downstairs theaters is that it produces a concurrent run of our subscription shows. Currently, we have Carter’s Way in the Downstairs Theatre and Dead Man’s Cell Phone in the Upstairs Theatre. Just having both shows in our house produces a dialogue between them. In a season dedicated to the question, “What does it mean to be an American?”, these two plays activate interesting parallels and contrasts.
Parallels: both shows are, in at least one thread of their narratives, love stories. Both plays feature a new technology–in Carter’s Way, the radio; in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, the…cell phone–and raise some questions about how that technology changes the boundaries of one’s sense of self.
Contrasts: Carter’s Way is, finally, a tragic story; Dead Man’s Cell Phone is a hopeful endorsement of love’s triumph over the forces that separate and isolate us. Carter’s Way is plot-driven: one event drives the next. Dead Man’s Cell Phone is a more poetic structure: yes, there is a plot but events unfold surprisingly, and the structure of that unfolding is rooted in a dream-like, fairy tale logic.
It’s illuminating to hold both of these stories in our collective head as we look at the question of what it means to be an American. Being an American is both an historical identity–we are the past that Carter’s Way surveys; and a dream–we are the fairy tale we imagine for ourselves. The woof and weave of these forces will shift again when Carter’s Way closes and Dead Man’s Cell Phone overlaps with our next play, Tracy Letts‘ Superior Donuts. Superior Donuts is present-tense Chicago–a very specific environment, shaped by the forces of personal and civic history. It’s a beautiful conflux of history and dream: a present determined, (as all our presents are determined), by what came before and what we wish to be.
I love that our season began with The Crucible–a play that overlaid three historical moments: Salem, Massachusetts; 1950s America; and our contemporary America for its resonant power–and that we will conclude with a brand new play that stares into this question about how our past shapes our present sense of possibility.
Sometimes it’s useful to remember that we are a young country–just barely over 200 years old. Our history can feel weighty but our future can be, like the vision of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, our liberation.