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Rani said...
It was intriguing and I found myself encompassing many emotions as I watched. At times I became defensive, other times I found myself giggling at the hypocrisy. I was saddened and moved by a couple of realizations that I had never made before. In the end it was entertaining as usual and this year I felt like I learned a thing or two [emphasis mine].
"learned a thing or two" -- exactly the playwright's intent. I just hope the hypocrisy Rani giggled at wasn't our own! See Rani's complete comments on the play (and other valuable comments on life in Montrose) at her own blog, Mommyville.
We perform again Thursday morning, 9:35, at the Brandon Valley Performing Arts Center.
***Update We won Regions and have qualified for State! Our next performance is Thursday, February 1, 3:40 p.m., at the Brandon Valley Performing Arts Center. Come see what you can learn, and post your reviews here!
from neighbor and ex-legislator Gerry Lange, on reading the script:
ReplyDelete"Profound-provocative and must be published for all to peruse! Congrats on putting together one heck of a bunch of good questions! Let's put it on every legislator's desk in his/her computer. Clergy need it too."
At the Region I-B contest in Brandon (Thursday, 1/25), one of our judges, Dr. Ivan Fuller from Augustana, made some interesting comments about how the show leaves the audience with some "Yeah but"s. He also noted a certain uncomfortableness about the ending, as it's the anti-abortion argument that makes it possible for Katarzyna, the child who appears at the end, to exist.
ReplyDeleteDr. Fuller has judged my students' work in interp and one-act several times in the past. Just as he did on Thursday, he has always offered my students good advice on becoming better actors (not to mention helping me become a better director). I am also familiar with some of Dr. Fuller's theatrical work in Sioux Falls. Dr. Fuller himself authored a one-act play about abortion, titled "The Scar." He seemed to think that "The Pro-Life Handbook" somehow opposes the position his own play takes. I suggest that the content of "The Pro-Life Handbook" may be entirely compatible with "The Scar." As Dr. Ron Moyer from USD, another of our judges noted, he got to the end of our play and wasn't sure what our position on abortion was. That ambiguity is deliberate. We don't say the word "abortion" once in our script. "The Pro-Life Handbook" is not a play about abortion; it is a play about being "pro-life." Where "The Scar" ends with a sound cue of a baby being delivered, "The Pro-Life Handbook" brings that baby on stage, alive and kicking, needing our love, looking the players and the audience in the eye and asking what we are doing to make South Dakota a good place to grow up and live a full, safe, healthy life.
The script reads like an ideological rant. Couldn't the play be non-political? Geez
ReplyDeleteBe fair, Phaedrus: If Hunt and Unruh can write their rants into legislation, why can't I write mine into theater?
ReplyDeleteFrom a fellow director at the State Festival (and forgive the adult content... but it is an adult play):
ReplyDelete"You've got balls the size of tractor tires."
From a Brandon Valley high school student, shouting across the lunchroom on seeing the t-shirt I wore advertising the show, which says "Choose Life" on the front:
ReplyDelete"Nice shirt, fascist! You're trying to control people!"
He wouldn't explain his politics to me, but I think he mistook me for one of Unruh's crowd. All the more reason for us to wear the shirts and reclaim the phrase "Choose Life" to mean so much more than "Vote with Roger and Leslee to ban abortion and protect (read 'patronize and subjugate') women."