I went to a play tonight....and ended up in jail.
Hang on, I'll explain in a second.
The Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT) hosts a wonderful assortment of interesting and insightful plays each year. They've done this now for 10 years. Before the '06-'07 season began, a group of now-dear friends, led by the ever-creative Troy and Sue Maben, invited my bride, Susan and me to join them with season tickets. We did.
Now, on to the explanation: tonight's play was entitled "Bust" and stars the amazing actor, Lauren Weedman, as a newbie volunteer at the LA County Jail. (Ms. Weedman is formerly of the Daily Show with John Stewart and NPR's Rewind. She brings to our little city some big-city talent.)
She plays an ever-auditioning would-be actor/dancer/entertainer, who for some strange reason decides to volunteer at the jail...a dark, forboding and alien culture to her...and to the whole audience. Well, almost all. Possibly being one of the few folks in attendance who gets to help at our local jail, I was anticipating a sort of over-the-top portrayal of jails, cons and cops - all recycled from some 30 years of mixed up "Barnie Miller-TJ Hooker-Linda Blair-Cops-Criminal Intent" culture cocktails of creative license. (Ooh, what an ugly image that conjures up - let alone a lousy/mixed metaphor!)
Again, Dennis the all-anticipating-sage was not on his game and should have been arrested for Failure to Think!
This one-person show was so wonderfully real - a mixture of well perfomed characters and believeably unbelieveable scenarios....yep, as outragious as some were, I have witnessed many with my own eyes in jail each Wednesday!! It was an 80-minute visit into the odd worlds of jail and entertainment...juxtaposing, in the same person, a slowly maturing volunteer and a shallow and ever-diminshing would-be actor.
Though peppered occaisionally with selective F-bombs, the play was refreshing and it worked. The characters made you willingly suspend your disbelief. I was in jail tongiht and it wasn't even Wednesday. Sad? Dark? No way....really.
She showed a remarkable talent for capturing the manipulation by inmates, the oddness of volunteers (hmmm....), the brute strength of jailors and the very wonderfully sweet savor of the occaisional victory of individuals who just happen to be inmates. Man it was good. And funny.
Go see it? No, not if you subscribe to "throw away the key" incarceration philosophy. You'll leave perplexed. Probably, too challenged.
But if you like to grow and think, rush down there and get some tickets. It ends Feb 3. BCT is the best kept secret in the city (to conservatives, I am sure!!).
Matthew Clark, Founder & Artistic Director for BCT, is to be sincerely commended. He and his fellow creative friends have brought to Boise a decade of brillance. I'm glad to be a season ticket holder this year. Many more to come, I'm certain. Thanks, (Troy and Sue for introducing us to BCT.)
Dennis
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