At the Savoy Denver in the Curtis Park neighborhood, visiting theater professional Brent Blair was getting the collection of performers, theater aficionados and one very reluctant journalist to move about the space, to laugh appreciatively at the boundary-challenging exercises but also — and more pointedly — to shift their perspectives on theater. To go from observers to participants, “from a monologue to a dialogue,” he said as the room murmured again and again with warm laughter.
The founding director of the Institute for Theatre & Social Change at the University of Southern California, Blair had been invited by the Local Theater Company to conduct workshops in what is known as “theater of the oppressed.” Based on the techniques of Brazilian theater artist Augusto Boal, who emphasized bringing communities into the process of telling their own stories, the workshop was just the first step in the creation of three distinctive, collectively wrought one acts under the title “We the People: The Democracy Cycle.”
The next step was the convening of locals in Boulder, Denver and Gunnison, along with playwrights Steven Cole Hughes, Kenya Mahogany Fashaw and Nick Malakhow. Each writer would create a piece around the respective communities’ concerns, successes and senses of what “democracy” means. The citizen participants came by way of the outreach of Local and its partners in this endeavor, the Curious Theatre Company and the Gunnison Valley Theatre Festival.
The first staged reading of the quasi-trilogy took place Saturday at the Boulder Public Library, with Mayor Aaron Brockett living out his theater geek dream by introducing the show. The performances continue with a new special guest star Thursday night in Gunnison and then Saturday at Denver’s Curious Theatre Company. (The readings are free but require tickets.)
At the story circles, there were discussions, personal anecdotes and Post-it boards rife with responses to prompts based on an “I Come From” poem and a question about what were the greatest challenges facing their communities. All the while, the respective playwrights leaned in and scribbled notes.
“When they put out a call for participants in the ‘Democracy Cycle,’ I thought it sounded like a fun way to dive into both the wonderful and challenging parts of our community,” Gunnison veterinarian Ashely Portmann shared in an email.
That was one of the aims of Local’s co-founder and co-artistic director Pesha Rudnick, who hatched the idea of taking on the divides — particularly the rural-urban gap — that we’ve all heard so much about, in intimate and interactive ways.
“I enjoyed it more than I expected to,” Karen Hausdoerffer, a lecturer in environment and sustainability at Western Colorado University, said of her experience in the Gunnison story circle. “I thought I’d be more stressed by the political aspect in a culture that has so many depressing and divisive factors. Instead, it felt more personal — learning about ideas and solutions and concerns of people in the community that I knew a little bit or not at all. I expected it to be important, but I didn’t expect it to be relaxing and fun.”
Performed by company members, the plays engaged in ways humorous, poignant, urgent. In Coles’ lyrically titled “The Heavy Work That Will Make Everything Lighter,” five Gunnison denizens are chosen because of the placement of their names in a phone book (a takeoff on a quote by the late conservative commentator William F. Buckley) to write “a Bill of Rights for every citizen of the Gunnison Valley.” For the five randomly chosen new city councilmembers, it’s a tall order and at times a hilarious undertaking.
Fashaw’s “Intersectionality” wrestles wildly and meaningfully with that concept, one that has offered deep insights about bodies amid systemic biases but has also been misunderstood in profoundly unhelpful ways. It finds its six characters (one in voice-over) dealing with, among other tensions, Denver’s crisis in homelessness.
Boulder-based Malakhow’s two-hander, “Parallel Lines,” features the meeting of a white, 50-something city council hopeful and a Latino teen. Freddie (Brandon Billings) is home taking care of his trouble-seeking younger brother when Emily (Diana Dresser) knocks on the door of his mobile home in her somewhat clumsy voter registration efforts.
As different as their set-ups were, the plays had some vital overlaps. One was the vibrant performances from the ensemble: Billings, Dresser, Kristina Fountaine, Kate Gleeson, Christine Kahane, Iliana Lucero Barron, Simone St. John and composer-musician Joe Mazza. Just because these are staged readings and not full productions doesn’t mean they aren’t dynamic. Local co-artistic directors Nick Chase and Betty Hart and their ensemble make each one act, sometimes wrenching, other times amusing, ultimately thought-provoking.
Even so, a recurring and more chastising theme centered on the importance of — and the crisis in — shelter. In “We the People,” home (and the security that should come with it) is where the hurt is, where the central challenge of democracy seems to reside, regardless of whether the story-sharing citizens live in the ostensibly rural Western Slope or the increasingly dense pack of the Front Range.
After Saturday’s reading at Boulder Public Library, Chase heard email feedback from a story circle participant who lives in a mobile-home neighborhood that “Parallel Lines” resonated with her. She then shared, “I just heard from a neighbor that she was there and was so moved by Nick’s play that she crept away to be by herself. Here’s part of what she wrote: ‘I thought it was brilliant and heartbreaking. I hope it gets national attention. I wept through #3.’ ” Adding, “I hope you feel gratified that another MHP resident felt your play spoke for her. I am amazed that you were able to get inside the experience so convincingly that the people who live that story feel it rings true. I marvel at your skill and empathy.”
It doesn’t get much better for a theater company aiming to engage its community. “Their dilemma had been captured,” said Chase.
The Local team and the Front Range playwrights planned on piling into two vans and head to Gunnison for Thursday’s premiere (“I’m baking focaccia for sandwiches,” Chase said). It’ll be the first time that town’s story circle participants get to see something they had a hand in crafting.
“Being part of the story circles exercise was a great avenue for connection with others in the Gunnison community, a nice window into their concerns and hopes for our little town, and an exciting way to tackle our shared problems and vision together,” said Portmann a few days before Thursday’s premiere.
“That felt like true democracy!”
IF YOU GO
“We the People: The Democracy Cycle”: Written by Steven Cole Hughes, Kenya Mahogany Fashaw and Nick Malakhow with the input of the Boulder, Gunnison and Denver story circle participants. Directed by Nick Chase and Betty Hart. Featuring Brandon Billings, Diana Dresser, Kristina Fountaine, Kate Gleeson, Christine Kahane, Iliana Lucero Barron, Simone St. John and Joe Mazza. At the Taylor Studio Theatre 600 Adams Street in Gunnison Aug. 1. 7 p.m. At the Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma in Denver, Aug. 3, 7 p.m. For tickets and info: localtheatreco.org
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