A
Piece of Cake
Stark Raving
Theater at Theater! Theatre!
3430
SE Belmont St., 232-7072
10 pm Fridays-Saturdays
Opens July
14
$9.50
Raymond J. Barry
will be taking his work to Dublin and Siena this August.
"Barry pushes
the limits of our company. He has a lot to say in a beautifully
theatrical way."
--Dave Demke,
Stark Raving Theater's artistic director
The world's a gray dystopia, where a sexually transmitted
plague has made human contact dangerous. Intimacy has become
a foreign concept to the surviving population, whose only
glimmer of hope is the promise of a piece of cake dispensed
by a mysterious cake provider who might very well be ruling
the government.
A Piece of Cake marks the second premiere of one
of playwright Raymond J. Barry's plays at Stark Raving Theater.
Barry is a well-known performer who was a staple at La Mama
and the Living Theater in New York, and, most recently,
a film actor who has done memorable work in Born on the
4th of July and Dead Man Walking.
Barry first came to Portland in 1997 to perform his electric
play Back When/Back Then at Stark Raving. Having
made an indelible mark on Portland's theater, Barry let
Stark Raving premiere his play Pornographic Panorama,
a tough, serious-minded piece that took the soul-destroying
sex farce to its logical extreme. The partnership between
Barry and Stark Raving has given Portland some vital theater.
Barry spoke to Willamette Week from his home in Los
Angeles.
Willamette Week: You've worked on A Piece
of Cake for some time.
Raymond J. Barry: I started it in 1984 when AIDS really
began to strike New York City. It was a strange time in
the theater as many friends and acquaintances began dying.
I remember entire apartment buildings in Chelsea that were
decimated, and you began hearing rumors that the government
was involved. I never believed this, but clearly the right
wing was happy about what was happening, as it fed into
their Christian bullshit about God hating gays. So, I began
to play with the notion of switching the power base, turning
the usual majority of this country into a minority. I came
back to the piece in 1990 after having moved to LA, and
the isolationism of that place had a great influence on
my writing. People are more separated in LA, and it's a
young society where there's an idea that people can be replaced
pretty easily. This idea of replaceability--the idea that
we just use each other to entertain each other--is a theme
that I played with in Pornographic Panorama. How
this effects the ideas of loyalty and love is what I'm exploring
in A Piece of Cake.
This is the second premiere of yours with Stark Raving.
Were you happy with the company's first, Pornographic
Panorama?
Yes. I'm thrilled that Stark is premiering my work, as
I love to see what they make of it.
You are often at the center of your own work as a director
and actor. How much involvement have you had in Stark's
process of your work?
My involvement is superficial. I think complete involvement
would be a pain in the ass for them. While they would be
trying to fulfill the play, I would probably be trying to
rewrite it. Productions fare best when a director is in
charge. They don't need an outside force pressing on them.
You are continually honing your plays.
Plays are always unfinished. Sam Shepard, Brecht and other
playwrights have always continued to rework their plays.
In fact, I've just added a character into the dynamics of
Back When/Back Then, which I think has really propelled
the play forward.
You've actually developed a number of partnerships with
small theaters.
I've a very good relationship with Smoke Brush in Colorado
Springs, as well as the Magic Theater in Omaha. I've also
begun working with the New Theater in Dallas, Texas. They
do my plays, though we've only known each other over the
telephone. But it's great to have these little pockets of
theaters supporting my work. Plays are now very fragile
things, and there aren't many places left where people are
interested in the theater or are offered a theater education.
It's almost as if the theater has become esoteric for the
majority, which is sad.
Do you ever feel that you're devoting your life to a
dying art?
I feel like I'm fighting for my life writing. It's a very
hard thing to be doing, but for me it's as important as
food.
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