Skip to main contentTendentious drama, however earnest and politically powerful, seldom makes for masterpieces, as Tony Kushner's cry against the ascension of Reagan proves. A Bright Room Called Day is a passionate and fiery play, and caused its share of outrage when it premiered (rather late in the day in 1987, well past America's new morning), for Kushner pushed his protest against the rise of the rampant right alongside a similar historical phenomenon: the Fascist capturing of Germany.
Dismissed at the time in some circles as overstatement (even on the left), much of Bright Room is frighteningly contemporary, as the "Reagan Revolution" is only now bearing fruit with many finalized solutions. As in the death-throe days of Weimar Germany, silence and sickness roam the land. So the play manages, in its ardently haphazard way, to be both a document of its time and timely. It will, unfortunately, fail to be timeless.
Theatre Vertigo's decision to stage the play now was wise, particularly so close on the heels of Nov. 2, 2004 (a day that will surely live in infamy). For better or ill, the piece has been "updated," so that the parallels between the dreadful "then" of the 1930s and the awful "now" of the present are starker. Kushner himself has toyed with the play fairly recently. Personally, I object to this tinkering for two reasons. First, it dumbs the play down, as it assumes that audiences would be incapable of making the proper associations. Second, it unintentionally joins the general whitewash of how truly despicable and murderous the Reagan years were. In the face of the massive historical rewrites that have followed in the wake of the great fake's cortege, Kushner's courageous dissent against that age is even more necessary.
Nonetheless, the play stands changed. Now if only Theatre Vertigo's production could be altered. For however heartfelt, this is an amateur production shoddily directed. Buck Skelton's staging couldn't be more clubfooted, with unnecessary entrances and exits by the modern character Zillah (played like a Valley escapee by Camille Cettina), as well as an overburden of business beloved of village hams. There is some good work from Melody Bridges as Agnes and Nanette Pettit as Annabella, but otherwise this is another celebration of mediocrity from the Vertigo-Stark Raving nexus.
The nadir of this misguided evening is, without doubt, Darius Pierce's turn as Satan. Pierce has exhausted his welcome. He came to town with a modicum of talent and training, and has quickly assimilated the Portland curse--self-parody, a style that he is both too young and unimportant to assume. Bright Room affords another display of his gifts in growling, howling and showering the first row with spittle. That this bits-and-skits nonsense was awarded with chuckles from the director, perched just behind me, proves that Pierce is either in the wrong or the right place, depending upon his seriousness for the craft of acting.
That the theater must fight against the militarist and corporate narratives that we are daily forced to dine upon is certain. But hearts and minds cannot be won through self-congratulatory preening and amateurishness.
Theatre Vertigo at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 306-0870. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 pm Sundays. Closes Jan. 1. $15.
WWeek 2015