“It was a wonderful success and got lots of press,” Benedetti said. So on opening night, when audiences began to congregate outside the theater, (cast members) Howard Da Silva and Will Geer began entertaining them-and then led the group two miles down the street-picking up people as they went,” settling into an alternate, bare-stage theater, where they performed the piece. More than leftist.”Ī production was assembled for the Federal Theatre Project by John Houseman and Orson Welles, but canceled just before opening-due, says Benedetti “to cold feet by the FTP administration, who thought it was politically unwise to support radical material. It’s somewhat like Kurt Weill but lighter, with more humor.
Six weeks later, Blitzstein produced this opera-opera because out of an hour and a half, only five minutes are not set to music. Brecht encouraged Blitzstein to write a play on that theme, the various ways people sell out. “It started when Blitzstein played a song (‘Nickel Under the Foot’) for Bertolt Brecht that he’d written for a prostitute. “The play was written in 1936 and produced in ‘37,” said director Robert Benedetti. Of course, it’s steeped in John Godber’s working-class politics.” All of which is very familiar turf for Gerrity, one of the original cast members of “Bouncers” (with Jack Coleman, Gerritt Graham and Andrew Stevens) when it premiered at the Tiffany in 1986.Ī famous theatrical opening night is re-created in Mark Blitzstein’s “The Cradle Will Rock,” bowing Wednesday at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica as part of CalArts in Town. A job description is done in verse (recalling “Bouncers’ ” rap motif)-and people snap in and out (of character), announcing who they’re going to be.
It’s about four women, cocktail waitresses, who also play (among many characters) men who try to pick them up and younger versions of themselves.”Īs for similarities to “Bouncers” : “It’s got very quick changes. Whereas the humor in ‘Bouncers’ came from the violence and aggression of these working-class denizens, this is a softer view of the working class it’s a valentine, a sweet confection. “It’s as different as sometimes brothers and sisters can be. (Written by Godber and fellow Briton Jane Thornton, it opens this weekend at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.) ‘Shakers’ is a sister piece to ‘Bouncers,’ ” said actor Dan Gerrity, who’s producing. If you loved John Godber’s “Bouncers,” welcome “Shakers.”
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