Humana plays pump up the fear factor
By Christine Dolen

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - We are afraid. Very afraid. We fear terrorism, war, sudden death. Fear those who are different from us. Fear our parents, our mates, our kids. Fear commitment. Fear loneliness. Fear -- well, the list is endless. In stylistically diverse ways, playwrights featured in the 27th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays tapped into our national post-9/11 angst and let the fear flow through their funny, sobering, provocative works.

The high-profile festival, which winds up its six-week run at Actors Theatre of Louisville today, has long been American theater's hottest spot outside Manhattan for new-play shopping, deal-making and networking. Begun in 1976 by former artistic director Jon Jory, the Humana Festival has produced more than 300 scripts of various lengths, including three that subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize.

Artistic directors from all over the country -- including Rafael de Acha of Coral Gables' New Theatre (now basking in the glory of Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer for Anna in the Tropics, which it originated) and Louis Tyrrell of Manalapan's Florida Stage -- come to find a good fit for their own theaters, where so many Humana plays find an ongoing life.

What they saw were intriguing variations on a fearful theme.

''What I see in American theater culture is a lot of variety,'' says Marc Masterson, who became artistic director in 2001 after Jory's departure.

``I wanted young voices, experienced voices, gender and racial diversity, a range of styles. There were a lot of writers new to the festival but also a lot with long relationships.''

Fears and phobias were the engines that drove Trepidation Nation, a 16-piece dramatic ''anthology'' performed by Actors Theatre apprentices. Digging away at this ''underlying fear and anxiety that people are feeling,'' Masterson says, the program was penned by that range of playwrights he sought.

SHADES OF FEAR

In Omnium-Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, fears infiltrate an elegant dinner party whose deliberately diverse guests are guaranteed to torment each other. One of the long-separated twins in Kia Corthron's Slide Glide the Slippery Slope fears anyone who threatens her precious solitude. The teachers in Bridget Carpenter's The Faculty Room apparently fear growing up, so they continue to act like teenagers. A charismatic magician who fears commitment is paired with a lover determined to siphon off his secrets in Rinne Groff's Orange Lemon Egg Canary.

The fear of embracing new forms affected some of the Humana Festival's strongest, most vibrant voices in a different way. Poet-performers Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz put together a stellar, killer cast (reg e. gaines, Regie Cabico, Willie Perdomo, Gamal A. Chasten and Rha Goddess) for a program called Rhythmicity, described as ``a convergence of poetry, theater and hip-hop.''

Originally, says Masterson, ''I'd been looking for an answer to our [annual] stylistic question about form.'' Building on experiments -- doing plays listened to on pay phones, a play performed in the front seat of a car, plays incorporating new media, plays printed on T-shirts -- Masterson intended to have the Rhythmicity cast perform their powerful pieces in the three-theater complex's hallways and lobbies as theatergoers were migrating from play to play.

The marginalizing didn't last long.

''Marc allowed us to infiltrate,'' says Ruiz. ``He asked us to do a panel -- usually we're never really at the table in conversations about the future of theater -- and when he gave us the [637-seat] Pamela Brown Auditorium, we decided we were going to do a play.''

Audiences at three Rhythmicity performances whooped and cheered at the mixture of poetry, storytelling, music, movement and hip-hop -- art literally put together in a matter of hours, simply but to great effect.

''Even Marc was amazed by the response from the audience,'' Sapp says, 'which was, `Omigod, what is that, and how can I get it in my theater?' ''

UNDER A MICROSCOPE

Getting a play done at the Humana Festival, sitting in an audience of theater professionals, agents, critics and fellow writers from all over the United States can be a heady thing for a playwright. But that intense scrutiny certainly ratchets up the fear factor.

''It's definitely stressful,'' says Corthron. ``But I don't read reviews. Artists are very quick to say that critics are idiots when they get a bad review or that they're geniuses when the review is good. It's ridiculous to give a review so much power.''

Groff, who grew up near Tampa, was grooving to her biggest audience ever at a performance of Orange Lemon Egg Canary, savoring being in ''a community of playwrights.'' But she felt her stomach turn when the theater's fire alarm went off not long after her play got going -- and the building had to be evacuated.

'The actors were giving such great performances. And my first thought was: `I'm going to throw up.' I was so depressed. But outside on the sidewalk, I saw the director of Omnium-Gatherum, and he said, 'It's good. It's good. It bonds the audience.' And it did. They were so supportive of the play.''

Fuente: The Miami Herald
Abril 2003