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The Return to Morality
by Jamie Pachino
From left, standing: Dennis Brown, Sarah Grimes, Don Billotti, Neil Mill;
Foreground: Tarta Smitheman, Greeta AhartLIMITED ENGAGEMENT - September 15 - October 3, 1999
Satirical 'Morality' play delivers a
wicked punch in Stage 3 premiereBy Sherman Spencer Stockton Record Staff Writer
"The Return to Morality," the political satire now at Sonora's Stage 3 Theatre, is totally cynical, urgently relevant and wickedly funny.
Mining some of the same veins of political corruption as films such as "Wag the Dog" and "Bulworth," it also strikes another mother lode of iniquity with its trenchant observations on the hypocrisy and venality involved in the merchandising of morality by the media.
This is the world premiere of this comedy by Chicago playwright Jamie Pachino. The winner of last year's Festival of New Plays sponsored by Stage 3, it went on to win seven other national awards.
Her satire explores not only the callous manipulation by media figures, but also the hidden bigotry lurking in the souls of much of the general public that permits -- even welcomes -- this manipulation.
The clever plot idea concerns Arthur, a certified liberal and currently a teacher at a small Canadian university. He has just written a biting attack on the rampant intolerance gaining public acceptance.
His book satirically recommends these practices -- including such modest proposals as re-instituting slavery, criminalizing abortions and persecuting homosexuals.
His publisher, LeBeque, cunningly convinces him he should sell the book as nonfiction and later claim it as a hoax to show the public the fallacy of its attitudes.
Unfortunately -- and predictably -- the idea backfires. The book is seized upon by the lunatic fringe as a sort of gospel that encourages them in their activities. Arthur finds it nearly impossible to disavow his published beliefs.
The mordantly witty dialogue, excellent performances and wonderfully adept staging keep this cautionary fable from becoming a political diatribe.
As Arthur, Don Bilotti is nearly perfect in his interpretation of a modern day Candide whose innocence, while severely compromised, never is lost entirely.
In several incarnations of all that is worst among media evil-doers, Neil Mill plays the manipulative publisher LeBeque, a Machiavellian politician and a semi-literate talk-show host. He seems the very embodiment of cynical opportunism in each guise.
Arthur's wife Jo, who refuses to compromise, is well played by Greeta Ahart.
Tarta Smitheman, Dennis Brown and Sarah Grimes each play several different supporting roles. Each characterization, however brief, proves completely convincing.
Among other pleasures, this production demonstrates the amazing scope and flexibility that can be achieved in the relatively small stage area of a "black box" theater. The many scene changes, with props being moved by the cast, were handled expediently, and took on a balletic appeal that further developed the roles.
The set, delightfully painted by Kathy Monroe, is dominated by a large donkey and elephant leering at the audience and displaying a generous view of their posteriors, a mooning symbol of the politicians' real attitudes toward their constituents.
As one has come to expect with Stage 3, the direction -- by Barbara Segal-Mill and Cathy Mulloy -- is expert and inventive.
"The Return to Morality" from its satirical title to its surprising but satisfying ending, is a play with a punch that entertains as it admonishes.
'Morality' searing, giddy
By LEO STUTZIN
BEE ARTS EDITOR
(Published: Tuesday, September 21, 1999)SONORA -- The words were just about the same last September, when "The Return to Morality" was presented in Stage 3's second annual Festival of New Plays, and last Friday, when it returned to Sonora.
But the difference, at least to this viewer, was one of night and day.
The current production is a sardonic knockout, as hilarious as a tent full of clowns and as topical as next year's election. Last year's left me totally chilled.
The difference stems from matters of rehearsal time, resources and casting, and probably from a greater understanding of what makes the play work.
The 1998 performance was a staged reading, done with relatively little preparation and virtually no scenery, props, music or mood-enhancing lighting. This year's is a full production: visually radiant, expertly directed, crisply acted.
Written by Chicago playwright Jamie Pachino, "The Return to Morality" has racked up awards from coast to coast in the months since Stage 3's festival. None counts for more than the kind of rewards it won at Friday's opening: roar after roar of laughter, and engagement between actors and audience that never flagged.
Pachino's text bristles with caustic wit, directed principally toward hypocrites and opportunists in publishing, in the media and in politics.
Despite that jaundiced view of powerful institutions, and of the masses they exploit, Pachino manages to end her tale on a note of hope: the posibility that truth, decency and idealism still have a chance in this republic.
The story revolves around Arthur Kellogg (Don Bilotti), an academic who writes a far-out satire of American political life that proposes, among other things, a return to slavery and a mandatory national religion. His novel is called "The Return to Morality."
Only nobody sees it as satire. Or even as a novel.
Starting with his high-powered publisher who markets the book as nonfiction, and continuing through legions of reviewers, reporters, talk show hosts and -- most importantly -- tens of thousands of buyers, the book generates a tidal wave of reverence and rage. It even inspires some seething believers to start throwing bombs to make Kellogg's fantasy a reality.
And it hangs the naive author on the horns of a dilemma: to continue promoting the book, which has brought him wealth and fame, or to renounce it and face the fury of its supporters.
Toss in a bit of blackmail and the choice becomes still tougher.
As performed by a cast of six, the acid social commentary comes across as broad-brush lunacy, uproarious on its surface and thoroughly scary beneath.
Besides Bilotti, the cast includes Greeta Ahart as Kellogg's disillusioned wife and four others in multiple roles: Neil Mill, Tarta Smitheman, Dennis Brown and Sarah Grimes.
They're all excellent, with Bilotti in perfect form as the perplexed author, Neil especially sharp as the smooth-but-cynical publisher, and Smitheman right-on as a teen-ager who seduces and later rescues Kellogg.
Barbara Segal-Mill and Cathy Mulloy collaborated on the expert direction, and Segal-Mill designed the political-circus set, a red-white-and-blue affair with a towering Democratic donkey on its left and a towering Republican elephant on its right. The whimsical political animals were created by Kathy Storey Monroe, and may be the most artistic pieces of theatrical scene-painting ever seen around here.
