Kinda Like Van Halen

"The Cradle Will Rock,” by Frank Theatre, 3/16/2019

Frank Theatre first put on this play in an abandoned Sears building in 2003.  The play is almost more famous for its initial staging then the play itself.  It was the last play performed in the 1930s by the Federal Theatre Project.  Right-wingers in the government shut down the project.  Because of that the actor’s union forbade it’s actors from acting in it and the theater it was to be performed in was locked.  So audience, actors, director and producer (Orson Welles and John Housman) went down the street to another theater.  The actors did their parts FROM the audience while Marc Blitzstein, the author, played a rented piano on the stage.

Get Hammered!

The play is a workers’ opera, similar to the style of Bertold Brecht, mostly sung.  It tells the story of “Steeltown USA” where workers are organizing a union. Opposing them is the “Liberty Committee,” a group of professionals recruited by the unofficial head of Steeltown, Mr. Mister, who is the millionaire owner of the steel business.  His wife, Mrs. Mister, runs the cultural life in Steeltown.

The scene is mostly set in a ‘night court’ after a cop arrests a prostitute when she refuses his advances.  In there with her is a drunken former drug store owner, who lost his business due to Mr. Mister’s financial shenanigans.  And astonishingly, the whole “Liberty Committee,” who are accidentally arrested by a clueless cop who thinks they were supporting the union when they stood protesting them outside.  They wait to be bailed out by Mr. Mister.  The prostitute is non-political but poverty-stricken, so her story intersects with the story of the labor strife.

The Liberty Committee is made up of a fine assortment of the middle class people essential to the rule of any local capitalist.  A preacher, who does what he is told, accepting contributions from Mrs. Mister to be first against war, then for it, depending on the needs of the steel industry. A newspaper editor, who prints what Mr. Mister wants, especially after Mr. Mister buys the paper.  The inept, spoiled children of Mr. Mister also play a role, with Junior Mister being hired as a journalist in Hawaii to get his stupid ass out of Steeltown.  Also included are two ‘artists’ – a painter and a violinist - who are dependent on the largesse of Mrs. Mister, their patron.  They believe in ‘arts for arts sake’ – which should bring chuckles to any left-wing cultural producer.  Also included is a doctor who covers up accidents at the steel mill.  And two professors, who believe that colleges should prepare the young for military service.  The two that are missing is the local lawyer, who would no doubt outlaw any union activities.   And the local politician, who would back the police. All oppose the union and ‘the reds.’

Mr. and Mrs. Mister, Little Miss, Reverend Salvation and Editor Daily

On the other side is Larry Foreman, who in this play is not identified as a leader of the union, but only as a middle-class fellow from outside town who supports the unionists and organizes for unions. (An odd name for a union leader or supporter to boot!)  The death of a union member by a car bomb is not mentioned in this version as far as I could tell.  The doctor covers-up the death of a worker on the job, blaming it on alcohol, even though he knows the truth and is confronted by the man’s wife.  We never see the mass of workers who are meeting to form unions – only references to them.   

Larry is the last person thrown into the jail and night court after being beaten.  He sings that ‘the Cradle will Rock!’ – meaning that the unionization efforts will shake Steeltown’s society and dethrone Mr. Mister.  He refuses to be bought off when Mr. Mister finally makes an appearance at night court to bail out the Liberty Committee.  The play ends with the workers voting in unions at their mass meeting, so optimistically for proletariat.

Frank Theatre is the only theater in town to perform this play, which is a bit of a throw-back.  But it also points the way to a class-conscious understanding through theater.  The dissection of the various professionals who support capital is especially rare, as the audience is many times full of these kinds of people.  They probably assume ‘that is all in the past.’  It is not.

This play was a central element in the Tim Robbins 1999 film, “The Cradle Will Rock,” which combined the play and its background with the story of the Federal Theater Project itself, along with the saga of Diego Rivera’s painting in Rockefeller Plaza, which was destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller for being pro-socialist.  The film has a top-notch cast and gave this play a second-lease on life.  This cast also plays it to the limit, bringing the characters to life.

Frank stages their plays in many locations, some of them industrial space.  This time it is at the Gremlin Theater in St. Paul, Mn.  The play will continue until April 7^th, 2019.  Go!

Other plays reviewed below, some by Frank:  “Oil! & the Jungle,” “Love and Information,” “Ideation,” “Things of Dry Hours,” “Appomattox,” “Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again,” “Marie and Rosetta,” “Puntilla and His Hired Man, Matti,” “The Visit,” “The Lower Depths,” “A Bright Room Called Day,” “The Good Person of Setzuan,” and a selection of Sean O’Casey plays.

The Kulture Kommissar

March 19, 2019