Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
April 17, 2008 issue
Updated Play Premiers at I.G. Greer Arena Theatre April 22 to 23
Story by David Brewer
What if it stayed dark all day? What if the United States’ current president were named president-for-life? What if the future were nearer than you think? It’s these and other perplexing questions that ASU English professor Dennis Bohr and members of the Black Sheep Theatre will bring to the stage of the I.G. Greer Arena Theater on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 22 and 23, as they present the play Dark All Day (and all of the night).
Described by Bohr as a “generic satire about politics and the end of the world,” Dark All Day is a humorous meditation on alarming trends currently being played out on the American political scene. Populated by an overzealous newscaster, a door-to-door cereal salesperson and lesbian recruiter, Martians, a hippy dippy scientist and a moronic, power-drunk president among others, the play is a hilarious and provocative swipe at a complacent nation and the personalities that dominate the headlines.
Themes of extra-terrestrial homosexual love and global “domini-zation” commingle with classic themes such as the search for truth in an increasingly confusing world. Completely new to Dark All Day is the never before seen second act, that will make its stage debut to audiences on Tuesday, April 22. As with most Black Sheep Theatre productions, longtime collaborator Mary Anne Maier will direct the play.
“I think there are some serious ideas behind [Dark All Day], but there’s not much serious that goes on in the play,” said Bohr.
Originally penned by Bohr in 1983 as a short story, Dark All Day was first staged by an early incarnation of the Black Sheep Theatre in the mid-1980s, before finding its way into the company’s production of Old, Out-of-Step Antiwar Peacenik Hippies. The writer and professor wanted to expand the show and it became one of several pieces performed within the framework of the show.
Dark All Day first found its way to the stage in the High Country when an ASU group called the Playcrafters first performed it in 1994. As the years have progressed and various administrations have come and gone, Bohr has continued to update the script along with help from his wife, English professor Georgia Rhoades.
“It it’s going to be relevant, I have to keep updating it,” said Bohr. “I don’t think the politics were as striking then as they are now. The politics keep getting more outrageous, because, as far as I’m concerned, George Bush is outrageous. This is my way of saying something about it.”
Recently hosting a production of MacBeth, Bohr is aware that the Black Sheep Theatre Company’s audiences typically consist of like-minded thinkers, but is hopeful that the themes satirized in Dark All Day could still potentially have a positive effect on non-liberals.
“I think humor can move people and make them think about things in a different way,” said Bohr. “Will it do any good? I don’t know, but it makes me feel good.”
Date: Tuesday and Wednesday, April 22 to 23
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: I.G. Arena Theater
Cost: $5