Theater Review - Birth of a Nation

When theaters make history



A Spanish nobleman named Cabeza de Vaca, or “Cow Head,” tried to conquer Florida, lost 99 percent of his fellow conquistadors and was enslaved by a tribe of Native Americans, until he brought a dead man back to life.

Arthur Kopit’s The Discovery of America has a sprawling and outlandish plot that happens to be true. The play derives from La Relacion, de Vaca’s 1542 account of his eight-year American odyssey, which includes the bit about resurrection. In seizing on an oft-overlooked historical footnote, Discovery finds one of the first defining moments of America’s past, and Theater Emory’s production illustrates the trials of seeking drama in history.

In bringing ancient events to light, a theater must either spend a king’s ransom or leave the physical details to our imaginations. Discovery mostly opts for the former, as when Mexico’s conqueror Cortez (Chris Kayser) describes his first sight of Montezuma and his ocelot-fur robe. The play’s early scenes also address how modern audiences can’t really appreciate how alien the new world appeared to its first explorers. Kopit contrasts a recent map of Florida with the inaccurate charts of the time, which still included Atlantis.

Cutting back and forth in time and between different points of view, the play recounts the wild adventures and inner struggles of Cabeza de Vaca (played by a superbly cast Tim McDonough), who finds that he can somehow heal native people of their illnesses. The play’s central tension lies between Cortez, who claims his “godhead” as a means of seizing power and riches, and de Vaca, who wants to use his gift for spiritual goals. The play isn’t just a religious allegory but a metaphorical battle for America’s soul: Will the continent devote itself to callous materialism or nobler aspirations?

Writing Discovery involved some creative extrapolation on Kopit’s part. De Vaca never mentions relationships with women in La Relacion, but Kopit assumes he would have taken a wife during the years he spent with America’s tribes. Carolyn Cook persuasively fleshes out the imagined role of de Vaca’s Native American wife, keeping her from being a cliche of a noble savage or saintly victim of colonization.

Directed by Vincent Murphy, Theater Emory’s Discovery matches its inspired performances with irritating ones, and apart from Kayser’s decadent Cortez, the villainous supporting parts of courtiers and slavers tend to be strident and one-dimensional. The script itself, addressing such a huge subject with so many potential tangents, would benefit from trimming some of the extraneous scenes and ideas (the flashes of anachronistic humor gets old fast).

Theater Emory offers the first full production of Discovery as “a work in progress.” Murphy and such actors as McDonough and Cook have been involved with the play since Kopit’s first workshops at the Salt Lake City Cultural Olympiad in early 2001, and despite having readings from Los Angeles to New York, Kopit still thinks of The Discovery of America as unfinished. Which is fitting, in a way. The relevance of the play’s themes affirm that the United States can itself be considered a work in progress, too.

Discovery of America runs through Oct. 26.


br>?Presidential pardon me: Dad’s Garage Theatre actor Scott Warren had to improvise after he tossed a scripted question to the audience during Friday’s performance of 43 Plays for 43 Presidents. The question was: “How many of you guys knew anything about Rutherford B. Hayes before the show?”
One front-row theatergoersome guy named Jimmy Carterraised his hand. “That’s kind of cheating,” Warren quipped and moved on.

The recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, who surprised audience members when he walked in with wife, Rosalynn, and their Secret Service entourage, received the evening’s biggest ovation. It came as the vignette on Carter turned to his post-presidency and cast member Matthew Horgan explained that the Carter Center would help all kinds of needy causes.

Besides Warren’s improvisation, Dad’s Garage Artistic Director Sean Daniels said he added one brief line in the play to allude to Carter, who dropped in from his nearby apartment at the center. Presidents is extended until Nov. 9.


br>?Honor Roll: Several Atlanta theater artists and groups have recently received recognitions that aren’t too shabby. Rosemary Newcott is a recipient of a Princess Grace Foundation fellowship, which will pay her salary for a year as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre’s Theatre for Youth. The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays has given a development grant of $2,500 apiece to 7 Stages Theatre and playwright Erik Ehn to develop Maria Kizito, a play about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The improvisation team of Dad’s Garage has been asked to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 28 as part of its week-long salute to American comedy in conjunction with its Mark Twain Prize.
curt.holman@creativeloafing.com


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Off Script is a biweekly column on the Atlanta theater scene. Ken Edelstein contributed.??