Commentary: Rocky Times, “The Cradle Will Rock" at Stone Soup Theatre

The masthead reads "Steeltown U.S.A." The banner headlines warn us of troop deployments, stock market plunge, bomb explosions, union strikes, soaring unemployment numbers, vanquishing Arts funding and bank disinvestment. This towering sepia toned newsprint serves as the backdrop for "The Cradle Will Rock," the latest production of Stone Soup Theatre, a 1930s polemic opera that threw a rock through Big Businesses glassined window.

Although the "Living Newspaper," a weekly dramatization of newspaper accounts of Depression era hardships, was a notable theatre event, "Cradle" remains the emblematic agit-prop theatre piece of the period. The echo of "Cradle Will Rock's" socio-political upheaval of the 1930s resonates with today's Fraud Barons' perpetration of our current financial and ethics crisis.

In its National Theatre Project premiere the show proved too hot a piece for the sponsoring Works Progress Administration (WPA) that canceled its opening night and the actors' union forbade the actors to perform. The result was a spontaneous mid-town Manhattan parade of audience and actors to a vacant theatre where the actors sang from the house. The opera's composer, Marc Blitzstein, played the score on a beat-up piano on stage.

The show is an ideal choice to mirror today's high economic frauds and their rippling effects on Americans' sense of diminished trust in economic institutions. The opera's driving pro-union theme reflects the push for today's Employment Free Act bill pending in congress. (The bill gives workers the right to unionize as soon as a majority of employees in a workplace sign cards stating they want a union.)

Playing out as a courtroom sideshow, allegorical figures of the status quo plead their cases on indictments of alleged collusion, power brokering, perjury and union smashing. Sensorial sanction on the Arts via private and corporate donors also takes the stand: the Big Guys were aware of Art's power punches.

Stone Soup was widely hailed for its production of Larson's "tick, tick... BOOM." The company, though it is well intentioned, underestimated the demanding tasks of a period work and the Blitzenstein score. Director Lindsey Duoos Gearhart renders facile work.

Gearhart's production's sole attempt to update the opera is with Rocky DeHaro's mix of period and contemporary costumes and misses the mark. The design is executed without precision and the effect is a look of wrinkled indecision. The acting doesn't evoke period context, rather, the director settles for cutout characters. Mr. Blitzstein created three dimensional, albeit, stylized characters.

Even so, there were a few spasms of entertainment. Standout work prevailed thanks to Bryan Curtiss White as the hypocritical Reverend Salvation and newcomer Sarah Michelle Cuc. Ms. Cuc exhibited a trained voice and sparkling vivacity as Mrs. Mister. She then countered as the stoic Ella, an uncompensated widow of her spouse killed in a manufacturing accident. (Her next stop is Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts for its upcoming stock season. Santa Maria's gain is San Diego's loss.)

The evening's yeoman was Billy Thompson in double duty as the courtroom clerk and pianist. Christopher T. Miller gave a forceful singing attack as the agitating Larry Foreman, the 11th hour role of the union organizer.

Stone Soup's production represents a kind of growing pain in the theatre's development, and that is not a bad thing. Sensing a company's balance in reach and grasp is a good thing.

The company's next production is Strindberg's "Miss Julie." This play should prove a more manageable project, especially with the translation by local Strindberg expert Dr. Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey. "Miss Julie" opens August 9th with Stone Soup's Artistic Director, the formidable Rebecca Johansen, in the title role under Robert Dahey's direction.

Photo: Sarah Michelle Cuc and Bryan Curtiss White
(courtesy, Stone Soup Theater)

"The Cradle Will Rock"
10th Avenue Theater
930 10th Ave. Downtown San Diego, , cross street is Broadway
Performances are Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m
Tickets: 619-287-3065
Tickets: $25 available online only
All Other Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can
www.stonesouptheatre.net