Gimme Shelter

“It’s a slice of reality up in politically correct Minnesota’s face.” That’s what playwright Dwight Hobbes says about “Shelter,” his new play opening at Mixed Blood on March 29, 2003, under the auspices of Pangea World Theater. “Shelter” is about three homeless people staying in a facility in downtown Minneapolis, and any resemblance to the Drake Hotel on 10th Street is deliberate.

Hobbes says that when he got to the Twin Cities, a bunch of do-gooders were trying to help homeless people who didn’t want to help themselves, and that the homeless population has shifted from being principally jailbirds, junkies, and other ne’er do-wells to responsible adults with families and steady jobs who still can’t afford a roof over their heads in the current real estate market. The bootstrap poster boy, Hobbes has since risen from obscure homelessness to journalistic prominence—Dwight Hobbes is always in print. He started in Minnesota with a piece about homelessness in Colors: Minnesota’s Journal of Opinion by Writers of Color. That essay was reprinted by the Washington Post and Readers’ Digest and established Hobbes as a man with something to say and the metaphors to say it with. He is a regular contributer to the Southside Pride.

His latest play, “Shelter,” began to come to life in cold readings at the Playwrights’ Center and Illusion Theatre. Some things worked; some didn’t. A professional for many years, Hobbes rewrote. And rewrote.

Then there was a staged reading at Pillsbury House, and “Shelter” was headed for Pillsbury House’s next season when the artistic director, Ralph Remington, left town and took his intentions with him.

Hobbes did the we’ll-get-back-to-you dance with more than a few local theater companies until Dipankar Mukherjee said he liked “Shelter” with no “buts,” and he wanted to produce it.

Although he has had “You Can’t Always Sometimes Never Tell” produced, and other plays published, Hobbes thinks “Shelter” is a benchmark because Pangea is a theater of consequence in a major market, and Dipankar Mukherjee, the cofounder of Pangea who’s producing and directing “Shelter’s” world premiere, clearly respects the work. “You Can’t Always Sometimes Never Tell’s” run in Philadelphia was just a way to fill a slot in the season. That director didn’t even like the play, so the “Shelter” experience for Hobbes has already been good.
After years of writing theater criticism, Hobbes is taking another big chance—the kind he loves—by sticking his artistic neck out like this. He likes taking chances. The subject of “You Can’t Always Sometimes Never Tell” is illegal in most civilized nations, and “Shelter’s” language and sexuality demand a sophisticated audience, not the easiest bunch to assemble in the Upper Midwest.

When “Shelter” opens on March 29 at Mixed Blood, many of the directors and actors and other theater professionals around town whom Hobbes has analyzed and exposed (and sometimes extolled) are bound to be curious about Hobbes’ ability to write a play himself .

“Shelter’s” treatment of human nature as it can be found on the fringes of society is harsh, and the attitudes of the characters ring true. Truck, Anjinette and Keith may not act like you or talk like you, but they feel like you and they get up in the morning and struggle and hope for what they think is the best, and sometimes they’re sorry when they get it.

There is very little in “Shelter” that’s not autobiographical. “Truck is a composite of a street dealer and a guy named King who lived at the Drake Hotel when I was there,” Hobbes says.

“Anjinette is based on a hooker named Linda I met during that time. I once asked Linda why she was in that life, and she said, ‘Because I have low self- esteem.’ I was a lot like Linda, and I was struck by her candor.”

Candor, of course, is what Hobbes specializes in, regularly for Insight News and Pulse, occasionally for Mpls. St. Paul Magazine, Minnesota Law & Politics, Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, and other print and broadcast media around the metro area. He has something to say about everything. This time he’s saying it onstage with Pangea Theater. The artistic team includes Seitu Jones (set designer), Mary Ann Kelling (costume designer), and Mike Grogan (lighting designer).

“Shelter” is being put on by the Pangea World, Mar. 27 - April 12. Thu. – Sun. 8 p.m., $14, at Mixed Blood Theater, 1501 S. 4th St., Mpls.For more information go to www.pangeaworldtheater.org or call 651-208-8105.