Pro-Union legend revived at abandoned Sears building

On the eve of its opening night in 1937, a pro-union musical called “The Cradle Will Rock” was shut down by its sponsor, the Federal Theater Project, due to so-called budget cuts. The WPA (Works Progress Administration)-funded theater program was under attack at the time by the House of Un-American Activities for the communist (read pro-labor) leanings of some if its productions. Convinced that their musical had become another victim of this investigation, director Orson Welles, composer Marc Blitzstein and producer John Houseman rented another theater space and the actors, prohibited by their unions from going on stage, performed their roles from the audience.

After reading a short scene that Marc Blitzstein had written about a Depression-era prostitute, fellow playwright Bertold Brecht had encouraged the composer to write a piece “about all kinds of prostitution—the press, the church, the courts, the arts—the whole system.” Blending various popular musical genres, Blitzstein came out with a rousing musical that has been variously described as a labor opera and political cartoon.

In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote that even the guerilla performance was sufficient “to raise a theatergoers basic metabolism and blow him out of the theatrer on the thunder of the finale.” Beautifully portrayed in Tim Robbins’ film of the same name, the story of “The Cradle Will Rock” has become the stuff of theater legend, and the Federal Theater Project a brief and nostalgic interlude in American history.

Using the site-specific space of the 1928 Sears building, Frank Theater has revived the spirit of the original production in many ways. The crew has built a set from nothing, transforming a unique industrial space into a theater inspired by everything from WPA murals to found objects from the Sears building itself. On the eve of her opening night, Pulse spoke to Wendy Knox, Frank Theater’s Artistic Director, about the show.

Pulse: Over the years, critics have dismissed “The Cradle Will Rock” as being dated.
Wendy Knox: There is a period feel to it, and it may have had a different resonance then with the whole zeitgeist of the time, which you see in Tim Robbins’ movie. There was also an incredible sense of optimism that we don’t really have now. But I don’t think it’s dated if you look at what’s going on at both the local and national level. AFSCME (American Federation of State and Municipal Employees) is about to go on strike; the teachers were about to strike. Then there is anti-unionism and all the corporate mergers going on now. I really wish we could tour this play up on the Iron Range, in Duluth and Virginia.

Pulse: It’s ironic that this is a pro-union musical, yet the unions actually prevented the actors from performing in 1937.
Knox: There was a lot of political pressure to prevent the opening. The Left was making a lot of gains around the New Deal. We just had an interesting episode here over Labor Day. There was the big labor and trades picnic at Harriet Island, and we wanted to do some songs from the “Cradle” there. It’s a labor event and we are a union theater. The actors were willing to do it for free but the unions wouldn’t let us do it unless we put the actors on another week of payroll. It would have cost us a thousand dollars, which is a lot for a small theater. I kept saying, this picnic is in support of all the unions, so why wouldn’t they want Actors Equity to be represented? I was a steward for the restaurant union for eight years when I was a bartender. I was always causing trouble with management, but when I called the actors’ union as a producer, I was sitting in the other seat. I became the image of the producer sitting there with the big fat cigar. Looking at the struggles of unions now, it’s hard to make theater function in the way a unionized industry should because the economic base is so different.

Pulse: The theme of prostitution is central to the play, from the actual prostitute in the beginning to the church, the press, academia.
Knox: And even artists. It’s about everyone selling out. It seems very timely when you look at where we are at now and the way corporations dictate so much of what our culture has become.

Pulse: Marc Blitzstein, the composer of the play, was known for being an elitist in defense of highbrow art before he did “Cradle.”
Knox: Blitzstein came from this upper class background in Philadelphia, but then he went to study with these composers in Europe who were Leftist. That’s where his worldview really started to change, and “Cradle” was written directly after that. I think everyone should have to live outside of this country, you learn so much. It’s so easy to stare at your own navel here. I lived in Finland for a few years, working as assistant to the artistic director of the Helsinki City Theater. There were a lot of foreign scholarship students in the apartment building I lived in there. I would do my laundry and end up talking to someone who grew up in a refugee camp in Libya, or a Soviet physicist, or a Hungarian linguist. It really changed my worldview.

Pulse: Do you think that there is a lack of art “for the people” now?
Knox: There is stuff out there, Heart of the Beast and Bedlam locally, and on the national scale there is the Bread and Puppet Theater. But it’s definitely harder to stay alive if you are doing work that has political intent behind it because the whole entertainment industry has changed so much and marketing has become such a huge part of it. Much of it is controlled by foundations that have corporations attached to them. If those corporations are having union trouble, and a theater they sponsor is doing a pro-labor musical, those companies obviously don’t want to put their dollars towards things that might be controversial.

Pulse: Speaking of large corporations, how did you come across the Sears building as a venue?
Knox: I’ve been involved in some neighborhood stuff in the area. I was on a committee for the whole Hi-Lake thing, when the city had announced that they were going to raid the Hi-Lake center. Property values have gone up there, with the Light Rail Transit and the new YWCA, but it’s still a real working class neighborhood. I heard a lot about the Sears building during that time, how it was just sitting here. I called Gary Schiff of the Minneapolis City Council and said we want to do “Cradle” at the Sears building. He was encouraging and said “I think the city owns the building, let me call you back.” So he called Jim White at the MCDA and he thought it was a great idea, too. Doing a piece like “The Cradle Will Rock” in an abandoned bastion of capitalism seems fitting. The building is also classic WPA architecture, like the Armory and the old auditorium they tore down.

Pulse: The location seems to play into your company’s mission to do experimental theater. How do you define experimental theater?
Knox: Theater that pushes both artistic and political boundaries. It’s important to me that whatever work we are doing, we are really saying something to an audience; that the piece we are doing is set in today’s world. Seeing “Chicago” performed in Finland made me think about the process of cultural translation. I also saw Sam Shepard there, and I realized there is this mythology of the Wild West in this country that informs our collective psyche. It was interesting to see how they approximated that myth in another country. Musical theater is also an inherently American form.

Pulse: At the time of its inception, “The Cradle Will Rock” was referred to as a new kind of musical theater.
Knox: Vaudeville had segued into musical theater, but I’m going to defer to our musical director here, Marya Hart.
Marya Hart: Blitzstein blended all these different styles for the songs. At the time, composers like Kurt Weill and Hans Ensler were taking these American forms, fox trot and rumba, and twisting those song forms. In Blitzstein’s case, I think it was adding a modernist influence to popular song forms.

Pulse: At rehearsal the other night, I noticed there were some incredibly difficult musical sequences as far as timing. These bring a fitting sense of urgency to the show, but they must be a challenge for the actors and musicians.
Knox: It’s been a challenge because I don’t usually do musicals. And the cast ranges from people who only do musical theater to some who haven’t done much. Blitzstein is a difficult composer, and this is a pastiche of so many different musical styles.

Pulse: It works in an interesting way, as these characters are being oppressed in the story and the rhythm is almost oppressive at times in what it demands of the performers.
Knox: But by the time they get up there, the actors will have made it their own and the audience (hopefully) will not even realize that it’s notated!

Pulse: I was very impressed by the quality of the voices in your cast.
Knox: We have some heavy hitter musical theater veterans, people who work in the big houses and opera. Then there are Frank Theater regulars, and some newcomers. I have this overwhelming gratitude for the people who work with us, and I feel fortunate to really like what I do. You get to the point where you realize that it is not just a job, but how you are spending your life, and it’s important that the work explores the questions many of us have about the world.

“The Cradle Will Rock” at the former Sears building on Lake St. and 10th Ave. in South Minneapolis. The production will run Oct. 3-26, 2003. Performances are Thu.-Sat. at 8, and Sundays at 2. There will be one Monday night performance on Oct. 20. For tickets ($16-20) and information, please call Frank Theatre at 612-724 3760, or check our Web site, www.franktheatre.org.

To register to win free tickets, email:contest@pulsetc.com. On the subject line, please put the name of the event.