Rodney Hudson’s slow-moving staging heightens the impact of the anti-establishment message set in the labor-unfriendly factory town, Steeltown USA

By David Feldman
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Corrupt corporations… union breaking… millions out of work… the economy in a deep swoon.  Sounds like 2011, right?  Well, the more things change… it’s the world of The Cradle Will Rock, the 1937 musical with book, music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein. The original New York production was directed by Orson Welles, produced by John Houseman and funded by the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Project Administration (three cheers for government funding of the arts!).  The SU Department of Drama is running a vivid production of this rarely done piece of left-wing theatre not in their usual home base, the Storch Theatre, but in the larger Archbold.

And this is not at all a typical use of that space.  Newsreels of demonstrators and the jobless fill a scrim before the action begins.  When it does start, there’s no standard musical-style big production number with a chorus and introduction of the major characters.  Instead, several silent and ominous figures push their way onto a darkened stage, shining flashlights all over ― including into our eyes ― as if there were no fourth wall separating us from them.  And lest we miss that important point, Felix E. Cochren Jr’s sprawling, multi-level set has a broken proscenium running part-way across the stage.

Director Rodney Hudson’s staging borrows much from Bertolt Brecht’s playbook, which should come as no surprise: Blitzstein translated The Threepenny Opera and was much influenced by Brecht and Kurt Weill.  So Cradle uses Brecht’s alienation effect, slowing down the action so we don’t miss its message, having performers speak directly to us ― even bringing the students into the audience for the play’s final moments (a bit flat for an ending and too Brechtian, I thought) ― and leaving a few strikers onstage, all of which work to emphasize social and political themes by keeping us from becoming immersed in the action of the drama.  

Truth to tell, though, Brecht and Weill did it a whole lot better than Blitzstein: The lyrics limp when they should soar, the music never has the unmistakable funky-jive quality of Weill’s, and Cradle’s book is fairly heavy-handed and didactic.  On the other hand, the students do terrific work, Hudson elicits some outstanding performances ― and where would we be if academic theatre didn’t occasionally trot out such socially and historically significant plays as this?

Those ominous intruders are followed by an actor who comes downstage center and hands orchestra conductor Brian Cimit the score and a trumpet.  Hudson isn’t going to let us think for a moment that this is a conventional play.  Back onstage strikers are brutally beaten by goons, and LilyAnn Carlson (as Moll) stands stage right and tells us how she came to town to work in the mill but there’s only work for her two days a week, and so to make enough money to live she has had to become a streetwalker.  OK, nothing new about that, maybe, but Carlson is plaintive and winning as Moll and she does standout work with the song that sets the stage for what will come: "Moll’s Lament."

We are in Steeltown USA, an allegorical factory town where everything is run by Mister Mister (Amos Vanderpoel, with a powerful voice and a commanding presence), owner of the mill and corrupter of the justice system, the newspaper, and just about everything else except the workers (who are on strike), including Moll and the protagonist, Larry Foreman (the riveting and charismatic David Siciliano).  

The action moves to a courtroom where the script assumes epic theater form with short, almost vaudeville-like vignettes.  Each one shows how the Misters (including Mrs. Mister, of course) or their minions have corrupted so many of the town’s leading figures.  So we see how Harry Druggist’s son was destroyed by the system, how the minister was paid off, and how even artists (Maclain W. Dossatti as Yasha the violinist and Sean Coyle as Dauber the painter) can be bought.  As the names suggest, the characters are stereotypes.  And each scene ends the same way ― a serious weakness in the script whose impact oozes away as we are hammered with lesson after lesson of how power corrupts.  Fortunately the students save the day with a large number of stunning performances, including Ross Baum as Harry Druggist, and Katie LaMark as a limber, bouncy Sister Mister. I was less-than-enthralled by the directorial choice to make Sister and Junior Mister an incestuous brother-sister pair: It’s not in the script and raises a more contemporary concern that dilutes Blitzstein’s Marxist critique of greed as the sin that destroys the democratic ideal in this musical, and in American life.

Even when struggling with a script that flounders under the weight of too much didacticism, too much message and too little dramatic conflict, the cast is outstanding ― thanks to the way Director Hudson keeps his students moving over every available inch of the stage and to Andrea Leigh-Smith’s bouncy and energetic choreography.

The book’s not much, the lyrics don’t soar, the music doesn’t set you to humming, the politics are out of date (too bad), and it’s almost slavishly derivative of the Brecht and Weill Threepenny Opera.  But the set’s impressive, the choreography’s dazzling and you’ll walk away shaking your head in disbelief that those were all student actors up there on the Archbold Stage, getting a chance to shine in a musical that is dauntingly different.  And we get to see a fine production of a rarely done play that is one of the major works of the canon of American theatre.  

DETAILS BOX:
What: The Cradle Will Rock, book, music and Lyrics by Marc Blitzstein performed by the Syracuse University Department of Drama
Where: The Archbold Theatre, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
When: Oct. 6. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m.
Length:  1 hour and 50 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission
Tickets:  Adults, $18; seniors and students, $16; rush tickets $8 one hour before each performance, subject to availability.  Call 315-443-3275, or www.SyracuseStage.org
Family guide:  Some adult themes and actions