Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170101
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS IN `CONDUCT OF LIFE'
"It's not about cheering," says Heather Simmons.The 20-year-old Virginia Tech theater major from Lynchburg says no one should get the idea that "Conduct of Life" offers easy solutions for intractable human problems.
The play, by Cuban-American playwright Maria Irene Fornes, opens Thursday at Virginia Tech's Squires Studio Theater.
Set in an unnamed Latin American nation, the 1985 stage work deals with oppression and the painful acquisition of self-knowledge. Critics have acclaimed it as powerful drama.
Simmons plays the role of the wife of a military man, a woman who is the subject of "extraordinarily violent oppression," according to director Bob Leonard.
The production starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, Saturday, and Wednesday through Feb. 26. There's a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. General admission is $7, with $5 tickets for students and senior citizens.
Leonard, who is master teacher of directing at Tech, is also the founder and artistic director of The Road Company in Johnson City, Tenn. Though the 50-year-old stage veteran is in his fourth year at Tech, he still spends weekends working with his Tennessee company, which for nearly two decades has toured cities and towns in the Southeast.
Leonard has known of Fornes' work for some years, and says he has admired the playwright's other works, such as "Fefu and Her Friends," "Sarita," "Promenade" and "Mud."
He learned about the artist via the players in his Johnson City company, many of whom had taken writing workshops with Fornes and who were enthusiastic about her.
"She is really a masterful writer," Leonard said. "She has taken to writing about the anguish of women trying to become educated, and by that I mean, how to become able in our society."
"Conduct of Life" deals with precisely this issue as Leticia, the wife of military man Orlando, struggles to find a tolerable existence with her husband, who is part of a government torture team.
Orlando, whose sexual desires are, in Leonard's words, "very off-base," also abuses a 12-year-old girl whom he keeps imprisoned in a warehouse.
"What she is really getting at is the nature of oppression and what it takes to relieve oneself of the oppression, whatever form that oppression may take. Her vision is not limited to the particular agents of oppression in the play," Leonard said.
Leticia develops a deep friendship with the family's maid, Olympia, a relationship that sustains both mistress and servant.
"The play is built in 19 scenes," Leonard said. "It plays for a little over an hour, without an intermission, and the scenes serve as little frames or windows into the story. It's highly dramatic, theatrical and I think riveting, and, I would say, abrupt."
Leticia, he says, "learns a lot, and part of what's being described is the helplessness of people who are feeling the effects of oppression. She doesn't want to be ignored; she feels that she walks into a room and she is ignored. She tries to find the answer in books, but in fact she has the knowledge in herself, she just hasn't recognized it.
"But there's a huge price to pay for that. It's pretty dire, which I think is consistent with life," Leonard said.
Part of what Leonard likes about Fornes' technique is her sensitivity. "In the hands of a different person this story could be told in a very exploitive fashion. It just shows remarkable grace and sensitivity on her part to be able to deal with as violent subject matter as she is with as much taste and care as she shows."
Heather Simmons agrees that the play's implications resonate beyond her character's immediate situation. "It goes beyond wife abuse or child abuse or just the oppression of women in general or the oppression of minorities. I think it has a broader reach," Simmons said.
There is a progression in the play, according to Simmons. "Leticia knows there is a problem, though she doesn't realize fully what it is; and she continues to hope and act upon that hope. She becomes incapable of action but in the end she has to make some act, to do something. So she goes from inaction, from almost but not quit giving up, to having to make an act because there's no other choice," Simmons said.
In spite of this, both Leonard and Simmons emphasize that the play offers no easily determined winners and losers and no pat solutions.
"We had a conversation in rehearsal one night," Simmons said. "What happens if the audience claps or cheers when Orlando is shot in the end? We decided that we have to make sure that we break that clapping and pull that in, because no one wins in the end. It's very hard for myself and the rest of the women in the show, because there really isn't anything to hope for," the actress said.
Simmons, a junior, says her part has been "a very big challenge," but she credits Leonard with helping her hone her craft as an actress.
"He's fantastic," Simmons said. "You learn craft and technique in theater, but he has helped me realize that technique and expand on it in a way that few people do - it's a kind of culmination. He works very much with images, and these images have opened a whole new aspect in theater for me."
Leonard, who resists classifying "Conduct of Life" as an "optimistic" or "pessimistic" play, says he is pleased by the progress of his young actors thus far. "It's tough work but they are meeting the challenge and doing wonderfully well with it," the director said.
`CONDUCT OF LIFE' Opens Thursday and runs Saturday and Wednesday through Feb. 26, with curtain times at 8 p.m. There's a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. At Squires Studio Theater, Virginia Tech. The production contains some scenes for mature audiences. $7, adults; $5, students and senior citizens. Information and tickets, 231-5615. Group rates available through the Division of Performing Arts, 231-5200.\