Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 31, 1993 TAG: 9308310031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Long
Manheimer had just hidden in the audience watching the first Barter Theatre performance of his play, "Kuru."
He was too excited, or perhaps hyper, to sit in the theater and talk afterward. In an alley outside a theater exit, he ended up practically swinging from the building supports like Gene Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain."
It is, after all, his first play. It will continue at Barter through Sept. 12. It's billed as an offbeat comedy, but it is more than that.
Manheimer describes it as seeking some truths while getting some yucks. Kuru was a fatal disease that reached epidemic levels among tribes of remote highland valleys of New Guinea in the 1950s, and the scientist who discovered the cure won a Nobel Prize.
Does the play bear any relation to how the cure was actually found? "Not as far as I know," Manheimer said, although he has discovered since writing it that the man-woman relationships mirror those between him and his ex-wife.
He wanted to explore how somebody from the Midwest would react when thrown into a culture that includes cannibalism, he said, and to explore how someone becomes a cannibal.
He learned about the disease and its history from his brother, a doctor, and has put it into a context where the three characters make the same discovery: "Other people are different than I am. . . . I think as Americans we often have difficulty recognizing that," he said.
Manheimer wanted to be sure the scientist character came across more as a straight man than a funny one. "It's a little bit too broad," he said of that opening performance he'd just seen. "It starts crossing that line. . . . It's just a fine balance."
But he was confident that the three cast members would soon have all that smoothed out "because they're very talented," he said. "It's gonna be a fun show."
Stephen Benson first played the role of the scientist who stumbles on a cure for the disease, kuru, at the American Stage Festival. This is also the second time that Kenya Scott has played Mokina, the child-bride presented to him as a gift from the chief of a tribe of cannibals. Pamela Wiggins, who has performed both in New York and regional theater, plays Mary Lou, the cooking instructor who follows the scientist from Iowa to the jungles of New Guinea.
Richard Rose, who became Barter's new artistic director this season, has directed the play elsewhere and is helming it here. He is high on "Kuru," to say the least.
"None of us have ever seen a play quite like this before, and that's part of the great fun," Rose said. "There's culture clash, this exciting mix of personalities, and all those exotic sights and sounds of the tropical jungle. It's a new brand of comedy that challenges the mind at the same time it tickles the funny bone."
"Rick is unusual. He likes the playwright, and that's why I like him the best," Manheimer said. "He's helped me make the play much better."
That has not always been the case where the play has been performed. In Detroit, Manheimer said, he felt that Mary Lou was badly miscast, and quickly found that the producers just wanted him to make appearances as the writer but to keep quiet otherwise.
"I never know if I should throw a tantrum or not," he said. "But, you know, it's not my style."
He left the Detroit theater, had a few drinks at a nearby bar and was on the next plane back to his farm in Vermont - a long way from the Bronx where he grew up. That's where he makes his living, although not as a farmer.
"I write junk mail," he said, adding that he could hardly make a living from this one 2-year-old play or the second one he has barely started. "I'm actually one of the best junk-mail writers in the country."
He writes mail ads for books or magazine subscriptions, a career that started out of financial necessity. "My brother tripled my rent and I had to get a job, and I went to work for a little company that made jigsaw puzzles," he said.
The mail-solicitation piece he wrote ended up getting a lot of publicity, he said, and he has continued selling other mail products for the past six or seven years. He hears of prospective assignments from other junk-mail writers or is sought out for a project.
"I'm the guy they call," he said. "There aren't that many junk-mail writers, so they talk to each other."
He has also done some acting, but downplays that. "I'm not a professional actor. I'm just a ham," he said. "I have a farm and a kid and I like being there."
Since its debut in 1990, "Kuru" has been performed in seven states. Manheimer has been present in all but two of them. He couldn't afford the plane fare to California or Florida, he said.
He is still rewriting it, as he gauges audience reactions and sees how different casts handle the material.
"You also need to find out what works in each theater," he said, noting that the first Barter performance spent a little too much time getting a character through a trapdoor exit from the native New Guinea house setting.
"I'm happy to write a line or two to get her out of there, or she has to leave earlier," Manheimer said. "We all want the same thing."
by CNB