- Wasatch Theatre Company
Wasatch Theatre Company: The Melancholy Play
Playwright Sarah Ruhl's illustrious career has already included a MacArthur Fellowship, nominations for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award nomination for Best Play for In the Next Room (or, The Vibrator Play). But it all started more than 20 years ago with The Melancholy Play, an often-absurdist farce that explores the thin lines between the emotions we identify as "good" and those we identify as "bad," and deconstructed the idea of the "manic pixie dream girl" character even before culture critic Nathan Rabin coined the phrase.
The protagonist is Tilly (played by Ariana Farber), a bank teller who is examining her feelings of melancholy in sessions with her therapist—who also happens to have fallen in love with her. Indeed, Tilly's emotional state seems to have that affect on everyone: a tailor who his hemming her pants; her hairdresser; even her hairdresser's partner. It's all quite messy, but somehow gets even messier when Tilly's mood brightens, and that shift has the unexpected impact of making those who were previously infatuated with her less happy themselves. Throw in a magical vial of tears and a unique metaphorical use for almonds, and you have an utterly distinctive tale of how our emotions have ripple effects on others.
Wasatch Theatre Company's production of The Melancholy Play runs at the Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center (2525 Taylorsville Blvd., Taylorsville), with performances Thursday and Friday, March 23-24 at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, March 25-26, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 general admission/$15 student; visit arttix.org to purchase tickets or for other event information. (Scott Renshaw)
Sankofa, This Journey: Go Back and Get It @ Salt Lake Acting Company
While Salt Lake Acting Company is known and loved in the community for its more than 50-year history of producing and staging its own season of plays, its mission statement also identifies as a goal that it "nurtures, supports and develops a community of artists." Fulfilling that goal can take many forms, and this week, it takes the form of providing a venue for the Utah Black Artists Collective (UBLAC) to present Sankofa, This Journey: Go Back and Get It, a multidisciplinary theatrical work described as "a journey about reclaiming self-identity and Black liberation."
The program is scheduled to include a combination of music, visual art, dance by Diane Bahati and Shakira Smith, and poetry by Andrea Hardeman, Youri Young, Ashley Finley and co-script curators Franque Bains, Jarod P. Garrett and Wynter Storm (the latter is pictured). "This mixed media production is a collaboration of Artistic magic, reclamation, liberation, community; and a whole lot of Black Joy!," Storm says via press release. "Come out and take this beautiful journey with us. We hope that this experience moves you. As an Artist, watching this show come together has personally had me in tears of joy; it's so beautiful!"
Sankofa, This Journey: Go Back and Get It runs at the Chapel Theater of Salt Lake Acting Company (168 W. 500 North) for four performances only: Friday and Saturday, March 24-25, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 26 at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. General admission tickets are $20; visit saltlakeactingcompany.org to purchase tickets and for additional event information. (SR)
- CBC Books
Geoff Dembicki: The Petroleum Papers @ Sundance Resort Author Series
It's generally accepted that the fossil fuel industry has been remarkably successful at sabotaging national and international efforts at building policy around mitigating climate change impacts from those fossil fuels. What might be much less widely-known is that they were equally successful—long before "climate change" was in common usage—at understanding exactly what they were doing, and building a plan for making sure they could keep doing it.
In his new book The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change, Canadian journalist Geoff Dembicki explores the evidence for how much internal research by companies like Exxon, Shell and British Petroleum confirmed decades ago that fossil fuels were having an impact on climate, and that specific policy initiatives could prevent the worst possible outcomes. "Not only had they figured out the causes and impacts of climate change by the early '90s," Dembicki said in an interview with David Sirota on The Lever podcast, "but they had a pretty good idea of how to fix this whole thing. [The industry] created a list of talking points ... distorting these findings to policy-makers, saying 'Fixing climate change is horrible for the economy, it's reckless, and it probably won't even have the desired environmental effects.' ... This company sold out the entire future of the planet and all of us living on it for, like, $900 million worth of profits."
Dembicki speaks at Sundance Resort's Redford Conference Center (8841 N. Alpine Loop Road, Provo) as part of the Author Series on Saturday, March 25 at 11:30 a.m. Tickets are $95; visit sundanceresort.com for tickets and additional event information. (SR)
