May 11, 2006. The Shepherd Express publishes this review of The Plight of the Ruling Class.

Provocative and Risky
Plight Succeeds In Spite of Stumbles
By Jason Hart

Cannibalism. Terrorism. Rape. Such are the subjects of Insurgent Theatre’s latest production, The Plight of the Ruling Class, a collection of three one-acts by Milwaukee playwrights. At the Astor Theatre through May 13, it’s a boxing match for your brain, and a guided tour of hell for your emotions.

Cured, written by John Manno, is the first and best play of the set. The home of John and Jane Smith is the same as many upper-class households. John runs the meat-processing company passed down to him by his father. Jane is a housewife who works with her church and charities to make the world a little better. Sarah, their only child, is a vegetarian, and rebels against the family business she is meant to one day run. But this world holds a horrible secret, one that we don’t discover until we are so deep inside of it that we have begun to mistake it for our own.

From the beginning of Cured, the dialogue captivates and the performances mesmerize. Manno withholds the choicest morsels of information from the audience, doling them out like bits of steak to eager dogs. We get hints throughout, but it isn’t until more than halfway through that we learn the whole truth: all of the characters, except Sarah, are cannibals. They don’t eat each other. They eat Africans. John Smith’s company breeds, slaughters and sells African people to American people.

Cured makes us wonder what atrocities we are complicit in. Just as the characters in the play are inherently responsible for their participation in the slaughter and devouring of other human beings, we are responsible for the sweatshops, slave labor and oppression that make our middle-class lives possible.

Cured’s major failing is its narrow focus. We only see this world through the eyes of Americans—there are no Africans on stage at any point. A diversity of viewpoints would have been welcome. I can’t help but shake the feeling that for all of its sensitivity to issues of race, this is still a play for white people, about white people.

Cured is directed by Mike Q. Hanlon, better known for his direction of comedy for Alamo Basement. Hanlon does an excellent job, especially with conversation: The silences in this play say as much as the words around them. The acting in Cured is also generally impressive. Mary Diaz, playing Sarah Smith, gives a nuanced and captivating performance. Cesar Gamino, as her nurse Jim, invests his character with gentle soul and delicate realism. Alice Wilson and Shawn Smith ring true as Jane’s parents, wrapped up in the banal evils of their world. Dan Ritter holds his own as David Getz, Sarah’s boyfriend.

Claire and George is the middle play, and the weakest of the three. The lights go up on a woman, wearing an Islamic head scarf, chained to a table. A DHS agent dressed in a crisp suit enters, and demands, “Where is it?” The “it” is a bomb that may or may not exist. Claire (changed from the Lebanese name Clarisa), her husband indefinitely held at Guantanamo Bay, has issued a bomb threat in a futile attempt to free him. The situation is interesting, but the characters quickly devolve into mouthpieces for political ideology, and the acting is generally one-dimensional.

The final play, George and Claire, is a better play than Claire and George, and is probably playwright Ben Turk’s best piece to date, but its messages are deeply problematic. In this play, Claire is a rich suburban girl who goads her boyfriend over and over again to fulfill her fantasy of being violently raped, until he finally gives in and rapes her, for real, while she begs him to stop. The rape takes place entirely in the dark, but it is still very, very disturbing to watch. The last line of the play belongs to George, who mutters, as he slinks from the room, “How could you do this to me?”

According to Turk’s comments during a talk-back session after opening night, this act is symbolic of the ruling class’ ability to always get what they want, even when what they want is to be brutalized. This explanation should not be accepted without question. The play is essentially a story about a woman being punished for seeking sexual fulfillment. Whatever meaning or symbolism one attempts to wrap around that is irrelevant to the fact that a woman is raped, and a man ends up the victim. Is it really fair to make women, 25% of whom are sexual abuse survivors, bear the emotional pain of this heavy-handed metaphor?

Their weaknesses notwithstanding, you should see these plays. This is some of the best theater being produced in Milwaukee, and certainly the best being written here. Cured in particular sparkles throughout with quality, and heralds Manno’s potential as a playwright of note. The others, despite their flaws, are still well worth your time.