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Theatre Week
By Anthony Chase

An uncommonly strong theater season continues with the current range of plays. Interestingly, three of these diverse productions bear echoes of Buffalo's history as a city divided between management and labor.  Subversive Theatre Collective's revival of Emanuel Fried's Drop Hammer chronicles efforts to undermine union activity at a Buffalo factory in the late 1950s.  Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY's production of Clifford Odet's Awake and Sing watches the Berger family struggle to get by during the Great Depression, as working people alternately struggle against and aspire to become members of the class that oppresses them.  Even the American Repertory Theatre of WNY production of the daft 1930s Kaufman and Hart comedy, The Man Who Came to Dinner includes a subplot of a middle-class girl who wants to defy her parents by running off with a union agitator.

I conclude from this coincidence of theme that Buffalo's theaters reflect passions and concerns that run deep in our city, especially at a time when the clouds of an ailing economy loom even more ominously than usual.  We are a town that understands what it means to be a paycheck away from a crisis, and that holds on to the pretensions of middle-class ideals tightly.

DROP HAMMER.

The most successful productions of Manny Fried's Drop Hammer are those buoyed by a sense of genuine commitment.  I remember, vividly, a production performed by labor union members in the back room at Nietzsche's pub, several years ago.  The current Subversive Theatre Collective production captures a great deal of that spirit of urgency with a commanding rendition of this tale of conflict in a Buffalo factory, 50 years ago.

In Drop Hammer, the interference of FBI agents and the threat of exporting jobs from Buffalo to plant in Kentucky is used to wedge working man against working man.  In his notes for the program, Fried, who is now 95 years old, notes that battles lost years ago continue to echo in economic problems today.

Kurt Schneiderman has directed members of his politically committed company at the Manny Fried Playhouse with a cast featuring Tim Eimiller as protagonist Dave Sigmund, a union organizer who has misplaced his trust.  Victor Morales and David A. Hoffman spar as competitors for the status of antagonist in a crisis even an accountant can’t unravel with certainty.  Jack Agugliaro is excellent as the weary accountant with an ulcer, who can see where the money has gone, but knows he cannot account for human motivation with certainty.  Leon S. Copeland, Jr. gives an appealingly humorous performance as the owner of the bar where the action unfolds.

The Subversive Theatre production is appealing, and its combination of professional and less experienced actors lend Drop Hammer the perfect tone of communal testimony.  Many of Fried's plays have been published, but it would be wonderful to see an anthology of plays by local writers, including Fried's Drop Hammer or The Dodo Bird, to tell the world of a theater community that speaks with an urgency and a vitality that few other cities can claim.

Presented by Subversive Theatre through Dec. 14 at the Manny Fried Playhouse in the Great Arrow Building, 255 Great Arrow Avenue.  For more information, call 408-0499 or visit www.subversivetheatre.org.