Theater for the New City’s 28th annual
street theater extravaganza, "Code Orange: On the M15,"
starts with the amiable, but frustrated, Bus Driver taking his
bus uptown and ends with him and all his passengers urging the
audience to get on the bus, singing the inspirational lyrics,
"We can change. We can move. We can get back in the groove."
Written and directed by Theater for the New City (TNC) Executive
Director Crystal Field, with music by Joseph Vernon Banks, the
show will tour the five boroughs’ streets, parks and playgrounds
in the next two weeks, exhorting New Yorkers to get their act
together and get out and vote. More specifically – to vote President
Bush out of the White House.
Like Field’s previous summer shows ("State of the Union,"
"The Patients Are Running the Asylum," "Bio-Tech"),
"Code Orange" is an adult fairytale that preaches empowerment
for ordinary citizens. The people on this bus are typical New
Yorkers. They come on board with their cell phones, their children,
their complaints and their gossip. They are also the ensemble
that keeps the musical comedy in tune and intriguing.
They sing of the maladies that afflict city life in "Urban
Olympics" – under-funded schools, crime, poverty. When a
pregnant lady comes on board and the bus driver delivers her
baby, they accompany the delivery with a musical arrangement
worthy of Bernstein – or at least Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The Bus Driver (the excellent Michael David Gordon) is despondent
because he has been unable to secure a "rich route"
during daylight hours and is stuck with a nighttime route on
a bus that is the refuge of drunks, crooks, and noisy college
students, all of whom argue with him and trash his bus.
When, after delivering the baby, the Bus Driver gets into trouble
for arriving late at the depot, he is so depressed he resolves
to drown himself in the East River. But just as he’s about to
end his life, the Bus Driver discovers a bottle from which a
genie (Mark Marcante) soon bursts forth.
The genie (complete with turban, vest and pointed shoes) now
offers the Bus Driver the proverbial three wishes. He takes the
Bus Driver around the world, where they are consistently met
with anti-American demonstrations; to the White House, where
Bush, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, et. al. – Haideen Anderson’s masks
are fantastic! – rob the populace to the hip-hop tune "We
Got the Bling Bling"; to the Republican Convention, where
delegates dance to the "Politician Tango" ("It
won’t be our sons and daughters who get slaughtered"); and
to City Hall, where an overburdened mayor is trying to deal with
his own demonstrators.
On the trip, the Bus Driver meets an assortment of interesting
people. The best of these are the President’s fellow-Texans,
the "Dixie Chicklets," who harmonize about how they’ve
been kicked off the radio by Clear Channel and warble "Mr.
President, are you still a resident of our home state?"
Some people may be happy when, at the end of this scene, they
take him home.
More vaudeville than Broadway, TNC’s Street Theater makes use
of an assemblage of trap doors, live musicians, masks, changing
flats and a 9-foot by 12-foot "cranky," a running screen
that provides seamless scene changes. The 25 actors who comprise
the cast are of varying talents and experience. They range from
Equity actors to talented amateurs. But they all share the same
enthusiasm and dedication to the principles that have made this
country great – freedom, diversity, justice and equality. (Actor-activist
Tim Robbins was a member of the company from age 12 to 18.)
These are contentious times. It’s an election year; the country
is engaged in a controversial war, and polls seem to indicate
the population is split down the middle. Field, like her soul-mate,
filmmaker Michael Moore, leaves no doubt as to where her sympathies
lie. And like Moore, she may be preaching to the choir.
But whether you’re in the choir, manning the barricades or on
the battlefield, "Code Orange" may be one of the most
provocative shows you see this year.
Theater for the New City’s "Code Orange: On the M15"
will be at Herbert Von King Park on Lafayette Avenue between
Marcy and Tompkins avenues in Bedford Stuyvesant on Aug. 15 at
2 pm; on the boardwalk at W. 10th Street in Coney Island on Aug.
20 at 8 pm; and Prospect Park’s concert grove (enter at Lincoln
Road off Ocean Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens) on Aug. 28
at 2 pm. Admission is free. For more information, call (212)
254-1109.
