The
Francis Marion University Theatre will continue its 2005-2006 season
with
Jon Tuttle's The
Hammerstone.
At a small college with virtually no admission
requirements, two aging professors deal differently, but disastrously,
with the students whose S.A.T. scores are lower than their cholesterol
counts--and with their own obsolescence. Victor Ransome has long since
given up cajoling his classes into paying attention and now uses
insults and threats of physical violence. "I can kill you if I want,"
he tells a student, "I've got tenure." His best--well, only--friend,
Murray Stone, still loves teaching, primarily because it fosters his
delusions of perpetual youth. Through their offices come a variety of
aggravations in the persons of a completely bewildered baseball player,
a smitten spinster, and a gorgeous business major, each of whom serve
to remind them that in education come various human responsibilities
which sometimes supersede actual teaching. By play's end, Murray has
understood this lesson. Victor, however, has not, and is, in fact,
quite dead. His death underscores the message at the bottom of the
play: that teaching, like living, takes continual reinvestment. As
Murray puts it, "Happiness is an act of will." While the play makes
considerable fun of the state of modern American education, and
speculates on the collapse of western civilization once the next
generation assumes control of it, in the end, it is a positive
statement for teaching, and for teachers.
Director:
D. Keith Best
Asst.
Director: Dwayne Malcolm
Stage Manager: Vince Triana
Set/Light
Design: David Granath
Costume
Design: Abby Kiker
Cast
Victor:
Andrew Cogswell
Murray: DeJuan Conner
Woody: Damien Ruffner
Grace: Erin Lamz
Kristi: Barika McCall
Dotty: Melissa Bjorgen
Tuesday, February 21, 3:45 p.m., Fine
Arts Theatre: “A Conversation
about The
Hammerstone."
This event will begin with the performance of a scene from the play,
followed by a conversation with Jon Tuttle, Keith Best, and the cast of
the play.
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PLAYWRIGHT'S
NOTE: To the Greeks, drama was supposed to address the question
of How
To Live. That's expecting a lot of a play, if you ask me. All I had in
mind when I wrote The
Hammerstone--this
was the early 1990's, when I first came to FMU--was a light comedy that
poked a bit of harmless fun at academics. I already knew how
exhilarating a university environment can be, how professors and
students challenge each other to keep learning and growing, but I also
saw the real harm we can do one another. There's a lot at stake here,
and sometimes that pressure makes us all say things we don't mean--or
really do. While I was working all that out in my head, someone close
to me was losing the will to get out of bed every morning. My fear that
one day soon he wouldn't found its way into the play--and suddenly it
was about How To Live. I'm grateful to Keith Best and this fine cast
and crew for lending it their talents, and somewhat terrified that the
Department of English has selected it as a common text. Hope you enjoy
it.