RINO
Director's Note
Life imitating art...
When Resonance Ensemble approached me over a year ago to direct the staged reading of this play at Theater Row I was so excited to work on a comedy. The script was funny and at the time seemed like a wonderful parody of what could happen in the primary. Jump ahead to the real primary and this play now almost feels like a documentary. With politicians and political lobbyists making statements like "in my time we just put Aspirin between our legs" on the topics of women's reproductive rights... Life imitating art and art imitating life it seems. At least in the world of comedy.
Our political system is in the "unstoppable force paradox". When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It feels as if our 2 party system is locked in this way.
It feels like our congress cant pass a law in an election year just to make the other party look bad on principle. Even within the very separate parties themselves there is turmoil, No one wants to bend or compromise. So the American people pay the price as the very system itself is falls apart and implodes from within. The heart of this play for me is that very problem. This play could have been about the Democrats just as easily as the Republican party (though Sarah Palin is so fun to parody it would be missed). What are the lines that people will and will not cross to get what they need? When should you compromise and when should you not? But in order to call it a compromise, both parties must loose something or else it is not a compromise. So the question is really what are you willing to give up to get what you want... And was it worth it?
