Playwright drops by for 'House of Blue Leaves'

It’s an extraordinary thing to perform a Tony Award-winning play with its creator in the audience. And on April 25, students of the University of Montana’s Department of Dance/Drama will do precisely that.

“The House of Blue Leaves,” a black comedy set in Vietnam-era America, takes the stage at the Masquer Theatre as one of the department’s final productions this semester. In conjunction with the President’s Lecture Series, playwright John Guare will be on campus to speak at the UC Ballroom, as well as hold a seminar for students earlier in the day. While in Missoula, Guare will attend one of the performances of “Blue Leaves” earlier in the week.

The sardonic farce takes place in 1965 Queens, N.Y., during a visit by Pope Paul VI. It follows the characters – a songwriting zookeeper and his off-the-deep-end wife, three misguided nuns and an AWOL soldier engaged in a facetious terrorist plot – as they encounter one blunder after another.

Overall, the black humor lends itself appropriately to this tumultuous time in our nation’s history. According to director Greg Johnson, “Blue Leaves” focuses on the effects of ambition and what it does to family, both in the nuclear and national sense.

“(Guare’s) plays have such a broad thematic texture,” Johnson said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

Department representative Erin McDaniel, like Johnson, believes that the main objective of the play is to display America’s obsession with “celebrity, family and, of course, a little satire of religion and Vietnam.”

“It’s jam-packed with all kinds of stuff,” she added.

For Johnson, choosing “Blue Leaves” seemed fitting after he met Guare last year at a playwriting convention in Palm Beach, Fla.

The two struck up a conversation during dinner one night, wherein Guare told Johnson that he had never been to Montana. Johnson made arrangements for him to come as a part of the yearly lecture series, which happened to coincide with the production of Guare’s play.

“The rest just fell into place,” Johnson said.

For actor Cody Hyslop (Artie), the prospect of Guare attending the performance is both riveting and a little daunting.

“It’s fantastic, amazing and extremely intense having the man who wrote it watching you saying his words,” Hyslop said.

“House of Blue Leaves” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Masquer Theatre April 22-26 and April 29-May 3. Student tickets are $10. Guare’s lecture in the UC Ballroom will be on April 25 at 8 p.m.