A unique play which has been performed only once before in western North Carolina will be presented by Foothills Community Theatre at the MACA Center.
The play “bobrauschenbergamerica” takes a look at the life and work of artist Robert Rauschenberg, one of America’s greatest modern artists. He is best known for his work in abstract expressionism and pop art and his participation in the fluxus artistic movement.
He was well-known for his “Combines” art work during the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993.
Rauschenberg worked mostly in New York City until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.
Written by Charles L. Mee, the play “bobrauschenbergamerica” interprets Rauschenberg’s work on the theatrical stage. A website describes the play as “a wild road trip through our American landscape – in a play made as one of America’s greatest artists, Robert Rauschenberg, might have conceived it if he had been a playwright instead of a painter: a collage of people and places and music and dancing, of love stories and picnics and business schemes and shootings and chicken jokes and golfing, and of the sheer exhilaration of living in a country where people make up their lives as they go.”
Treavor Gouge is the play’s director. A native of McDowell, he attended McDowell Technical Community College and studied theater arts at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He is the former artistic director of Betterdays Productions.
“As far as I know, this is the second time I have seen this play done in western North Carolina,” said the 28-year-old Gouge. “The first time I read this play I was just blown away. This is beautiful. Why had it not been done here before?”
The first time it was produced in western North Carolina and possibly the entire state was when Gouge and his former partner directed it for N.C. Stage Company’s Catalyst Series in 2006.
The play uses characters to interpret the ideas that Rauschenberg put into his artworks.
“This play has a little bit of everything,” said Gouge. “It has a play within a play, songs by the Inkspots, old country tunes.”
It also features various forms of dancing. McDowell native Rory Kelly of the Crank County Daredevils provides the music for this production.
“It seems like all this madness is happening,” said Gouge. “At the end, all of this comes together and you understand it. There’s fusion at the end.”
The actors in “bobrauschenbergamerica” are Tom Sluder, who plays Becker; Allyson Greene, who plays Rauschenberg’s mother; Amie Kincaid, who portrays Susan; Todd Buckner, who plays Wilson; Chris Todd, who plays Phil the trucker; MACA Director Susan Pyatt, who is Phil’s girl; Chris Moore as Carl; Chris Mainer as Allen; Rob Laurie as the pizza boy; and Crystal Lonon as the girl on roller skates.
The production also has a striking set inspired by the American flag.
It will be performed in the Greenlee Theatre at the MACA Center Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The play will also be presented Friday, Sept. 17 and Saturday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 19 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $6 for students, $8 for seniors and $10 for general adult admission. The play is suggested for mature audiences.
As for his next project, Gouge said he’s thinking about doing a dinner theater in McDowell County.
For more information, call 659-PLAY.
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