FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW -- "REVOLUTION ON THE ROOF"
The late sixties were a rough time. Think assassinations (Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy) and mass murderers (Charlie Manson). Think hurricanes, airplane crashes, riots...some disasters sent by God, some created by men.
Think Vietnam.
In 1969, a group of anti-war student radicals took over Stanford University’s Applied Electronics Building to protest its involvement in weapon research for the Vietnam War.
“Revolution on the Roof: A 60’s Anti-War Musical” is a true story set to the music of its time.
Meg Cavanaugh plays Joan Baez who led the students who lived, smoked dope, and made love on the roof of the building.
Allison Goldberg is Zelda, and Will Manning as Jake Goodnight are the two lovers who work out their politics and sexuality. (The setting might seem unconventional but somehow their solutions are quite traditional.) He’s an English major who loves F. Scott Fitzgerald, and who uses creates a euphemism for Zelda’s frigidity from Chekov’s “Three Sisters” who never make it to Moscow.
Stephen Conrad Moore is compelling as Best, the Vietnam vet who is for the war to continue until it is won to prove that his buddies didn’t die in vane. Jon McCormick is appealing in a sleazy way, as Grazy who enjoys the free sex while doing his job as an undercover narcotics cop. Jamie Neumann is Pebbles, his free wielding girl friend.
One good revolution leads to another. Somewhere in the peace movement, the feminists on the roof found their voice (Picture Mary Martin singing “I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair”--and translate that to the women throwing their bras away to Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem “I am Woman.”)
The two hours-no intermission production flows so quickly, almost as if 40 years ago were yesterday. Thinking back to the 60’s...and comparing it to today’s crises...it seems almost a gentle time. There is none of the anger of contemporary uncensored lyrics, nothing fun in being a street crack addict, nothing joyful in where free sex leads
Think the never-ending war in the Middle East.
This wonderful show reminds us that passion and truth do not have to scream to be heard, especially if they are backed up with commitment.
Daniel Shay and Will Manning have written songs that blend in with music by Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Helen Reddy. Aaron Latham wrote the Book and Sergio Alvarado directed.
--CELIA SHARPE
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