Audio Cranking out a 'big old pro-union play' in the Sears building (story audio) Photos Wendy Knox The Sears Building Working on notes View full slideshow (4 images) Resources Frank Theatre Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

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Cranking out a 'big old pro-union play' in the Sears building
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio
October 3, 2003

Frank Theatre Artistic Director Wendy Knox says "The Cradle will Rock" may be almost 70 years old, but it's still relevant (MPR Photo/Euan Kerr)

The huge Sears building on Lake Street in south Minneapolis, with its massive tower, is a neighborhood landmark. It used to be the place where everybody shopped, but it's been empty for years. For the next few weeks the Sears building has a tenant -- The Frank Theatre Company. It's doing a musical, The Cradle Will Rock. The piece, which is decidedly pro-union, was written during the Depression.

	The Sears Building

Minneapolis, Minn. — The old Sears building is huge -- almost two million square feet of empty retail space. It's vast, dusty and pretty much deserted -- all except one very busy corner of a room on the second floor, where 20 people are rehearsing a musical finale. As the cast surges forward, director Wendy Knox watches intently. As the echoes die down from the final shouted note, she calls to the actors.

"That all right, guys?"

Knox is a force of nature. She fills a room, even one this size, with her laugh, and a barrage of ideas. She really wanted to do this play. She also came up with the idea of using the Sears building. She even got permission to scavenge through the rest of the building for props.

	Working on notes

"This building was built in 1928. The piece was first done in 1937, so it's a bit of the same era. So here we are in a bastion of capitalism, sitting empty, and we are going to crank out a big old pro-union play," says Knox.

The Cradle will Rock is set against the backdrop of the 1933 steel strike. An unscrupulous tycoon called Mr. Mister sets about buying everything -- and everyone -- in a place called Steeltown USA. It's only when the union organizer, Larry Foreman, stands up to him that the tide turns. It's a Depression-era satire with a simple plot line, but Knox says it still resonates.

"What money can buy, and what people will do for money, and how money equals power in our society is clearly still a pertinent issue," says Knox.

The Federal Theater Project commissioned The Cradle will Rock in 1937. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a government jobs creation program. Orson Welles directed the original production, and John Houseman produced.

The story goes that during rehearsals, word leaked out to members of Congress about the show's pro-union stance. Opposition grew. Suddenly, the Federal Theater Project put all its productions on hold, supposedly because of budgetary concerns. Wells and Houseman were convinced they were being censored. They'd already sold thousands of tickets. So Wendy Knox says they rented a theater and hired a piano for $5.

	Rehearsing a threat

"They led the audience on opening night, 20 blocks up Broadway to this dark theater, where the actors and musicians were forbidden by their own unions to perform," Knox says. "They were going to present a concert version, where the composer Mark Blitzstein was going to be on stage playing the piano. And as he struck the first chords, the actors who were in the house could not stand to not participate -- so they sung their parts from their seats. It's a great story, a great American History story."

The play follows Mr. Mister as he buys person after person. Alan Sorenson plays the tycoon with the ferociously menacing grin. Sorenson runs through the blocking of a scene with Gary Briggle, who plays Editor Daily from the Steeltown newspaper. Mr. Mister has come to suggest a story -- an expose on Larry Foreman, the union leader.

"Find out who he talks with, and drinks with, and sleeps with, and make up the rest until you have it on him!"

Editor Daily resists at first.

"But that man's so full of fight. He's really dynamite. It would take an army to tame him."

Mr. Mister just grins again.

"Then it shouldn't be to hard to frame him!"

Members of the cast are quick to point out they believe this play is not just union propaganda. Singer Ruth MacKenzie plays Moll, a streetwalker. People sneer at her because she's a prostitute. But Moll learns that everyone sells themselves somehow.

MacKenzie says she realizes some people will dismiss the play out of hand, but she likes the way it doesn't excuse anyone from blame -- even artists.

"I think what this play does really beautifully is say that everyone is part of this enmeshed system, in which money and power become more important than honesty, good judgement, good work," says MacKenzie. "I think artists, as much as any other people, need to look at how they participate."

MacKenzie smiles at first when asked what it's like to be putting on a show in the Sears building. Then she says, it's hard. It's dusty, which makes it tough to sing.

"There is something in that hardship, though, that I think is part of what this play is about. It's not easy to draw people together and try to push at something and make something happen, especially when the odds are against you. So in a certain way, being here kind of makes sense to me," says Mackenzie.

"In this particular point in our history, in America's history, its a really brave show to do," says Dominic Papatola, theater critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Papatola says he thinks many people feel it's not quite as safe as it used to be to criticize the government, a thing The Cradle Will Rock does very directly. He says staging the play in the Sears building adds yet another wrinkle.

"Whenever you go to see a piece of site-specific theater, there is just a little sense of danger," says Papatola. "And it's a good sense of danger, this sense that, 'Wow! There's something happening here that really maybe shouldn't be happening here.' And that gives it just that little extra jolt of thrill." Papatola doesn't think the play will cause riots in the streets, but it might result in some heated conversations. Wendy Knox says she doesn't want to let her audience off that easily.

"One of the prongs of our mission is to do work that provokes. I don't want people to walk out of here saying, 'Where do you want to eat?'" says Knox. "I want them to walk out and ... fight about the piece. That's great. You know, have a big brawl on Lake Street because people didn't like The Cradle will Rock."

The Cradle Will Rock runs through Oct. 26 at the Sears Building on Lake Street in Minneapolis.

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