Then is Now: Daisy @ ACT

Quarter-Inch Scale Model of the Set Design of Daisy
designed by Shawn Ketchum Johnson

Show: Daisy; by Sean Devine

Theatre: ACT; Seattle, WA

Tickets: ACT Pass

Date & Time: Friday, July 29, 2016 @ 8pm

I went into this show 100% skeptical that I'd enjoy myself. A play about the advertising campaign to elect Lyndon B Johnson in 1964? Didn't we JUST do this at The Seattle Rep and Oregon Shakespeare Festival with All the Way and The Great Society? Why are playwrights so obsessed with this time in American politics? As a 32-year-old, the pitch of the parallels of the political climate of LBJ's terms with today feels more like a half-ass attempt to make a story that appeals to the majority of the aging theatre audiences appeal to my demographic and younger.

Which means that I was pleasantly surprised by this evening of theatre.

It started by attending the ACTPass Member Party on the roof of ACT. As a former audience services employee, I was totally down to be on the receiving end of the carefully constructed social event to entice members/subscribers to feel invested in the theatre beyond the usual ticket purchase. That is why I was able to snap a picture of the set model above. Peppered around the room that the gathering was held in were costume plates, scenic drawings, and models for Daisy and the shows that had come before (Stupid Fucking Bird and The Mystery of Love and Sex). As a designer, this kind of insight is super cool to me and I always nerd out over seeing the art that will be full-scale, 3-D that evening. I was not the only person inspecting these artifacts, so I know it's not just my specific brand of nerdiness that this appeals to.

Once we sat down to see the show, I was immediately impressed with the scale of the wall of TVs that was created for the show. An innovative way to both incorporate the media that the story of the play centers around, but also allow for projections that indicate place, time, and other story elements that advance the story. Interestingly, my date for the evening, a friend from high school, and I compared notes about the first TVs we remembered being like one of the TVs in the back wall. Despite our generational distance from 1964, we still felt a connection to it. This got me to thinking about the kind of nostalgia that I worried that this and plays like All the Way and The Great Society produce in the average theatre patron of the large theatre houses. Looking around the audience last night, I can attest that we were two of the youngest people sitting in the theatre. Even during the usual last-minute rush-ticket seating, the average age of the audience pushed well north of 50.

And that's unfortunate.

Unlike Robert Schenkkan's plays, which really operate as historical dramas of the LBJ presidency, Daisy, while based on true events, analyzes the human component of people grappling with the changing political landscape of the 1960s, specifically the terror that gripped the country on the verge of a war with Vietnam. The play centers around the ethics of a ground-breaking commercial that aimed to paint Barry Goldwater as a nuclear-trigger-happy candidate for president while not outright saying that. The advertising team struggles with the manipulation of praying on America's worst fears in such a blatant way. See the ad below:

As the dramaturgical material in the program and throughout the lobby, it is eerie how many people of America viewed Barry Goldwater as a crazy, off-kilter candidate who could not, should not be the Republican nominee, let alone the next president of the United States. This ad, nick-named "Daisy" by the team, was a calculated move to incite fear at the alternative to voting for LBJ. The team went on to receive harsh rebuke by the public and other politicians, but also to receive praise for the change in advertising tactics that the spot marked.

This glimpse into history is enough to make this play worth a viewing.

But this world-premiere at ACT of a play that they helped develop in the Icicle Creek New Play Festival, is one of the most deft productions I've seen at ACT. From the set design (see more work by Shawn Ketchum Johnson) to the staging, this piece gives me hope that theatre in Seattle is not just stagnating.

That said, I still took issue with some things. In order to diversify the cast, the one non-white actor was a composite character made up of newspaper journalists and civil right's leaders. The female character in the piece existed because the playwright up and changed one of the real-life ad-men into a woman. I appreciate the effort, but let's be honest with ourselves about how the choice to program a play about this time period means that the diversity of gender and race on stage is going to be lacking. To completely change historical characters so that the diversity numbers check some boxes is as much a pandering to the audience as it is a disservice to the people that the story is about.

Also, why isn't this play being peddled in such a way to attract a diverse audience base? As it stands, if this play only primarily reaches the typical ACT audience base, it is a piece of nostalgia (per my anecdotal experience of listening to the audience sitting around us). Without a wider audience base that is younger and more racially diverse, then the lessons to be learned about how we are doomed to repeat our mistakes through inaction at the polls this fall are only things written about in the program and The Seattle Times. And yes, I believe the marketing efforts and ticket prices are as much a point to review as the production itself.

The show runs for another week. I recommend heading out to see it if you can. There are a ton of ways to get discounted tickets at ACT that you may not know about. Including Pay What You Can on Sundays, $20 on Tuesdays, and $15 tickets to students/Under 25! You will not be disappointed to spend your money to see this production. AND you'll likely be more terrified of what we are facing in 2016.

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And now, some stats:

# of Actors: 6
# of Female Characters: 1
# of Non-white Characters: 1

# of Artistic Team Members Listed on Title Page of Program: 12
# of Female Artistic Team Members: 3
(including: Costume Designer, Assistant Costume Designer, and Dramaturg)