Submission 142 / Day 140

BENEATH SHELTON LAUREL to The Public Theater (NY)

Yes, THAT Public Theater . . . Joe Papp's Public Theater. Do you think they get a few submissions?

My chances are slim, but this submission makes me happy because it puts me in mind of one of my favorite plays (and one that I'm not at all sure the folks at the Public would appreciate). The play is SHAKESPEARE, MOSES, AND JOE PAPP by Ernie Joselovitz in which we are told the story of then theatrical pipsqueak Joe Papp's battle against New York colossus and director of public works, Robert Moses, to bring Shakespeare to Central Park.

It's a David and Goliath story in which the audience's sympathies naturally rest with the whimsical underdog battling a megalomaniacal establishmentarian. The play pits poverty against wealth, impotence against power, and even low (Polish) Jew against high (German) Jew. Yet, when the underdog wins, we feel strangely let down because, in the process of making his conquest, Papp reveals himself to be every bit the megalomaniac that Moses is. And Moses, a man near the end of his life, reveals himself to be far more human than even he might have imangined.

It's a funny, bittersweet, and cautionary tale that reminds all who see it how easily our judgments of people and their motives can be misguided. That's the kind of effect great theatre can produce.

But, if you're a playwright the story of SHAKESPEARE, MOSES, AND JOE PAPP can also produce another effect: depression. Despite the play's immense succes at Washington's Round House Theatre and a Helen Hayes / MacArthur Award for Best Play of that Washington theatre season, SHAKESPEARE, MOSES, AND JOE PAPP has never received another production . . . anywhere.