The World Premier at Stage Left Theatre of One Fine Day opened with a scene that had you asking what kind of play is this? This is not what I was expecting. Soon enough you come to find it was all a dream. A dream based on the poem Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll.
It was the dream state of Dr. Fred Miller, Ph.D. (Don Bender) a professor of sociology at a private university. It takes place the day of his hearing to find out if Dean Reynolds (Walter Broady) was within his rights to pull him from teaching a particular course.
Miller is an instructor known for dressing in costume for class from Julius Cesar to Darth Vader. One day Miller dressed as Adolf Hitler with a Swastika on his shirt playing Nazi propaganda music, and handing out Nazi propaganda information, as the class entered to start the discussion of the class.
He did not cite the sources of the propaganda and this had one Jewish student, Rivkah Brownstine (Lindsay Weisberg), furious. She wrote a letter to the editor to the student newspaper The Daily Tiger that was published.
The letter caused uproar among the campus, with many follow up stories, which were presented throughout the play.
After intermission you receive Miller’s side of the story and it looks as though that Rivkah was looking for someone to be anti-Semitic toward her and Miller made an easy target for that being of German decent with ancestors in Nazi Germany while her ancestors where in concentration camps.
Rivkah was looking for revenge for her ancestors through Miller and created in her mind that he hated her for being Jewish. Miller does not deny his hate for Rivkah but it is due to her persistent attempts to make him look like a fool.
The play looks into many different social aspects in education. There is the freedom of speech pointed out with The Daily Tiger. There are all the rules set up by the school Miller touches on this in the play when he says, “When did I morph from an individual to an institution.” There is also the issue of the undermining of cultural diversity vs. academic freedom.
The power of the student press to change a university is a sub-theme to the play. David Rush the playwright is the head of the playwriting program at Southern Illinois University. He used his knowledge of the college campus to depict some of the most interesting and some of the most disturbing scenes in the play.
There is one scene where a reporter from the Daily Tiger is attacking Miller with questions for a follow-up story. It is not uncommon for student newspapers to have follow-up stories especially on important things such as mercury spills on campus, and library fires.
The issues of undermining cultural diversity versus academic freedom are issues to be aware of here at NEIU. At one of the most diverse colleges in the U.S. where is the line of ridiculing someone’s culture and creating a dialogue for the classroom.
There is eventually emotional resolve in the play but it lacks a physical resolve. There is a scene were Miller talks to the author Lewis Carroll that makes for a twisted scene.
This is a play that every student and faculty member at NEIU should consider seeing. The story line is eerily realistic. It has a person look at themselves as individuals and as part of the institution.
www.stagelefttheatre.com