In Spinning Into Butter, the faculty at a small liberal arts college in Vermont is shocked into debate when racist notes are left on the door of an African-American student’s dorm room. After several solutions are tried, Sarah Collins, the dean of students and the conflicted protagonist, is asked to come up with a10-point bulleted list on how to solve race issues on campus. She is appropriately incredulous at the assignment, half-jokingly making the first point, “Don’t be stupid.”
In solidarity with the fictional Dean Collins, I submit to you my top 10 reasons for why you should go to the Louis Theater this weekend to see Spinning Into Butter:
1. It’s the 30th Anniversary Season of the Theatre and Interpretation’s Mainstage! There are, of course, other productions in the coming months, but why not start 2011 off right with a celebration of our spectacular theatre program?
2. Spinning Into Butter is written by Prof. Rebecca Gilman, a member of our Radio-TV-Film faculty, who has written many highly successful plays. Come see proof of just how talented our faculty is (something we often forget, particularly during midterm season).
3. The set! Although the entirety of the show takes place in a dean’s office, the set has been created to exemplify production design realism – from autumn leaves on the ground, to a beautiful university backdrop, to the dean’s office itself, appearing as if someone truly transported an entire office to the stage. It’s a gorgeous peek at the college landscape.
4. Performances ranging from subtle to hilariously obtuse. Taylor Heisley-Cook portrays Dean Sarah Collins with a realism that opens the audience to strong identification with the character, while Justin Callis’s older Dean Strauss is entertainingly overblown and reminds us of the dangers of misinterpreting the voices of others.
5. A different perspective on college. From movies and television to our daily lives, “college” tends to feature only the students – but, as we all saw with Morty’s deft handling of the brothel law uproar, the faculty plays a huge role in our university experience. In Spinning Into Butter, you can see their side of things … and how it might not be so different from ours.
6. Exquisite, point-blank writing. Listed by Time magazine as one of the best new plays in 1999, Spinning Into Butter features thought-provoking lines like, “to idealize is not to respect.” It isn’t often that a modern play consistently achieves both realism and eloquent truths in its dialogue.
7. Act II. While Act I may start off slow and stumbled a bit as it found its footing, Act II brought energy and shocking revelations that more than made up for it.
8. A fair discussion on race. It’s like a dramatic interpretation of the musical Avenue Q’s song, “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” except it carries through to the next step – once we realize our little prejudices, how do we deal with them?
9. The deliberate lack of conclusion. Most debates on race (and other issues) try to find a solution, but Gilman not only doesn’t offer anything definitive, she rejects the easy go-to’s (that10-point list being one of them). The only solution? Open communication, like the straightforward dialogue of this play sets out to inspire.
10. This production of Spinning Into Butter was brought to the Louis Theater by a team of undergraduates, professors, graduate students and Chicago professionals, a mixture of communities who usually have little creative collaboration. Come and see what Northwestern can achieve when it pools its vast artistic resources together.
Spinning Into Butter is playing this weekend, Feb. 4-6 at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday in the Josephine Louis Theater.
This was originally published in The Current, a weekly supplement to The Daily Northwestern.
