FELICITY HUFFMAN STAR OF "DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES" RECOMENDS HRE'S SPEED-THE-PLOW

June 2nd, 2008 at 10:34am Hudson Reed Ensemble 93

“A few years after working with Kent Reed in Aspen in the Theater Under the Jerome, I did Speed-The-Plow on Broadway and at the Kennedy Center. “SPEED-THE-PLOW is a perfect play for our valley;  it's smart, wickedly funny, and non-stop enjoyable. Aspen has a wonderful tradition of supporting the arts, and I encourage you to support to the Hudson Reed Ensemble”, says Felicity Huffman, who currently stars in Desperate Housewives, the popular television series.

When Tony-nominated Speed-The-Plow opened on Broadway in 1988, the high-flying satire skewered an emerging style of Hollywood deal making that rewarded formulaic big-budget films over more substantial fare. But over the past 20 years, David Mamet's Tony-nominated play has been seen as commentary on the calculating greed that prevails in all corners of business.

When the play opens in Aspen on June 6, the message is squarely aimed at the conflicts that drive development throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. As the play's three-person cast (Jessica Lundin, Lee Sullivan and Kent Reed) discuss the pressures and rewards to deliver “blockbusters” at a Hollywood film studio, it's easy to envision the same issues being played out everyday in real estate offices, development company offices, and corporate boardrooms.

“It is a very slippery slope when demands of commerce must be balanced with a yearning to make art,” says Kent Reed, founder of the Hudson Reed Ensemble, which is staging the Speed-The-Plow. “People can have a strong desire to make something beautiful - for themselves and the community - but there is a competing need to make money which may ultimately prove contrary to the public good.”

The satire concerns two Hollywood studio executives who are heavily invested in making deals, selling out and cashing in. However, these men are torn between loyalties, fame, fortune, and redemption. Newsweek wrote, “there's hardly a line in it that isn't somehow insanely funny or scarily insane.”

When Mamet penned Speed-The-Plow, the major studios were looking for surefire hits. They wanted sequels, buddy films, and action packed special effects movies. For example, in 1988, some of the biggest movies were Twins, Crocodile Dundee II, Rambo III, Die Hard, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Short Circuit II, and Coming to America. Mamet, a rising star in the theater world, found that most studio execs disdained his wordy style - or any literary credentials. They were “business men” rather than the movie moguls that ran the studios for generations.

SPEED-THE-PLOW. June 6,7,8 & 13, 14, 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Black Box Theatre. Tickets: $20 Wheeler, 920-5770, Aspenshowtickets.com, or at the door.

Entry Filed under: Theater, Aspen, United Post