February 23, 2004
On a Florida Campus, Theater Turns Daring
By BRUCE WEBER

[T] ALLAHASSEE, Fla., Feb. 22 — The startling image that opens "Prymate," a new play by Mark Medoff being presented at Florida State University here through next Sunday, is that of a black man perched on a desert butte. He is dressed in dark shorts and a dark T-shirt, his shoes and socks also dark. On all fours, he is supporting most of his weight on his knuckles. It's the pose of an ape, and the man — the actor André De Shields — is snorting and baying, scratching himself, occasionally beating his chest with absent-minded, simian hubris. He is playing a gorilla.

This direct confrontation of racial sensitivity is only the most obvious of the obstinately original qualities of this production. The play also depicts an interspecies sexual act and a woman's deliberate infecting of a man with the AIDS virus, and it argues with Darwinian force that the dividing line between humans and apes is indistinct. It's a peculiar fit in a conservative Southern capital, on a campus where creationists make regular public appearances and where the football stadium is far better known than the theater for boldness and innovation.

"Prymate" is being produced under the auspices of the university's theater school, with student stagehands and staff, but with an all-professional cast that in addition to Mr. De Shields includes Phyllis Frelich, Robert Walden and Heather Tom, and a prominent director, Edwin Sherin. The creators were all acutely aware of the show's potentially inflammatory nature.

"Who knows how the religious right will respond?" said Mr. Sherin, best known as the original director on the television series "Law & Order," before the opening on Friday. "I've got my bag packed and a ticket purchased. When they go out and lynch somebody, they can look for me, but I'm on a plane out of here."

The dean of the theater school, Steven W. Wallace, joked about job security and declared that the theater program was part of a research university and that work like this was what constituted research and experimentation for artists.

"Nobody's going to go into the chemistry department and say, `I'm sorry, but you can't mix those two chemicals together,' " Mr. Wallace said.

In a signal, perhaps, of how unusual such a production is here, the opening passed without a murmur of controversy. The first-night audience stood and applauded, and the review in The Tallahassee Democrat was a rave, never mentioning any of the orthodoxy-challenging themes or that the idea that a black man playing a gorilla might be eyebrow-raising. The university provost, Lawrence G. Abele, said the only thing that bothered him was that the play underscored the stereotype of egotistical scientists; he's a biologist.

Lenora Inez Brown, an assistant professor of dramaturgy at DePaul University in Chicago, was one of only a handful of black audience members on opening night. Before the show, she said, she had been uncertain how she felt about the casting of Mr. De Shields.

"But I was very impressed with what André did onstage," she said. "His performance overwhelmed the philosophical question."

Mr. Sherin is a visiting faculty member here, as are his wife, the actress Jane Alexander (the former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts), and Mr. Medoff. It is an unusual arrangement that allows Mr. Sherin, who directed "The Great White Hope" on Broadway in 1968, and Mr. Medoff, who won a Tony Award in 1980 for his play "Children of a Lesser God," both to contribute to an academic program and to push ahead with a project they hope will have a commercial future.

At the same time it allows theater students here a chance to work with successful professionals, furthering Mr. Wallace's interest in integrating the theater program with that of the university's well-regarded school of motion picture, television and recording arts.

The concept is not unique to Florida State, whose theater program, with more than 500 students, is one of the nation's largest. But in a time when entertainment seems to be an industry of ever-increasing influence and opportunity, the shift in emphasis from a strictly academic program to more of a vocational one is emblematic. There is no professional theater company in Tallahassee, which, Mr. Wallace said, makes it even more imperative that he be able to attract people like Mr. Sherin and Mr. Medoff.

It is doubtful, however, that Mr. Wallace envisioned the prickly piece of work that "Prymate" has become. He and Mr. Medoff have had a relationship since he directed Mr. Medoff's play "Gunfighter: A Gulf War Chronicle" at the University of Oklahoma in 1997. When he became dean at Florida State in 2002, he offered Mr. Medoff a writing chair in the school and suggested that he revisit a play about gorillas and AIDS research called "Gila" that he had written years earlier and that had had workshops in Las Cruces, N.M., and Los Angeles.

The play, the fifth Mr. Medoff has written for Ms. Frelich, a deaf actress who also won a Tony for "Children of a Lesser God," tells the story of two scientists, Esther Leeper (Ms. Frelich), an animal behaviorist, and Avrum Belasco (Mr. Walden), a biologist, who engage in a tug of war over the fate of Graham, the aging gorilla with emphysema played by Mr. De Shields. Esther has taught Graham to sign, and a bond of affection has grown between them. Avrum, a Nobel-hungry researcher, is seeking a cure for AIDS and, convinced that finding a primate model to experiment on is crucial to his work, wants to infect Graham with the virus.

The fourth character is a young sign language interpreter named Allison (Ms. Tom), who finds herself in the midst of a tense emotional situation between Esther and Avrum — who are lovers as well as colleagues — and in the meantime walks a thin line between her fascination with Graham and her fear of him.

Mr. Sherin, who spends one semester a year at Florida State, first read "Prymate" last fall while he was directing Ibsen's "Ghosts" in Washington. He was attracted to the passions and the intellect in the script, he said, but he also found it flabby and timid. Among other things, he suggested that a scene in which Graham urinates on Allison be made more threatening.

"He said, `Make it more dangerous,' " Mr. Medoff recalled. "What would happen if she couldn't get away?" The result is a shockingly blunt sex act depicted onstage.

It was also Mr. Sherin who had the idea to cast Mr. De Shields, with whom he was working in "Ghosts." In a previous production, Graham had been played by a man in a gorilla suit, and the introduction of a black actor instantly infused the play with racial overtones. The idea of Graham as a celebrity plaything to be gawked at, entertained by and ultimately demonized came out in relief.

Mr. De Shields, who is 58, prepared for this very physical role by visiting the Museum of Natural History and the Bronx Zoo. He describes the character of Graham as being ruled by a mantra — "I desire" — that has been somewhat mitigated by the civilizing influence of Esther. "But when his world is threatened," he said, "that goes all to hell."

He admits he has been chastised by other black actors for taking on a role that perpetuates a racial insult, but responds to such criticism by asking if only white actors should be allowed to play gorillas.

"Intellectually I understand that position," he said, "but if we objectively embrace that point of view, what we avoid is the real possibility of healing." It was the opportunity to make this point, he said, that made him see the role as important.

"It occurred to me that being qualified to assay this role, it is inescapable I'm bringing to it a sensibility that is racially explosive," he said. "No conscious adult can come to the play and not think of O. J. or Kobe Bryant or of any African-American male who has achieved trophy status."

Mr. De Shields calls "Prymate" "darkly hopeful" because its conclusion involves forgiveness. But with all its incendiary triggers, it is hard to imagine that as it is presented elsewhere, in communities more attuned to the theater, such will be its reception. That's the reason Mr. Sherin is proud of his current employer, he said.

"I truly admire the courage of a school that would produce a play like this," he said.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company