Robert Altman directs "2 by South" with Alfre Woodard Leo Burmester 14"x22" Broadway Window Card 1981
"Mr. South, who writes about the victims and perpetrators
of American violence... creates folksy, Middle American
characters - then squeezes and squeezes them until they
start to spurt blood." - Frank Rich New York Times
"Powerful, poetic... often grotesquely funny in the manner of Faulkner" - Jack Kroll Newsweek
"Locked
inside both plays is the puzzle of America... the American Dream turned
nightmarish... these people kick walls, cower in their homes, live in
the past and re-enact stories of violence that shade into bone-numbing
guilt for feelings imagined or otherwise. South is on to something
here."- Jay Reiner Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
"Two one-act plays directed by Robert Altman in Los Angeles and
Off-Broadway in New York City in 1981, and later filmed by Altman for
ABC Arts cable television, and now revised by the playwright for this
edition. Both plays dig under the myths covering American life and give
voice to the perpetrators and victims of violence. In "Precious Blood," a
man and a woman, both haunted by the memories and ghosts of a middle
class, mid-western family, tell their conflicting stories in entangled
monologues and exhume the history of rape and murder that left them each
irrevocably changed. In "Rattlesnake in a Cooler" a young doctor leaves
his practice and his wife to follow his childhood dream to be a rodeo
cowboy. As he tells his story, he relives his ill-fated quest for
adventure that brought him face to face with the desperation, darkness
and death on the frayed edges of the American west."
"Playwright, author, and longtime TV writer and producer, Frank South
first gained notice when Robert Altman directed the Los Angeles and
Off-Broadway productions of 2 by South. Frank published his
award-winning A Chicken in the Wind and How He Grew - Stories from an ADHD Dad in 2018, and is presently finishing Pay Attention, a memoir based on the one-man show he performed in Honolulu and Los Angeles."
"IN his best movies, such as ''M*A*S*H''
and ''Nashville,'' Robert Altman creates a sprawling, highly populated
world that seems to spill right out of the frame. He does so by using
overlapping dialogue, whirligig cutting and subjective camera movements -
cinematic techniques that are often antithetical to those of the stage.
Now, after 19 movies, Mr. Altman has turned to the theater, and,
surprising as it sounds, he's made this unlikely transition with total
ease. His staging of ''2 by South,'' a pair of one-act dramas at St.
Clement's, is impeccable in its concern for precise details and
imaginative in its overall conception. You'd never guess that Mr. Altman
hasn't given his life to directing plays.
Always
a fan of fresh talent, the director here devotes his attention to a new
playwright, Frank South. It isn't difficult to see why the writer
appeals to him. Mr. South creates folksy, Middle American characters -
then squeezes and squeezes them until they start to spurt blood. Like
Mr. Altman, the playwright believes that darkness lurks behind every
American dream. Though his people travel the open highway to chase
country-and-western dreams of romance and frontier freedom, they can't,
in the end, escape the unspeakable, random violence that's embedded deep
in the national soul." - Frank Rich New York Times Oct. 15, 1981
American Heartland 2 BY SOUTH, by Frank South; directed by Robert
Altman; scenery by John Kavelin; lighting by Barbara Ling; production
stage manager John Brigleb. Presented by M.G.I. and Scott Bush- nell, in
association with the Los Angeles Actors' Theater. At St. Clement's
Theater, 423 West 46th Street.
PRECIOUS BLOOD
Actor
........................................Guy Boyd
Actress
.................................Alfre Woodard
and
RATTLESNAKE IN A
COOLER
Actor ...................................Leo Burmester
Musician
..................................Danny Darst