Rapture – Memphis Flyer

You’re reading this, so I guess it’s safe to say you survived Monday’s great solar eclipse. What an extravaganza! I am hard-pressed to remember any news event that generated so much hype, so much blathering punditry, so many hours of television coverage, so much social media content as did the Big E.

There were countless maps (interactive and static) of the eclipse’s path, helpful hints on how to watch it, where to go for the best vistas, where to buy viewing glasses, how to photograph it, where to sleep, where to eat, even how to make a pinhole device from a shoebox. It was the most ballyhooed three-and-a-half minutes since Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels.

The media breathlessly reported about how lodging and food services and gas stations in the path of the darkness all across the country would be overcrowded and overbooked. Scary, scary! Governor Sarah “Colonel” Sanders of Arkansas even declared a three-day state of emergency for her state (three days!), and it had nothing to do with the outfit she was wearing.

And, of course, the eclipse came with a heaping dollop of wasabi-level crazy sauce from the MAGA crowd. Georgia congresswoman and professional troll Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once claimed that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in California, added a side of supernatural hysteria to her usual wacky brain-salad, posting on X that the earthquake in New Jersey and the then-forthcoming eclipse were messages from God (probably not the Jewish one): “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she wrote. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

Scientists helpfully pointed out that the eclipse was predicted hundreds of years ago, so it probably wasn’t caused by a fabulous gay wedding in Atlanta. Scientists also noted that “earthquakes occur naturally and happen (on average) more than 30 times a day across the world.”

But wait, there’s more nuttery to be had. What major event in the United States would be complete without the paranoid vocal stylings of InfoWars’ Alex Jones, who announced that Monday’s shadowy spectacle was merely a “dress rehearsal” for martial law in the U.S. How? I don’t know. It’s Alex Jones, people. He doesn’t make sense. He makes noise. And lots of money off of morons.

Speaking of which … Let us not forget about the religious weirdos who saw the eclipse as the coming of the Rapture, wherein all true Christians would be whooshed up to Heaven, leaving us heathens to stumble around in the dark and party with Satan, I guess. Some of this silliness was apparently spawned by the fact that there was going to be totality over the town of Rapture, Indiana. Right. It was also dark over Buffalo but nobody was predicting a chicken-wing stampede.

And I do find some irony in the fact that evangelicals have warned us about the coming of the Antichrist for hundreds of years, and then when he finally appears, they rush out to buy a $70 Bible from him. Just sayin’. And speaking of that guy … I’m shocked that the former president didn’t notice that the eclipse just waltzed over the Mexican border into Texas in broad daylight without a bit of interference from Snarky Joe, or whatever Trump’s calling him now. What a scandal!

Honestly, none of this should be a surprise. Eclipses, earthquakes, and other natural phenomena have always sparked religious and conspiratorial theories. And there have always been people who seek to turn such events to their advantage for money or power. The difference now is that those humans are aided by our “LOOK OVER HERE!” media — social and otherwise.

Finally, I have to say, as one who took in our 98-percent Memphis eclipse from my back deck: That thing was way-the-hell overrated. It got a little gloomy for five minutes, but birds kept singing, traffic kept driving, nobody got raptured, and nobody went to Hell (that I’m aware of). Maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn something this time. Maybe we’ll stop and take a beat, possibly even pause and think about how this thing was over-hyped by media sources that use emotion, fear, and sensationalism to gain our eyeballs, no matter the cost to their credibility. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally begin to see the light.

So how is free internet pornography like a GPS? And what does any of that have to do with the price of American dairy products? To find out you’ll have to go see Rapture, Blister, Burn at Theatre Memphis.

Rapture, Blister, Burn is a fantastic comedy with a terrible name. It sounds like a trashy novel where the female protagonist’s late-life sexual awakening results in a loss of social standing and cruel psychological torment. And while Gina Gionfriddo’s authentically clever script does flirt with that tired conceit, it’s something altogether different and unlikely. It’s a full-fledged screwball romp through three generations of pop culture feminism that milks a few sacred cows while exploring the possibility that evolution and biological hardwiring have conspired against the easy eradication of patriarchal values. Why else might a strong, smart woman who should know better make terrible, self-defeating choices to be with a no-account stoner dude who’d rather be watching porn? Imagine a 21st-century version of Chekhov’s three sisters pining for a less heteronormative Moscow, and you’ll get the picture.

Jack Yates’ detailed design overstuffs Theatre Memphis’ Next Stage with all the trappings of middle-class anxiety dressed up to look like comfort. Tony Isbell’s directorial hand is as sure as it is invisible. The show plays out like it was expressly written to showcase the considerable talents of an ensemble cast led by the always excellent Erin Shelton.

Shelton plays Catherine Croll, a middle-aged academic and best-selling author in full-blown crisis mode and looking to rekindle an old flame who’s now married to her old college roommate. She’s joined on stage by the deliciously dotty Ann Sharp, a charming Steven Burke, the convincingly conflicted Tracie Hansom, and Jillian Barron, who is hilarious as the play’s lone millennial.

Rapture, Blister, Burn seems to be aware of its own pretensions and limitations and chooses to keep the cultural conversation light and fairly superficial. As a result, one doesn’t have to have a degree in women’s studies to follow the dialogue. You don’t have to agree with the play’s conclusions to enjoy the ride either.

Through April 19th

Time has been uncommonly kind to August Wilson’s King Hedley II, a play set in the 1980s, in the moment before crack and the subsequent War on Drugs pulverized the poorest urban communities. For all of its structural shortcomings, it’s probably a better show today than it was in 2001 when it opened on Broadway.

The penultimate entry in Wilson’s Pittsburgh cycle opens with an incantation. Evil omens abound. Aunt Ester, the neighborhood’s magical matriarch dies at the age of 366. Stool-Pigeon, a “Truth Sayer” (expertly portrayed by Jonathan Williams) divines the future from yesterday’s newspapers. Meanwhile, the play’s doomed title character kneels on a broken sidewalk, burying seeds in a crumbling patch of gravel and dust that he savagely defends: “This is good dirt.” It’s a picture ripped from Sophocles. It couldn’t be more modern or more contemporary American.

King Hedley is portrayed by a brooding and volatile Ekundayo Bandele. King’s fresh out of jail, having spent the past seven years behind bars for burying a man who slighted him; robbing a little boy of his daddy in the process. He aims to go straight, too, after he sells enough stolen refrigerators to open a video store. Yes, a video store. And, yes, the pathos is thick and darkly funny, providing the audience with a nifty object lesson in the ways a play can change as it moves through time.

From our perspective, Wilson’s Reagan-era story seems even more cruelly fatalistic than it was at the beginning of its theatrical life. In 2001, video shops were a declining but still-viable business. There was a faint glimmer of hope that even in this barren landscape fertilized with blood, something of lasting value might grow.

Director Erma Elzy gets solid performances from her cast. But the real star of this shooting match is Bandele’s fantastically detailed set. It’s a stunning urban still life, populated with litter, wreathed in decrepitude and decay.