The controversial play “The God of Hell” by Sam Shephard comes to DU for two weekends. Only three scenes long, and with a four-member cast, this play is a satire on the Bush-Cheney administration.
Freshmen Brooke Tibbs and William Farrell, sophomore Stefin Woolever and senior Paul Keables star in this dark comedy.
The setting is present day at a farmhouse in Wisconsin, where Emma (Tibbs) and her husband Frank (Keables) live as some of the last dairy farmers, since the government pays others not to farm.
She keeps occupied by watering her plants, all too often, and he takes care of his heifers.
Hiding out in their basement is a very nervous Mr. Haynes (Farrell), who is an “old friend” of Frank’s.
There is something very odd about Mr. Haynes, and Emma can’t help but notice. He is very jumpy and paranoid, especially when anyone mentions Rocky Buttes, Colo., where his “top secret” government work is, but perhaps the strangest thing about him is he gives off very painful blue shocks when he comes in contact with anyone.
When a very suave man, Welch (Woolever), lets himself into the couple’s home, he is impersonated as an unrelenting salesman.
Emma is very distraught by his persistence, especially in his interest in the basement. As the play goes on, the audience begins to see that he embodies the U.S. government.
The mysterious truth behind Haynes’s “top secret” government work begins to unfold when he asks Frank, “Do you know what plutonium is named after, Frank?”
“No, what?” a seemingly disinterested Frank answers.
“Pluto, the god of Hell. Do you know how long it remains radioactive and biologically released into the atmosphere? Five hundred thousand years…. The most carcinogenic substance known to man.
It causes mutations in the genes of the reproductive cells. Major mutations. A kind of random compulsory genetic engineering that goes on and on and on…”
Welch finally lures Haynes out of the basement, and the truth comes out. Haynes is being tortured with electric currents through his genitals, and the painful blue shocks he produces are caused by years of being infected with plutonium.
Written in 2004, this 80-minute dark comedy is not Shephard’s first anti-Bush play.
When George Bush Sr. was in office, Shephard wrote “States of Shock” (1991), which isn’t entirely as well known as “The God of Hell.”
Although only the first weekend, Nov. 2 – 4, was free to all DU staff members and students, you still can catch the show on Friday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. at the Byron Theatre in the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available through the box office.
