INTERVIEW: Political spin in 1980s Grenada
Photo: Chris McFarland and Sarah O’Sullivan star in Oberon Theatre Ensemble’s Halcyon Days at A.R.T. / New York Theatres. Photo courtesy of Gerry Goodstein / Provided by Matt Ross Public Relations with permission.
Alexander Dinelaris, Academy Award-winning co-screenwriter of Birdman, is now in the director’s chair for the new play from Oberon Theatre Ensemble in New York City. Halcyon Days tells the story of the political spin machine in 1983 when the United States invaded the small country of Grenada. Although the satirical piece is based on a lesson from yesteryear, there are many connections to the world of 2018.
“I think it’s really relevant,” said Chris McFarland, who had a small part in Birdman and is featured in the ensemble of Halcyon Days. “It takes place in 1983, but I think they’re really going to feel a lot of parallels to today and today’s news cycle and spin and how the words that these guys use affects how we see these events that happen that we’re not a part of. Things happen overseas, and whatever we hear on the news or read on the paper, that’s our take on it. So whoever you’re listening to really inform these stories, and so I think a great takeaway is going to be to really take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Actions speak louder than words.”
It seems Halcyon Days, written by Steven Dietz, is cut from the same page as Wag the Dog, another political sendup about spin and the power of media imagery.
“It’s tough to know what’s really happening when you’re not there, and so my character, Alex, he’s a med student in Grenada,” McFarland continued. “He’s from the U.S. He’s studying in Grenada and has set up a really nice life for himself there. He loves the school. He’s got a girlfriend. He’s doing the whole thing, and then the military action that takes place it kind of shakes up his whole life plan that he’s set up. He has to make a choice of where to go from here. He has to make a choice of what side basically he’s going to take.”
McFarland has found it interesting to see how the different characters in the play respond to the militaristic and political events around them. They are each issued an ultimatum and must develop a way to deal with this difficult dilemma.
“They have to try to figure out really soon what’s right and wrong, or whether what’s right or wrong is what’s important,” he said. “What’s best for your neighbor? What’s best for the country as a whole, or for the island as a whole? It’s a lot of questions that you have to ask yourself. … Until you’re in that moment, it’s really tough to know what you would do, so I think certainly with what’s happening in the news currently, we all like to think what we would do when we’re in a situation, what’s been happening in Florida and all of these other places. Until we’re there, we don’t know how we would respond. We don’t know how we would react. We always assume we would be the best version of ourselves, but until you’re there, you just don’t know. And so I think it’s really interesting to watch these characters make these decisions.”
Before signing up for Halcyon Days, which continues performances through March 25 at the A.R.T. / New York Theatres, McFarland did not know too much about the Caribbean nation or the events of the 1980s.
“I really was not familiar very much at all,” he said. “It happened before my time. I was not around to remember this happening in the early ’80s, but luckily our wonderful director, Alex, and lots of the cast were around and remember watching it. And my parents remember watching it happen, and so, yeah, there was a lot of brushing up on history for me. We found that there’s great documentaries that have been done and just reading a lot of first-hand accounts of what happened, and that’s where the whole premise of our show happens where it depends on what account you’re reading. Certain people look like heroes or villains depending on who you’re hearing it from, and so it’s trying to form your own opinion of what it was without being there.”
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan called for the invasion of the nation because of the perceived threat against American nationals by the pro-Marxist leadership in the country.
“There was a lot of reading up and a lot of learning, and I knew very little about Grenada at all, other than the fact that it existed,” the actor said. “It just goes to show how many things happen throughout history that seem like such a huge event at the moment, but then as time goes on, how do people remember that? Do people even talk about them? Like I never heard people having conversation about an invasion of Grenada until I started reading the play, the first time four years ago. It was totally new to me.”
Halcyon Days revisits this chapter in history and also looks at how that history is written.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Halcyon Days, from Oberon Theatre Ensemble, is currently playing through March 25 at the Jeffrey & Paula Gural Theatre at the A.R.T. / New York Theatres. Click here for more information and tickets.
