Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Book Introduction by Marilyn French<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the fall <\/a>of 1985, something new happened in the cultural life<\/a> of America, something that should hearten and encourage every person <\/a>who believes this nation needs humane redirection<\/a>: a show opened on Broadway starring Lily Tomlin, written by Jane Wagner, and called The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe..<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lily Tomlin made her first reputation on television<\/a>, the most far-reaching of all cultural media. Millions of people are familiar with the characters she created on the comedy series Laugh-In<\/a> and followed her and her longtime collaborator Jane Wagner<\/a> as they expanded Tomlin’s comic repertory in Emmy Award-winning television specials<\/a> and an earlier Broadway show, Appearing Nitely<\/a>, which won a Tony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe\u00a0focuses on female<\/a>; one might well say human; experience of society. It looks at a world that is pervaded by the\u00a0drive<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0power<\/a>, but it is also a hilarious\u00a0running critique of our society<\/a>, so accurate and humane that New York Times critic Frank Rich called it “the most\u00a0genuinely subversive<\/a>\u00a0comedy to be produced on Broadway in years.”\u00a0One man’s subversive<\/a>\u00a0is another’s (woman or man) truth: what is most extraordinary about the Tomlin\/Wagner show is\u00a0the degree of truth<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0American society<\/a>\u00a0that it\u00a0dares t<\/a>o<\/a> present on a public stage<\/a>\u00a0to an audience\u00a0educated<\/a>\u00a0by the artificial\u00a0sunshine<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0artificial violence<\/a>\u00a0of most television and movies;\u00a0action<\/a>\u00a0without\u00a0reverberations<\/a>,\u00a0people without character<\/a>, like Marisol cut-out figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The major narrator of the performance is Trudy<\/a>, a bag lady who has been “certified” mad, but whose madness is really a perception of society from the underside<\/a>, the kind of seeing that Socrates called “a divine release<\/a> of the soul<\/a> from the yoke of custom and convention.<\/a>” Trudy<\/a> is wise, acute, funny<\/a>. Her voice and face appear, then vanish<\/a> as other characters appear; Chrissy<\/a>, a young woman who lacks direction and spends hours in a health club (sometimes she has a male counterpart<\/a>); Kate<\/a>, a wealthy woman suffering from “affluenza” (“a bored species cannot survive<\/a>“); Agnus Angst,<\/a> an unhappy punk adolescent who tries to use Gordon Liddy’s book Will as a guide to life; and an entire community of friends (Lyn, Edie and Marge<\/a>) who have been together throughout the feminist movement <\/a>(dated by the script from the Women’s Strike for Equality) and who are unsure of what to do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The point of view of the show is actually from the lowest social stratum<\/a> in American society. This is intentional<\/a>. Tomlin and Wagner both came from rural Southern families, although Tomlin was raised in Detroit<\/a>, in a blue-colla<\/a>r neighborhood, among people who, she feels, did not recognize the degree to which their suffering was caused by a system <\/a>rather than by each other, that “the system” was only a system, and not the very law of nature. But compassion<\/a> is handled <\/a>lightly in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; Jane Wagner’s script is unsentimental<\/a>. Nor does the show deal out blame<\/a> for the social problems it addresses, instead it focuses on our anxiety<\/a> and on our dangerous tendency to harden ourselves.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Underlying the gentle laughter that is a Tomlin<\/a>\/Wagner<\/a> hallmark is the convention<\/a> that we have some power to alter the course of our world <\/a>as well as our own lives. And that message is received by the audience. The atmosphere of the theatre is intense, magnetized; the roar afterward conveys the feeling<\/a> one had as one sat there, that people were starving for truth in art<\/a>, and had finally been fed, and knew it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-900","reviews","type-reviews","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n