DeVos schooled on stage
Student play not meant as ‘cartoon or lampoon,’ producer says
Guns in schools to WASHINGTON protect students from grizzly bears? Betsy DeVos endured yet another rocky confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate to become education secretary — this time on a theatre stage.
In a play performed Monday at Washington’s Arena Stage theatre, about a dozen student actors from D.C.-area high schools posed as frustrated Democrats and friendly Republicans to grill the U.S. Secretary of Education on the merits of public education, the role of the federal government in civil rights, and her family wealth.
“We are living in a time when people think they are looking for truth, but are being told there are alternative facts and, frankly, we are just trying to show facts,” Chris Burney, a co-producer of the show, said in an interview before the performance.
“This is what was spoken, these are the words that were spoken, now that you know what the facts are, how do you engage with them?”
The play, titled simply The Confirmation Hearing for the Secretary of Education, was part of American Scorecard, a series of dramatic readings by actors of congressional transcripts.
Other shows in the series have been devoted to banking, the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election and the confirmation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who later resigned. DeVos’s less-than-smooth performance at her confirmation hearing generated satire on television and social media and marked the start of her rocky tenure. After the hearing, two Republican senators joined the Democratic half of the Senate in voting against DeVos and it was only Vice-President Mike Pence’s tiebreaking vote that secured DeVos the job. Putting prominent public figures on the stage as part of documentary theatre is not new, said Jodi Kanter, a theatre professor at George Washington University. For instance, Anita Hill’s powerful testimony at the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991 also inspired a play.
The play ended with excerpts from a speech DeVos went on to give as education secretary. DeVos was played by a professional actress while students, selected from educational theatre programs, were cast for their roles irrespective of age, gender or race of the character they were playing. Burney said that was meant to symbolize diversity and to amplify what was being said rather than who was saying it.
The play contained some of the most awkward and contentious moments of the hearing, such as DeVos suggesting guns may help protect rural schools from grizzly bears.
But the producers insist their aim was not to criticize or ridicule, but to encourage dialogue and understanding.
“We work really hard to make it so it’s not a cartoon or lampoon, but so that everyone who’s involved and every voice that’s heard is respected, so hopefully then people can find what do we share in common,” Burney explained.