Fri 9/22-Sun 10/22
Playwright William Mastroisimone’s 1987 play Cat’s Paw is startlingly relevant in 2023. The thriller evolves around acts of terrorism in response to environmental destruction in which the mastermind justifies the death of 27 innocent people by referring to the deaths of innocents killed by the pollution of the water supply. It certainly goes well beyond the acts of today’s environmentalists attacking works of art in museums but shows where such thinking could lead.
“When a car bomb exploded by mistake under misguided activists in California, I saw a clear demarcation between passionate activism and criminality,” Mastrosimone said in an interview. “That was the inspiration for the play. The ends never justify the means — or do they?”
Now Beck Center for the Arts is staging the play in its intimate studio Theater to kick off its 90th season. It will be directed by New York director William Roudebush, a Beck Cnter alumnus from Rocky River.
He says, “Cat’s-Paw, written in 1984, is a play conceived forty years ahead of its time. We weren’t listening back then. Today, even with the most recent events in Flint, Michigan, and East Palestine, Ohio, surrounding our consciousness, so many are still denying the reality of pumping poisons into our environment. This play, unnoticed in its own time, predicts, in a most dramatic and entertaining manner, our present dilemma, as well as the toxic politics, threats and media that engulf and amplify our continued lack of action to address the problems we still continue to ignore.”
The show is recommended for age 16 and older due to subject matter, onstage violence, and copious adult language. It runs Fridays and Saturdays @ 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:30pm through October 22. The playwright will be attending opening night. Get tickets here.
Lakewood, OH 44107