Dude, Where's My Play?

continued

the Purple Rose commissioning plays about sports? Flipping back through the program, which lists every play produced at Purple Rose over its twenty-year history, I remember that Honus and Me was about baseball, Bleeding Red about soccer. The setting of Guys on Ice was fishing; Duck Hunter Shoots Angel and the entire Escanaba trilogy were about hunting. Then there are the plays that are not about sports, but about guys, guns, and outlaws, like Panhandle Slim and, earlier this year, Corktown. We are now considering a sizable number of Purple Rose productions. But considering them for what?

Has Purple Rose, now in business for a stable twenty years, been intentionally and stealthily trying to cultivate an audience of men who might otherwise be spending the evening at Comerica Park or Ford Field? If so, Dude, that's effing genius niche marketing! Whether Jeff Daniels' and artistic director Guy Sanville's propensity for bro-drama, man theatre, or whatever you want to call it, is purposeful or an outgrowth of their personalities, it was more interesting to think about than about this particular play, so I'm afraid I've sacrificed some space to examine Purple Rose's larger strategy. But then, Consider the Oyster is not nearly as good as some of the more testosterone-themed pieces just listed.