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RANDOM SIGHTINGS by Polly Warfield
August 30, 2001
Frogman
Glenn Hopkins is an
American original. Names like Johnny Appleseed, Woody Guthrie, Will Geer,
and Walt Whitman come to mind. Hopkins, like them, marches to a different
drummer. A longtime theatre person with a lot of irons in the fire, he
describes himself thus: "The Other. The oddball. I look around to see what
everyone's doing, what they're not doing that needs to be done, and then I
do that."
"I work 20 hours a week, mornings, teaching English to the
foreign born," he said. "It's enough to live on and I have afternoons and
evenings free for theatre, writing plays." He considers himself primarily a
playwright, but he's also a Green party political activist. "The Green
movement started in Germany; it's 10 years ahead of us. What began here 20
years ago as a fringe movement is now a party. Ralph Nader got enough votes
in the last election to put Bush in the White House." Depending on your
point of view, that's good or bad. To Hopkins, it's promising, a harbinger.
Speaking of which, he's at work on a play about frogs as
harbingers of world change. Greek playwright Aristophanes beat him to the
frog theme, but his is a musical, Mark and Barbara Frog. "On top of
the Andes, and every mountain, where there used to be thousands of frogs,
now there are 10. Frogs are disappearing from the Earth," said Hopkins.
"Frogs are the pioneers who brought life to the land from he oceans. In the
American Indians' cosmology, based on 30,000 years of observation, the frog
predicts the future."
Hmmm, depressing. But Hopkins promised his play will
"sparkle." Its music, which he composed, is "very froggy. With bassoons."
Harris Smith would like to stage Hopkins' frog show at his Masquers' Cabaret
in October. But it was unfinished as we spoke, and its playwright didn't
know when it would be, or if.
Hopkins' Venice Mootney Theatre Company, at its zenith in
the '80s, in July celebrated 25 years of theatre in LA with a staging in
Venice of his play ...All in the Same Boat. Critics have described it
as "intriguing," "outrageous," "Brechtian." His play Surrogates won
praise for "best dialogue this side of Shepard." Kathleen Foley, reviewing
White Bread for Drama-Logue, hailed Hopkins for "writing from the
heart, rather than the pocketbook." The late Quentin Crisp was featured
narrator in Hopkins' Robin Hood, which, someone wrote, "looks like
it's being done by the Marx Brothers, Benny Hill, and Monty Python all at
once." Hopkins' Animal Husbandry won praise at London's Royal Court
Theatre for being "fluent, detailed, complex, and intriguing."
A big man, 6'1", with a round, benign visage, and brown
eyes at once quizzical, kindly, and keenly discerning, Hopkins' focused,
lively mind is more concerned with planetary than sartorial matters. He was
casual in T-shirt, jeans, and red canvas sneakers when we met at MOCA to get
acquainted and talk about theatre. We viewed Rodin sculptures on the
terrace, heading for the Edward Hopper exhibit , but, talking all the way,
ended up somewhere else, like leaves in the wind, viewing the "Road to
Aztlan" (an exhibit since closed). Listening to Hopkins is an experience, as
his concepts, pronouncements, and opinions pop, crackle, and jostle one
another like popcorn over a high flame. At lunch at MOCNs outdoor cafe, I
learned that West Los Angeles' University High School, where Hopkins teaches
adult classes, sits on "the springs," a sacred Indian site for 6,000 years.
"Twenty-seven thousand gallons of pure, delicious water go down the drain to
the ocean every day. Wasted! In a world that needs water. What we do is
crazy! Uni should be a business high school," Hopkins declared. "Uni
students should be in the bottled-water business!"
I learned that Hopkins and his Korean wife, concert
pianist Christine, have a "wonderful" 4-year-old daughter, named Choice.
(You were expecting an ordinary name?) And that his 28-year-old son,
Buckminster Hopkins, from his first Marriage, is named, of course, for
Buckminster Fuller, visionary inventor of the Geodesic dome. I heard
Hopkins' opinion that we'd be wise to choose the president's cabinet.
before we choose the president. That what the world needs now is "feminine
energy". ("I'm so sick of this macho thing!" he said.) He told me life on
Earth comes from the moon, rhythms of life from the tide pools--and
majorities are often wrong.
A phone has informed me that Hopkins finished his frog
play, now scheduled for an October premiere at Masquers'. I confess I missed
all Hopkins' Venice Mootney plays--I admit it, fearing blatant leftist bias
and agitprop. Obviously I was wrong. I won't miss Mark and the Barbara
Frog.
RANDOM SIGHTINGS by Polly
Warfield
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