Plays examine tangled lives of Warhol, Capote

Andy Warhol and Truman Capote are back in action, in a fictional sense, of course.

The Blue Barn Theatre, 614 South 11th St. in Omaha, will be starting its 15th season Sept. 19th with two new plays portraying the artist and writer.

"Cruelties" and "Chelsea" are inspired by the lives of author Truman Capote and Pop Artist Andy Warhol.

"Chelsea" starts the evening by telling a fictionalized account of the making of "Kitchen," a short film done by Warhol in 1965.

"Cruelties" begins with the death of a humorous writer, inspired by Capote, and follows the events of his life backward in time, charting a downward spiral of drug abuse and fractured relationships, searching for the moment when the writer began to self-destruct.

Playwright Max Sparber's last mainstage production at the Blue Barn was in 1998 when he did "Minstrel Show: The Lynching of William Brown."

Sparber is back at accommodating the playwright title for both upcoming performances.

The play in which Warhol portrays Chelsea originally was quite a boring film about a group of people lingering around a kitchen, Sparber said.

"I tried to change things to spice it up," he said.

"I took out some characters and made the main two a drag queen and a drug-addled actress who taunt each other."

"Cruelties" is an hour and a half series of scenes that starts with the death of Capote and goes back to his book writing, Sparber said.

It goes back to the beginning of his life, showing the drug addiction and destroyed relationships.

"It's a depressing evening, and I tried to liven it up despite the tone," Sparber said. "Both plays are humorous in ways, and the casts are naturally very funny people."

Sparber said his inspiration for the plays came when he was watching a biography of Capote, which showed the sequence of Capote's life. During the interview, Capote had a breakdown on air.

"I got to be curious about him after seeing that, and I wanted to tell his story," Sparber said.

Sparber always had been a fan of Warhol and his Pop Art.

"I had a copy of the book 'The Philosophy of Andy Warhol' and wanted to really examine him," he said. "I became interested in Warhol as a gay man who was very open and in relationships, but in public he had a sexless persona and seemed untouchable to the people around him."

Both "Cruelties" and "Chelsea" are being directed by the New York-based Rob Urbinati.

Urbinati worked for years in Omaha theater, but has spent the past 10 years working professionally as a director and playwright in Manhattan.

"I love the writing. These are two brutal, heartbreaking, outrageous plays about two audacious men whose lives became their art," Urbiniati said of his decision to return to Omaha to direct the two plays. "They both surrounded themselves with people who they senselessly exploited in order to create their art."

NANCY PETITTO, Daily Nebraskan
Issue date: 9/17/03 Section: Arts