Risky Business Stonewall Jackson declares war on the politically correct. by CHRIS DAVIS heatre Memphis' Little Theatre production of Stonewall Jackson's House is perhaps the most challenging piece of theatre that Tony Horn, co-founder of the Memphis Black Repertory Company, has taken part in to date. I say this, I suppose, out of a kind of vanity because SJH advocates everything that I believe in, not only the political thumbscrews placed on our contemporary artists but also the issue of race in America. Combining satire with fierce debate, playwright Jonathan Reynolds treads in the large footprints of the 20th century's greatest political dramatists, Brecht and Boal, with mighty nods to Pirandello and Dario Fo, yet his script mocks academic elitists who engage in linguistic violence by dropping such obscure names like H-bombs. It asks all the hard questions, and forces the audience into a position of response. It explores the absurdities and political motivations of recent revisionist histories, and exposes the PC movement for what it is: a blatant expression of racism, sexism, and every other evil -ism that can't be cured by a simple shot of penicillin. You see, the lie we have been force-fed in the name of harmony was really just a subtle manipulation of the truth. Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal" but somewhere along the way, the politically correct began to suggest that the only synonym for "equal" was "same." As the formidable playwright Douglas Turner Ward once said to me, riffing on the wickedness of PC theatre, "When they start talking about color-blind casting, what they really mean is making everybody white." I can only imagine that Mr. Ward would fall madly in love with Stonewall Jackson's House. He despises polite theatre, and one thing is for sure -- this play has no idea how to mind its manners. Stonewall Jackson's House is constructed like a set of nesting dolls, one play hiding inside of another, inside of another, and the plot is too twisty to encapsulate in a sentence or two. A poor, uneducated black woman, a tour guide at Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's home/museum, decides that the securities of slavery (shown here as not that bad a life -- a gross exaggeration to be sure) sounds better than the harsh realities of her continuing struggle. Ironically, a redneck couple from Alabama who are touring the home decide that slavery sounds pretty good to them too, so all three willingly enter the servitude of an upper middle-class Midwestern couple. Of course, the Midwestern couple don't like to call their slaves, "slaves." Being rather genteel they prefer the term "associates." This important sequence, which represents the dynamic of the welfare state, turns out to be not the actual play but rather a scene from a play (within the play), which a young writer is trying to get produced by an established not-for-profit theatre company. The remainder of the performance revolves around this theatre's board of directors fighting over whether or not they can produce a play that, metaphor be damned, depicts slavery as a good thing. It explores the possibility of Art replacing religion as Marx's opiate (since its chief aim these days is not to offend) and takes a long hard look at the damaging impact of being part of a minority that is told from birth, "you need our [white] help because your people have proven again and again that they just can't hack it in this country." Though it expertly butchers a lot of sacred cows, as a piece of theatre, SJH is not perfect. When debate replaces dramatic action, healthy American butts get restless in their seats -- and (surprise) I blame the playwright for being too long-winded, and not the audience for being spoiled by TV. Reynolds' script alludes to the America's spiritual quest to become the best-entertained culture in history, yet the playwright ignores this fact and launches into long sequences of philosophical pontification. There is no merit in curing a disease by killing the patient, and common sense tells us that the malnourished must be spoon-fed back to health, not gorged. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for making this criticism, because SJH is my kind of theatre -- but people did leave at intermission, and we all know the one about a tree falling in the lonesome forest. Chalk it up to tough love. The generally excellent cast seemed a bit tentative on opening night, and understandably so, as SJH is the kind of show that might (and in fact did) piss some people off. Jody Koster and Megan Jones manage to be appropriately trashy as the Alabama bait-farmers, without ever coming off as a couple of slack-jawed yokels -- a choice that would allow the audience to dismiss them far too easily. As the reluctant Midwestern slave-holder/theatre director, Ron Gephart turns in a finely tuned and insightful performance. Gephart is himself soft-spoken and self-effacing, and here he passes those traits along to his characters to great effect. As his wife (in both cases), the well-intentioned, but often inconsistent, Louise Levin does her best work to date. Florence Johnson (Tour-Guide/Dramaturge) is an actress of amazing potency, who has been absent too long from our city's stages. She obviously believes in this script, and her performance is nothing short of stunning.