The story with which we are confronted may, at first, seem slightly fuzzy around the edges, impeding our comprehension of the circumstances in 1927 leading a teenage runaway to take refuge in an Indiana neighbor's barn, as well as the nature of the electronic gizmo she proceeds to build therein. That's because the heroic saga of the visionary The Ruby Sunrise is just that--a story, in the process of being shaped into a coherent narrative, and the McGuffin for the real play, Rinne Groff's intricately plotted social drama like They Used To.
Our actual period is 1952, and our milieu, the fledgling branch of entertainment called broadcast television, where an ambitious script supervisor aspires to adapt her mother's recollections--Mom being the barnyard tinker of the title whose undocumented experiments contributed to the birth of wireless pictures--into a project for an anthology series of the kind that dominated the early days of that medium. Her quest finds itself an ally in a screenwriter who shares her belief that this new mode of communication has the power to make the world a better place. (No more wars, for example, because "who would want to watch a war right in their living rooms?")
In less idealistic hands, this premise could have emerged another smartass comedy sketch, reveling in the quaint spectacle of Dior dresses, cigarette culture (Can you remember when tobacco and alcohol were advertised on the networks?) and poker-faced irony. But though Groff's manifesto is not without its conspicuous hindsight, smug superiority plays no part in its observations. The compromises engendered by commercial interests, government blacklisting and civil censorship are presented with no more authorial commentary than are the images in the remarkably comprehensive montage of Great Moments In Broadcasting (assembled by Liviu Pasare and projected onto a video monitor during the intermission) .
John Gawlik directs an intensely focused cast, led by Brenda Barrie and Michael Patrick Thornton as the romantic crusaders, with noteworthy performances by Alexandra Main and John Kelly Connolly as their savvier elders. Erin Fast's costumes locate us with pinpoint accuracy and never a hint of caricature, as does scenic artist Hang Thuy Le, assisted by Ian Zywica's clever concept for mobilization of the elements associated therewith. It is at this time in the yearly season when glimmers of hidden treasure make their appearance on the storefront circuit, and this inspirational tale of small, imperfect victories won in the fight to defend American democracy shines brightly enough to justify the expedition to Gift Theatre's humble corner in Jefferson Park.
