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Lanford Wilson's Tony-nominated Fifth of July, called the "wisest and funniest play of its generation" by the New York Times, will make its Lehigh Valley debut when it opens in Civic's 19th Street Theatre on Friday, February 18th. Fifth of July will run through Sunday, February 27th, with eight total performances. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased by visiting www.CivicTheatre.com, calling 610.432.8943 or going to Civic's Box Office at 527 N 19th Street in Allentown between 10 and 4 on weekdays.
The year is 1977 and the scene is a sprawling farmhouse in Missouri, which is home to Ken, a paraplegic Vietnam veteran, and his lover, Jed, a horticulturist. They are visited by Ken's sister, June, and her teenage daughter Shirley, and by Gwen and John--the former a hard-drinking, pill-popping heiress who aspires to be a rock star, the latter her wary-eyed husband and manager.
All are old friends from college days, and former activists who agitated for what they hoped would be a better world. The action centers on Gwen's offer to buy The Farm, which she plans to convert into a recording center, and on Ken's Aunt Sally, who has come to the family homestead to scatter the ashes of her late husband - which are contained within a candy tin that Sally holds fast to. The dialogue is sharp, funny and deeply revealing of the bitterness which must be fought back if one is to perceive the good which life can offer."On one level, Fifth of July is about knowing what to do with our lives and our work and then learning to do it well," says Civic Artistic Director William R. Sanders, who also serves as director of this production. "It's about finding a way to be useful, letting go of our inhibitions so we can step into our fullest selves, and (maybe most prominently) not giving up, even when there are a million reasons why it seems the perfectly logical next step."
John Armstrong, the Bethlehem man set to portray Ken in Civic's production, felt a similar way about the role. "I connected with Wilson's theme of letting go your past - those shattered dreams - and moving through fear so you may begin to face the future. It's this particular path of maturation and community that drew me in."Nominated in 1981 for the Best Play Tony Award, in addition to four others, Fifth of July debuted on Broadway in the previous year with Christopher Reeve as Ken, Jeff Daniels as Jed and Swoosie Kurtz as Gwen - Kurtz won her first Tony for her work in Fifth of July.Fifth of July also has a significant role in American theatre history as it is widely considered to be the first mainstream play to have gay characters who were "normal" people, and not swishy queens. Frank Rich, a former theatre critic for the New York Times, pointed out in an interview that the term "gay" itself was taboo for the Times when he reviewed Fifth of July in 1980, so he referred to Ken as a "homosexual." Editors questioned whether such revelations belonged in a family newspaper.
Tickets are currently on sale for Fifth of July and can be purchased by visiting www.CivicTheatre.com, calling 610.432.8943 or by visiting Civic's Box Office at 527 N 19th Street in Allentown.
