- MICHAEL BRUNK
The play opens with an English professor, Laurie (Marty Mukhalian), providing her students with a smart feminist critique of Shakespeare's King Lear. The gist of the professor's theory is this: The king initially rewards the daughters who flatter him and punishes the one who makes no effort at it. Clearly, her soul lacks that fire of ambition, that will to power possessed by her sisters. But at the end of the play, it is she (Cordelia), the one with no fire, no ambition, who proves to be the king's best daughter. What does this mean? According to the professor, being docile pays for a female and being ambitious does not. At the end of her lecture, Laurie tells her students to write a critical paper about the play. One of these students is Woodson Bull III (Mark Tyler Miller). Woodson is happy being called Third. He is just that kind of likable guy: handsome, athletic, and proud to be an American. He approaches the professor's desk with a few questions about the assignment. Laurie immediately hates him and does not hide her contempt. He represents all that is wrong with the USA: white male privilege.
