Of Attitude and Order

Steven Dietz’s controversial play “God’s Country,” which opened Friday at the Ojai Center for the Arts, dramatizes events leading to the 1984 murder of Denver radio talk-show host Alan Berg by members of the Order, a white separatist group. The same source material led to Eric Bogosian and Oliver Stone’s 1988 film “Talk Radio.”

Any white separatists who may be concerned about the portrayal of their spiritual kin on the Ojai stage needn’t worry: Dietz, director Taylor Kasch and his cast--quoting “directly from trial transcripts,” according to a program note and evidently including transcripts from Berg’s radio programs--let the defendants speak for themselves, justifying their loathing of non-European foreigners, various religious groups, homosexuals . . . the list does go on. The audience is trusted to assess the politics of such groups for themselves.

Dietz, a former longtime Denver resident, originally the piece for a Seattle company, but the 1988 play has subsequently been staged more than 100 times, as far away as South Africa. Recent events in Texas, Wyoming and elsewhere have demonstrated its continuing topicality, which can be extended to such issues as apartheid and “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia.

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The main characters in Dietz’s play, as in life, include acerbic talk-show host Berg (Leonard Klaif), a Jew and former Chicago attorney; Order founder Robert Jay Mathews (Seth Osirin), martyred to his own people in a subsequent shootout with law enforcement authorities; and Order member-turned-state’s witness Denver Parmanter (a particularly fine performance by Michael Sollazzo). Dietz has added a young boy, here played by Cody Kasch, to represent the recruitment of children by groups such as the Order.

The play is very formal, in a style going back to the Greeks. Actors essentially recite their lines straight to the audience, with a minimum of movement or interaction.

Although pretty stiff, it’s probably a suitable format for what are essentially readings from a transcript. Occasionally, the action will be more dramatic in a conventional sense, such as the dialogue between characters played by Patrick Sullivan and Jeff G. Rack when discusssing a theory on the “Jefferson conspiracy” to upset the old world order.

Things occasionally get pretty obscure: It’s doubtful that anyone who isn’t already aware of “Oi!,” a British-originated subgenre of rock ‘n’ roll, will know much more after hearing the rant here.

To everybody’s credit, stereotypes like hokey Southern accents are largely avoided; and with the exception of the “Jefferson” bit, which even white separatists might dismiss as too much, nobody is caricatured as a fool.

The ensemble cast includes Devin Arlette Fulton, Antonya Molleur, Bob Wise, Robert Zabotka and Christine Zirbel. Rack designed the stage set.

DETAILS

“God’s Country” continues through April 25 at the Ojai Center for the Arts, 113 S. Montgomery St. in Ojai. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays. Tickets for all shows are $15 general; $12 seniors and students. For reservations or more information, call 640-9659.

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Casting Call: The Conejo Players will hold auditions for two productions. Both the main-stage productions, Ralph Trouf’s “Shadow Hour” (auditioning Sunday-Tuesday evenings) and the Conejo Afternoon Theatre presentation, Robert Leland Taylor’s “Those Strange and Glorious Years” (auditioning April 11) are new plays.

Both casts range from their 20s through 60s; all but one member of the “Shadow Hour” cast will play multiple roles. All auditions will be held at the Conejo Players Theater, 351 S. Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks.

For information on “Shadow Hour,” call producer Gary Robertson at 495-6510; for information on “Those Strange and Glorious Years,” contact director Mark Johnson at 492-4013.