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My wife and I went to see a play at our local theater (Briggs Opera House, White
RIver Jct, VT) last night, which may be of interest to cartophiles.
 
LONELY PLANET by Steve Dietz is set in "Jody's Maps, a small map store on the
oldest street in an American city." The two characters, Jody and Carl, are gay
men, not lovers. It emerges that the real subject of the play is AIDS, but the
maps become one of the major working metaphors (the other is the collection of
empty chairs Carl collects from the lately deceased AIDS victims' apartments,
which he deposits in Jody's store, threatening to overwhelm it).
 
The three images which are used as subject matter in the play are Mercator and
Peters projection maps and the Apollo 17 "small blue ball" image. There is an
interesting metaphor set up in Act 1 about the "Greenland problem", which Jody
deals with in customers all the time; how you cannot look at the world without
distortion, and how things on the edges look bigger and scarier than they really
are. Unfortunately, the metaphor, when extended to Peters, falls back on the
obvious ("It tells us what we need to know," or something to that effect). We
winced. There were some much more interesting possibilities: That when we see
things in their actual size, they look "wrong", that any "true" view is distorted.
Heck, even bring in some of the history of the Peters controversy, like he did
for Mercator.
 
Anyway, while not a perfect play or a perfect production, we both enjoyed it,
and if it comes around your area, it's worth a look.
 
--
Nat Case
Hedberg Maps, Inc.
 
Publisher of PROFESSOR PATHFINDER Maps
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Production Office (White River Jct, VT): [log in to unmask]
Business and Sales Office (Minneapolis, MN): [log in to unmask]
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