Stage: Off-Broadway Boys in Blue

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (2)

TERRY CURTIS FOX's "Cops," about three Chicago policemen whose cutups over coffee at a late-night diner ignite a shootout with a customer, never made it to Broadway, but its debut in 1976 (a production of the Organic Theater Company in Chicago) was a watershed moment that changed the way America told tales of cops and robbers.

The play won over audiences with its gritty atmosphere and inspired the TV series "Hill Street Blues," making way for a new genre of police drama that depicted officers as complex, diverse individuals with the same predilection for corruption as the average bad guy.

Fox also cast his "finest" as racist, misogynistic toughs — a common stereotype of policemen, but, to some, one not wholly untrue.

"Cops are profiling people all the time," Jack Marshall, artistic director of the American Century Theater, says. "It's insidious, but it's unavoidable for city police."

Marshall, whose company's production of "Cops" is playing currently at Arlington's Gunston Art Center, should know; he used to work closely with cops as a prosecuting attorney in Lowell, Mass.

The influential play conforms to his theater group's mission to present important but overlooked contemporary American theatrical works, but "Cops" was chosen for its impact.

"Theater at its best is a social force," Marshall says. "I'm curious how audiences will react to it and the issues it relates to today."

But "Cops" also has physical impact: real gunfire, real scrambled eggs and real bad potty mouth. The PC patrol is advised to walk another beat; adventurous theatergoers will enjoy this cop shocker.

» Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington; through Jan. 26, $23-$29; 703 998-4555, americancentury.org.

Written by Express contributor Johnathan Rickman
Photo by Jeff Bell Photography