Real-life drama leads to musical comedy
Play heads to California after local stage debut
One night more than 20 years ago, Tom Cooper got “the call that all fathers dread” – his 24-year-old daughter was on the other end of the phone, telling him that she had been arrested for drunken driving.
“The judge decided to make an example of her,” Cooper said, and she ended up spending two nights in a Coeur d’Alene jail cell. “From the time that she got in there, she kept thinking, due to the unusual cellmates and circumstances, that this is great material for a musical play,” Cooper said with a laugh.
Cooper and his daughter, Kristin Cooper Herby, took that unfortunate experience and turned it into “The Clink,” a musical inspired by Herby’s interactions with her fellow cellmates. It’s a dark comedy, sure, but Cooper, a veteran of the Idaho theater scene, says it deals with some serious issues, too.
Think “Orange Is the New Black” meets “Kiss of the Spider Woman” meets “Chicago.”
The plot of “The Clink” plays out much like the real life incident did. The show’s protagonist, named Fifi, was struggling to conceive a child and was drowning her sorrows in alcohol. She’s thrown in jail and, almost in spite of herself, begins to bond with the three troubled women she’s locked up with – a heroin addict struggling with her sexuality, a woman with multiple personalities who was arrested for identity theft, and a wife who tried to kill her husband after discovering he was sleeping with her mother.
“The play, then, becomes about each of these people revealing their struggles and the very unusual bond that results as they discover their similarities,” Cooper said. “It’s too bad we have to be put in a 12-by-12 room to make those discoveries.”
“The Clink” has been performed several times before as staged readings, but these upcoming performances mark the first time it has been presented as a full production with sets and costumes. As directed by John Allred and produced by Onstage Repertory Theater of San Francisco, the show will, following these local productions, have a run of performances in California.
“We have a production that has taken on a life of its own, unlike anything I’ve experienced previously,” Cooper said. “I think it’s because of the very unique blend of dramatic content and comedy. Combining those two things effectively really impacts people, I think. … And it’s a great opportunity for us to hold up that mirror (to the characters) and see aspects of ourselves.”