It seems that Dan Hurlin in person should be just as energetic, versatile and fast-moving as the personalities he portrays on stage.
So it is a rare sight to catch him lounging relaxedly on the purple couches opposite the Moore Theater in the Hopkins Center, the site of his performance of the show "No (thing so powerful as) Truth" this past Friday and Saturday.
Bright-eyed and smiling, Hurlin, a New Hampshire native, enthusiastically talked about his line of work and his latest one-man endeavor.
"I did this piece as a way to sort of examine the history of my relationship to politics," Hurlin explained.
"No (thing so powerful as) Truth," both written and directed by Hurlin, employs multi-media such as slide shows and live music. With a solo act, Hurlin explained, "you need all the help you can get."
Initially, he was more interested in exploring power-mongering and the status of truth in society through the show.
He said, "I'm talking about the manipulation of language to fulfill your own agenda, which is manipulating the truth which is what we're all guilty of ... I'm guilty of it when I do this play."
Making of the play
By means of six slide projectors, words and images flash across the screen behind Hurlin. Sometimes, Hurlin himself is bathed by these projections, all to dazzling effect.
He also borrows slides from and influenced by the Orson Welles films "A Touch of Evil" and "Citizen Kane."
Hurlin is accompanied by his longtime friend and New York City neighbor, Dan Froot on the saxophone.
"Truth," their third collaboration, spans the 1920s to the 1950s. Froot's jazz compositions -- which Hurlin said he loves -- "is evocative of each of those periods."
On several occasions, Froot performs on stage alongside Hurlin, singing and dancing himself into a musical furor.
Hurlin also makes his message about truth heard through a menagerie of more than 40 different characters. Dashing across the stage at a dizzying pace, Hurlin morphs from one character to the next with an inflection of the voice, a stooping of shoulders or a flick of a cigarette that seems to appear from nowhere.
Origins of 'Truth'
"Truth," however, is very much a character study of the notoriously conservative William Loeb, editor of the Manchester Union-Leader, as personified on stage by the fictional Editor Bob.
During the two-and-a-half year process of writing "Truth," Hurlin found "Loeb's name kept on coming up." Consequently, Loeb became the heart of his piece, Hurlin said.
The title of the drama, interestingly enough, is a play on the masthead of Loeb's Union-Leader-- "There is nothing so powerful as truth."
Hurlin initially searched for redeeming qualities in Loeb, a man he compares to conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
However, he began to learn more about a man who once advocated that "homosexuals should be quarantined and fed antibiotics."
Hurlin finally admitted, "I just couldn't find anything to like about him." He used the "Citizen Kane" snippets to draw parallels between the two "demagogic" and sensationalistic newspaper magnates.
Regardless, Hurlin said he delights in playing Editor Bob with a gusto and said he has found a soft spot for the character, despite his meretricious attributes.
In the performance, Hurlin gleefully re-enacts the scene in which Editor Bob steals $250,000 worth of securities from his mother to start his own newspaper. He jumps into the shoes of both Editor Bob and Mother Bob with great alacrity and humor.
"I like dark and funny [situations]," Hurlin said.
Hurlin described his return to his home state "fabulous," especially because of the material "Truth" covers.
He said back in those days, everyone born and raised in New Hampshire knew who Loeb was.
New Hampshire roots
Raised in Antrim, Hurlin left New Hampshire for boarding school in Massachusetts. After graduating from Northfield Mount Hermon, Hurlin went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
He has been involved for the past 20 years in the dramatic arts -- a pursuit that has taken him to theaters across the United States and Great Britain.
Presently, Hurlin lives along the East Coast, dividing his time between his studio in Jaffrey and his New York City apartment.
In the past, Hurlin has returned to New Hampshire because of his involvement with Andy's Summer Playhouse. He said he became artistic director because of his dismay with the status quo of children's theater.
"I hate it [children's theater] ... I can't stand it ... that's why I did it," Hurlin says.
During his 15-year affiliation with the theater, Hurlin has kept in touch with many of his former students. In fact, he has been invited to several of their weddings, and some came to watch him perform this past weekend.
But Hurlin decided that it is time to move on. He said he has had enough of children's theater and the "political, angry, hard-edged dramas" that he has been writing so far in the 1990s.
The future and the NEA
While all of Hurlin's dramas are very personal, he said, "all the pieces are about me, what I'm going through in my life."
Now he said he hopes "to do something more emotional."
Hurlin said his next project "The Shoulder," a chamber opera, aims to be a departure from his latest dramas which have examined the "relationship of the individual to the larger political machinery."
Yet while the idea of "The Shoulder" has been realized, actual manifestation may be a distant dream. As of now, he said the project lacks financial backing.
"Truth" was funded by one of the last fellowships to be doled out by the National Endowment for the Arts and cost about $40,000 to produce. He said it also received support from the Hopkins Center, Dance Theater Workshop, the Flynn Theater, Duke University and the National Performance Network.
Hurlin laments what he sees as the crumbling of culture in the United States and cites the demise of the NEA.
He attributes this situation to the Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress. "In this idiotic mania, they've cut out the entire budget of the NEA," he said.
"The NEA is pretty much dead," Hurlin continued, perturbed, his voice slightly raised. He said as a result, many private sectors are following suit and pulling out of funding for the arts.
He mentioned his favorite statistic that elaborated on the miniscule amount of funding for the arts as a part of the larger United States federal budget.
Hurlin said if the U.S. budget were represented by the front page of the New York Times, the size of the entire NEA budget would be no more than "half a comma."
"Where are we? I'm truly embarrassed to live in a country which doesn't support its own culture."
