Ivar Theatre Valerie Harper stars as
novelist/activist Pearl Buck in "All Under Heaven."
By Barbara McGuire
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
After author Pearl Buck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1938, it would be another 55 years before a woman again rose to the
occasion.
Yet, who is Pearl Buck?
The author of well over a hundred books including “The
Good Earth,” as well as a humanitarian, social activist and
missionary wife, Buck was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize
for Literature and is the focus of the theatrical production
“All Under Heaven,” which is opening at the Ivar
Theatre in Hollywood today.
“All Under Heaven,” directed by Rob Ruggiero, is a
one-person show focused on the life of a woman audiences may not
know a lot about, but played by a star who will bring a tingle of
nostalgia to most. Valerie Harper, who many will remember as Rhoda
Morgenstern from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” stars as
Buck in this interpretation of her life.
The show doesn’t just consist of Buck sitting back and
reminiscing about her life. According to Harper, she actually takes
on various voices, both male and female, acting out a total of
about 18 different characters.
 Illustration by ERICA PINTO/Daily Bruin “Instead of
staying an 80-year-old, walking around the stage saying, “˜and
then I wrote,'” said Harper, “because she wrote
106 books, I decided to have it be a play where we go back in
memory, and memory is volatile, so maybe it’s not always in
order.”
Ruggiero mentioned that he found the fact that it was a
one-woman show to be both plus and a minus regarding direction, but
to have no effect on the actual play.
“The one minus is that you have one person to deal with,
and that can be limiting, on the other hand, that’s a big
positive because there’s a challenge there in keeping the
evening flowing,” he said.
“And in this particular one-woman show, there are multiple
characters, so the fun part of it is keeping the clarity of the
characters and helping Val in her portrayal,” he
continued.
Additionally, Harper isn’t just a random actor who
auditioned to play the part of Buck. She is the co-author along
with Dyke Garrison and had researched Buck for more than three
years.
“Multiculturalism, feminism, equal rights ““ every
major justice issue ““ Pearl Buck was on the cutting edge of
it and put her reputation on it,” Harper said. “She was
vastly wealthy. She used the wealth and popped it right back into
issues which she cared about.”
“She’s an amazing character, a wonderful figure and
she’s inspiring,” she continued.
Harper isn’t the only one involved with the performance
who has grown attached to Buck.
Co-author Garrison confessed to not knowing much about Buck
prior to his involvement, but felt that the experience as a whole
had been nothing but rewarding.
“I knew basically what most people know about Pearl Buck,
which is not a lot ““ that she had written a couple of
best-sellers and that she had lived in China,” Garrison
admitted. “So, I immediately plunged into a lot of research
and that’s kind of where I got to know who she
was.”
“The thing that I really found resonated for me was that
she was a very gutsy woman, she did her own thing long before it
was considered appropriate,” he continued.
Buck did more than just write books. According to Harper, she
helped to bridge the entire East-West relationship and through her
most prominent novel, “The Good Earth,” altered the
impression the world had of the Chinese.
“She was just the darling of the world with this
book,” said Harper. “She was a little missionary wife
sitting in China, writing about the Chinese in a way that was
Chinese, and here she was blonde.”
Buck was a woman full of life and spirit who many feel is
largely ignored by colleges around the nation. Thus Harper feels
that it is instrumental for college students to come see the play
and learn about this inspiring woman.
“I think college students would leave (the play) with a
great deal more respect perhaps then they might have had because
the literati and the academia do not hold Pearl Buck as a great
literary giant,” Harper said. “But, she is the most
translated American author in the world; her books today are in 60
to 70 different languages around the world.”
THEATER: “All Under Heaven” opens today at the Ivar
Theatre, 1605 N. Ivar Ave., Hollywood, and will be showing through
Nov. 5. Performances are held Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.
and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. Matinees are Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday
at 3 p.m. Ticket prices range from $32.50 ““ $40 each and can
be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (213)
365-3500. Student rush tickets are available one hour prior to each
performance for $15. All proceeds from these performances will be
donated to the California Youth Theatre, a non-profit organization
that provides theatre arts experiences for youths.