“I don’t care about pro bono. It’s church work. You gotta choose - a BMW or the holy stigmata, not both. I like making money. I really do. That’s what I like.” That’s one character’s view in L.C.C.’s production of Michael Weller’s play Buying Time, wherein idealism fights greed in a suspenseful drama of a socially-engaged law firm.

Lane Student Production Association, after considering numerous plays for the winter production, chose Buying Time for its relevance to the community and its timeliness. SPA has arranged for Mr. Weller to attend opening night, Friday, February 1, and conduct a discussion of the play afterwards.

People of the Green generation will recognize the soul-searching challenges of the lawyers in the play, who are caught between their innate idealism and the commitment to cash. Director Chris Pinto says, “My relatives who are lawyers are in a perpetual balancing act between their own ethics and their clients’ interests.”

Buying Time, based on a true story, raises questions about contemporary values, to which there are, as yet, no ready answers.

While researching a play about lawyers, Weller went behind-the-scenes, to a law office in Arizona, and rubbed elbows with the actual lawyers portrayed. When he thought the play was finished, he went home, and later he received a call to come back, because “something is happening here.” The story that unfolded in front of him included the surprise ending of the play.

The story takes place in a law firm, Donne and Russo, whose litigators are committed to pro bono environmental causes. But there’s a struggle with the largest client, an industrialist in cahoots with big developers, who has pressured the firm to drop a case filed against a lumber magnate on behalf of an endangered bird. (Sound familiar?) A sexual attraction between a young lawyer representing the environmental agency and the hotshot D&R litigator, who was once a pro bono crusader, threatens to destroy the integrity of the case.

One reviewer said: “Michael Weller’s play gets everything right. It’s hard to write really well about a bunch of lawyers, but Weller has put a lot of heart into it. The characters are all flesh and blood and all distinct, and the question of ideals that they’re arguing over feels passionate and real.”

A recent news report noted that the pressures of our economy have squeezed the national average of attorneys’ pro bono hours down to 25% of what they were ten years ago, and most likely doctors are in the same bind. (Pro bono means “for the good of the public”.)

Patrick Torelle, who plays the patriarch of D&R, says, “This is the real deal: What the law firm discovers is that big corporations work together to advance their mutual interests. When one is threatened, they’re all threatened.”

After the Friday, February 1 perfomance, Michael Weller will talk about his play and answer audience questions.

Due to language, brief nudity and sexual content, this play is intended for mature audiences.

---

World-renowned Playwright/Screenwriter Returns to Eugene

New York playwright Michael Weller will participate in a discussion after the opening night of his play Buying Time, Friday, February 1, in the Blue Door theatre at Lane Community College. Mr. Weller visited Eugene ten years ago, for a workshop at University of Oregon, coinciding with the performance of his play, Dwarfman, Master of a Million Shapes at Lord Leebrick Theatre.

Read more >>

Hide <<