Feuding neighbors. Life-altering decisions. High tempers and even higher stakes. If Vermont’s pitched debate about ridgeline wind power doesn’t have the makings of a drama, I don’t know what does.
Lesley Becker thought so, too. The Montpelier playwright turned to the conversation about wind power in the Northeast Kingdom for inspiration for her latest play, Winds of Change. The play makes its debut on March 27 as part of the Fourth Tuesday Reading Series sponsored by the Vermont Playwrights Circle.
Becker’s recipe goes something like this: Take one powerful utility company, add a landowner who has fallen on hard times, and mix. Her two-act play examines life in a town not unlike Lowell, Vt., before and after the installation of a utility-scale wind project.
Becker stumbled on the story largely by happenstance. She works as a prevention coalition coordinator in the Northeast Kingdom, and about two years ago she was helping a group of teens in Craftsbury design a media campaign to discourage underage drinking. That’s how she found herself at a select board meeting where she heard an expert testify about the proposed Kingdom Community Wind project, now well on its way to completion.
“I was very inspired by the local people who were willing to take on this battle between the little guys and the big guys,” says Becker. She has an opinion — and not a favorable one — about the Lowell wind development, and expects that readers will pick up on the bias in her play. Becker says she didn’t come at the project as journalist, but instead as a playwright trying to tease out the experiences of people living in and around the proposed project — those in favor and those against.
Becker has been writing plays for eight or nine years, by her estimation, though she established a background in theater earlier in her life. She turned her back on that world for a time, disillusioned about theater’s relevancy.
“It seemed like theater was very far from what was important to anybody and what could make a difference,” she says.
She’s changed her tune now, having regained some faith in what the medium — and, she hopes, Winds of Change — can do.
“I want to try to honor the people [in Lowell], and shed some light on the issues,” Becker says. “It would be very powerful and effective if it got out to enough people to be educational.”
Becker’s play will be read by a contingent of actors on March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier. The event is free and open to the public.
Photo by Kathryn Flagg
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2012.
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“I want to try to honor the people [in Lowell],”
Really? Then maybe she should consider that the people of Lowell voted overwhelmingly in favor of this project.
The people of Lowell voted for money.
Thank you, thank you Ms. Becker! I am looking forward to seeing your play.
The people in Lowell did not have all of the information and were “courted” by the industrial wind corporation when they voted. I understand that when any one of the private property owners signed to lease their land to the wind corporation, they were required to sign a “GAG ORDER” saying that they agreed to be legally bound NOT to say anything negative about the corporation, the wind project or any affects on their health. Now why do you suppose that was?
So? They still voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project.
They voted overwhelmingly in favor of the money they would receive for the project. Would have been interesting to see a vote for the project without the revenue.
Who cares? You ALWAYS vote your interest. And that interest often includes financial considerations, such as lower property taxes. How is that any different from voting for Kurt Wright vs. Kiss or Weinberger or Hines in Burlington because you believe he’s going to be easiest on your pocketbook? Maybe the people of Lowell voted for the wind project because it meant lowering their property taxes, or providing the $$$ for municipal services that they would otherwise never have. In that respect, how is that vote any different from voting in favor of a zoning change that will allow a large new employer to set up shop in your town, bringing jobs and tax revenue? Any way you look at it, it was the people of Lowell’s choice to make. If they took the bribe, so what?
Have you read the play? Of course she considers that! in fact, she represents both sides very clearly. And it is obvious–though unspoken–that the town has indeed voted in support of the project. The town must vote at town meeting whether to support the project and reap the tax benefits. Next thing you know those benefits have been reaped. But there are costs as well.
And by the way, perhaps YOU always vote your interest. But not everyone does. I try to vote for what I think is morally right–and my interests are not the only ones that are morally relevant. Indeed, I believe that we have a moral obligation to vote for what’s right and not simply what benefits us personally. We could argue about that, but it’s simply false that “You ALWAYS vote your interest,” as you assert. Not unless I and those of a like mind don’t count!
“I try to vote for what I think is morally right”
Then you’re voting your interest, doc. Note your use of the pronoun “I” in the phrase “I think.” Your’e not voting what OTHERS think is right per se, you’re voting what YOU think is right, whether others agree with you or not. That’s called, voting your interest. Whether motivated by money or philosophy or something else, you vote your interest. We all do.
Well, I don’t want to get into an extended colloquy here, but there is certainly a difference between voting for what one thinks is right and voting for what one thinks benefits oneself. You can use the word “interest” for both, but if you do so you blur this important distinction and torture the meaning of the word.
Suppose I vote for a proposition the effect of which would be to harm me badly. It would be very odd to think that I had voted my interest. So to claim confuses what benefits me (my interest) with what I want (my desire). I can desire that I be harmed. I can desire that my interests be overridden on moral grounds.
Of course you are free to use the word any way you like, but you won’t be using it in its ordinary sense. Bertrand Russell once asked, “If you call an arm a “leg,” how many legs does a man have?” His answer? “Two. Calling an arm a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
Calling one’s desires one’s interests doesn’t make them my interests.
In any event, why not come see (the reading of) this wonderful and provocative play, instead of opining on it without knowing what it reveals about the various sides of the issue. I’ve read it and found it to be thought provoking and fair, even though the author’s position comes through in the end. That’s art, my friend.