(Above: The cast of It Can’t Happen Here, at The Very Little Theatre; left to right, Maggie Hadley, Kizzi van Lake, Eliza Roaring Springs, Nancy O’Kief, Sabrina Gross, Russell Dyball (at typewriter), Treyson Sherk, Diana Aday, and Joel Ibanez; photo by Richard Scheeland)

By Randi Bjornstad

Regardless of political persuasion, it’s hard not to notice strong similarities between present-day U.S. political issues and those that beset the nation in the mid-1930s, when author Sinclair Lewis published his 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, which became a stage production the next year.

Incidentally, The VLT, opening its 91st season with this play, was in just its eighth season when It Can’t Happen Here appeared on 21 stages in 17 states throughout the nation, its productions sponsored by the Federal Theater Project during the height of the Great Depression.

That year, 1929, The VLT produced two plays — You and I in May, written by prolific playwright Philip Barry who also wrote The Philadelphia Story, followed by (Who Killed )Cock Robin in November, co-written by Barry and Elmer Rice.

Jen Ferro plays Effingham Swan, and Kizzi van Lake is Mary Jessup in The Very Little Theatre’s production of It Can’t Happen Here, in which 14 actors play 50, often cross-gender, roles; photo by Richard Scheeland

The story line of Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here resides in 1930s Louisiana and follows the rise and fall of a rabble-rousing politician who becomes elected President of the United States by promising the disaffected that he will return the country to greatness.

The play, assumed to be based on the life of Louisiana governor Huey Long, appeared during the rise of fascism in Europe, a time characterized then as now by racial strife, income inequality, drought, immigration fears, and global terrorism.

Stanley Coleman directs The VLT’s production, an adaptation by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Coehn, that opened in September 2016 at the Berkeley (Calif.) Repertory Theatre.

““In seeing this play, you might think that Taccone and Cohen added language lifted from the current President’s 2016 campaign, but they did not,” Coleman said in a news release announcing the production. In fact, he said, Taccone told The New Yorker magazine in an interview that the adapted script was faithful to Sinclair Lewis’ work, and that the references to then-candidate, now-president Donald Trump were “confined to an allusion to ‘deplorables’ and another to the billionaire’s alleged practice of pretending to be his own publicist.”

The 14-member cast of It Can’t Happen Here portrays 50 characters in the script, sometimes involving cross-gender casting to create an equal balance among actors and parts.

Following It Can’t Happen Here, The Very Little Theatre’s 2019-20 season continues with One Slight Hitch; Little Women — the Musical; The Diary of Anne Frank; and The Ladies of the Camellias, all performed on the main stage. In the smaller Stage Left space, the lineup includes two original plays by local playwrights, At Winter’s Edge by Rachael Carnes and Cat Lady by Jen Ferro.

It Can’t Happen Here

When: Evenings at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 18-19, 24-26, 31, and Nov. 1-2; matinees at 2 p.m. on Oct. 20 and 27

Where: The Very Little Theatre, 2350 Hilyard St., Eugene

Tickets: $21 for adults, $17 for students and senior citizens, available at the box office, 541-344-7751, or online at TheVLT.com