A True History of the Johnstown Flood Goodman Theatre
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On May 31, 1889, after record-breaking rainfall, a dam perched in the mountains above the booming industrial city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, burst. Twenty million tons of water tore down the mountainside, sweeping trees, rocks, animals, and pieces of small towns along with it before landing on Johnstown. About 2,200 people died in a matter of minutes. The dam was owned and maintained by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a private retreat for the wealthy, most of them Pittsburghers like Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick. The water behind the dam was used as an artificial lake for the members’ summer amusement.
The Baxters’ show is terrible, its awfulness rendered heavy-handedly like so much else in Robert Falls’s world premiere Goodman staging. (Indeed, it stinks so badly that the clubmen come across as morons for applauding it.) One of the younger members falls for Fanny, the company’s lead actress, and buys a controlling interest in her horrible company—and Gilman tries to get us to believe that he’s a shrewd businessman with knowledge of world theater.
