Watch: “Professor Diablo’s True Revue II,” Wherein the Professor Examines Power

Playwright/actor Mike Wiley during the performance of "Professor Diablo's True Revue II: Power"

So far, so great. Professor Diablo’s True Revue, a regular evening of documentary art and performance presented by the Center for Documentary Studies in partnership with The Hinge, has played to packed and enthusiastic (standing ovation) audiences in its first two shows at the Casbah. The next performance will be Tuesday, August 28, 8 p.m., Casbah, Durham, North Carolina. Stay tuned.

In the recent True Revue II, playwright and actor Mike Wiley, photographer Jeff Whetstone, and MC Taylor of roots and folk rock act Hiss Golden Messenger explored the theme of power. In a letter written before the performance, the Professor noted the mathematical relationship between power, time, voltage, and resistance:  p(t) = v²(t) / R. “Long before anyone wrote down the formula for p(t), humanity had known the idea of power. We had thrilled to it and suffered for it, created it and hoarded it. We filled libraries with our measuring and cataloging of that power. The power described by p(t) is a correlate of that first, original idea of power, which has always meant putting the living where you want them: outside the wall, in seats beneath the blue projected light, under the water, in the ground, in rows marching two by two.”

Watch below, as True Revue II’s performers solve for p in their own way, invoking in the first act the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority and subsequent flooding of a small town, and  in the second act Matewan, the classic John Sayles film on the 1920s coal wars in West Virginia.

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POSTED: 08/1/12 7:53 AM
CATEGORIES: Films & Videos • Programs+Projects
TAGS: "Matewan" film • Hiss Golden Messenger • Jeff Whetstone • Joel Mora • John Sayles • Matthew Phillips • MC Taylor • Mike Wiley • Professor Diablo’s True Revue • Tennessee Valley Authority