Can a Hollywood blockbuster be far behind?
I believe that's a distinct possibility after learning of a locally produced play on a controversial topic that Tennessee Williams never touched: Marcellus shale gas drilling.
The curtain rises Wednesday on "Managing Marcellus," which Pittsburgh's Unseam'd Shakespeare Company will perform at the WQED-TV studios in Oakland for broadcast in the fall.
A station release describes the production as "dramatizing issues raised by Marcellus."
A gripping plot description, no⢠That's akin to summarizing "Cats" by saying the legendary Broadway production "delves into certain behaviors and activities associated with felines."
"Managing Marcellus" isn't a musical, although several slightly tweaked Broadway standards would have been perfect for the play. I'm thinking of numbers such as, "I Could Have Drilled All Night" or "I've Grown Accustomed to That Rig."
But what WQED's "evening of deliberative theater" lacks in show tunes, it promises to make up for in post-performance panel discussions on the gas-rich rock formation's pros and cons.
That's all very civic-minded, but it sounds nearly as dry as "Gasland," the 2010 Marcellus shale documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox that died a painful death at the box office.
Its focus on hydraulic fracturing -- the gas-extraction process better known as fracking -- didn't do much to attract the Harry Potter crowd.
The movie woefully lacked A-list stars, wasn't available in 3-D, played at no gargantuan Omnimax screens and didn't feature a single superhero appearance by the likes of Green Lantern. It was doomed from Day One.
But that commercial flop doesn't mean Marcellus shale doesn't deserve a big-budget movie production. Given the proper script, cast and marketing, Hollywood could produce a hit.
Call the movie "Moonlight over Marcellus." Get Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to star.
Pitt could play a calculating gas company executive; Jolie, a suspicious landowner scarred by the accidental death of her father years ago in an offshore oil-rig mishap.
Pitt desperately wants the gas that lies below Jolie's property and charms her to assuage her concerns over the environmental risks associated with capturing it. Over a romantic candlelight dinner, Jolie falls for Pitt when he offers to personally demonstrate that hydraulic fracturing is safe.
After dinner -- in one of the steamiest cinematic scenes ever to involve natural gas extraction -- the two of them end up fracking.
Jolie wakes in the morning with a satisfied smile on her face but contaminated water in her well.
Pitt has vanished with a contract that Jolie signed in the throes of passion permitting him to drill on her land. Was he interested only in the gas, or will he return to decontaminate their relationship and Jolie's well?
Audiences would flock to this film. It wouldn't even need a killer tag line for theater posters and TV commercials, although coming up with one wouldn't be difficult.
What do you think of "Who said romance would always be a gas?"
