Play discovers Exxon Valdez oil spill still an open wound

September 19, 2009|by Scott Jensen

Riki Ott used to fish Prince William Sound before the spill. (Scott Jensen/KTUU-DT)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Twenty years ago our state experienced its worst man-made disaster, and even though two decades have passed the Exxon Valdez oil spill is still fresh for many.

Cyrano's Theatre Co. commissioned a play to help Alaskans understand why the spill happened and how we can move past it. "The Big One" takes a human perspective, one that may surprise many Alaskans who were here during that time.

"The play gives me a deeper sense of empathy for how everybody screwed up," said Riki Ott. Ott fished Prince William Sound back then.

The water in Captain Cook's inlet never suffered a drop of Hazelwood's blunder.

"Everyone carries their own emotional charge from this," said Ott.

But 100 miles away and two decades removed, Anchorage is host to healing.

"And it is like yesterday for everybody and I've realized it's this post-traumatic stress disorder that's stored with no time tag. So, like, it's there, and if anything scratches the surface up it comes like it was yesterday," said Ott.

Jon Osgood's helicopter was among the first to arrive on scene.

"I saw a little sea otter come up through the oil and it was quite sad," said Osgood. "It was...the emotions I began to experience were just like when a member of the family dies."

Folks showed up because they want to remember.

"The spill is still a very raw wound -- I discovered this just by opening this play," said Dick Reichman, the play's writer and director. "I didn't realize 20 years after that I would have audiences in Anchorage for whom the spill was still a very raw wound."

As he wrote and directed the play, Reichman didn't have personal insight to Joseph Hazelwood. He didn't know Exxon's executives.

But he knew in a corporate culture, blaming individuals isn't the right choice.

"The system is asking people to do the wrong thing and when we come across a situation like that we have to look at the system and not say, ‘Joe Hazelwood was drunk, that was the problem,'" Reichman said.

"We are going to make mistakes that's the way people are, which is what you see in this," Libby Roderick said. "You don't see a bunch of bad people, you see a bunch of people."

But it's that bunch of people who opened Alaska's raw wound, one that Reichman hopes his theatrical therapy will help heal.

"I thought 20 years of distance would put some people at a distance from it, but no, it's very fresh. Very painful still," said Reichman.

"The Big One" is playing downtown at Cyrano's Playhouse and will run through Sept. 27. In October they will take it on the road to Homer, Seward and Valdez.

Reichman had personal experience to draw from. He was a bartender in Valdez during the spill, and he says so many of the stories he heard would have made for juicy material, but instead he thought this play was more important to write.

Contact Scott Jensen at sjensen@ktuu.com

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