Phantom of the Dump

Do you know anywhere in America that didn’t shut down one bit and make people crazy over the visiting Covid virus? There is such a place: Snowtop, Washington, where the snow meets the desert. But you can’t find it on a map or on Google, like that place in Scotland in the Brigadoon countryside. Snowtop, in Winchester County, is the new Old West. They still have horses and rifles but use pickups too. They don’t allow government bureaucrats into their bedrooms to tell them how many or how few children to have-or not have. This is a play about good people and zanies: Chief Joseph (Town Council); Mayor Shorty; Sally Jones, barmaid and proprietress of the Dogpatch Saloon, aka Stupifyin Jones; and Prospector Mike and his burro Hillary (not that Hillary!). And Bowser and Ole Blue-tooth, a bloodhound who knows no steak is worthy payment for tracking a Wallamootka. A Wallamootka, or wolverine, is their mascot and the engine of their eco-tourism industry. If you place an order with Mable and Herbert’s Bakery and General Store, you can buy mifepristone and shotgun shells, but no bump stocks: they’re wasteful. It’s about rural people striving to survive a depressed world and local economy in the 21st century, and a country deadly divided along political lines. Snowtop has one Republican voter and one Democrat; all the others are Independents. It’s so poor it never noticed the Recession of 2007 because it didn’t know the Great Depression was over. It’s a melting pot of cultures way ahead of the rest of the world in ecological savvy and in knowing how to take care of one another.