Conceived, Researched and Orchestrated by Ruby Lerner and George King.Seven Stages Theater, Atlanta, July 7-24, 1988

As the temperatures in Atlanta rose to tropical heights, and fevers ran high for the impending invasion of the Democrats and their national convention in early July, Bananaland: A Central American Theme Park opened at the Seven Stages theater in the heart of Little Five Points. A huge yellow banana being peeled appeared atop the marquee Oldenburg-style, and an incredible array of Atlanta’s best artistic talents transformed the entire theater space into a theme park vaguely reminiscent of those found along the old highways of the 1950’s, before the interstates were built – tacky but fun, and a great way to get mom and dad to stop the car and see something thrilling like an alligator with two heads!

This theme park was different in one important way – it was the nation’s first theme park dealing with the history of the U.S. involvement in Central America, and with the serious purpose of calling attention to the U.S. foreign policy – past, present, and future – in Central America. As Ruby Lerner, one of the work’s co-creators, stated, “We wanted to find a way to treat a complex and serious subject with some humor – and to create an experience that will stimulate and inform. Through examining the historical origins of our current policies and the assumptions underlying those policies, we hope to encourage people to critically reassess America’s relations to developing nations, particularly those in Central America.” Fellow co-creator, George King added, “The activities of the United Fruit Company and the role of the banana in the region’s economy are used as detailed examples of a process that typifies colonial relationships throughout the third world.”

Bananaland, the culmination of a long, rigorous process of research and artistic collaboration, mimicked the structure of a theme park, which like Disneyland, includes a multiple choice of rides, pavilions, displays and way to spend money (snack bars, souvenir stands, etc.). Within that loose structure, it presented with humor and intelligence the complex history of how the U.S. government became economically and politically entangled with The United Fruit Company in Central America.

Ruby Lerner, a nationally-recognized art consultant and former director of Alternate Roots, worked with George King, an independent media producer to conceive and orchestrate Bananaland. They collaborated with a large assemblage of talented Atlanta visual and performing artists, musicians, set and costume designers, actors, puppeteers, and other types too numerous to mention. Lerner and King presented the unsuspecting arts patron who chose to venture into Bananaland with a bombardment of historical and political information, tempered with a large dose of humor, music, performance, and fun.

The new media buzzword “info-tainment” appropriately describes Bananaland - it was definitely an entertaining, almost painless way to swallow a lot of usually dry historical facts and figures. After paying admission, we (the audience) were ushered into the Bananaland Plaza where we were immediately bombarded with sensory overload. Huge color murals depicting bananas being harvested hung high on the walls; the Somoza and Son Bar and Grill offered us banana smoothies and popsicles for sale; table were arranged to face the main stage of the cabaret where a Carmen Miranda look-alike (Nita Hardy) was singing about bananas to the melodious strains of an accordion (played by Rodger French); the Gift Shop tempted us with Bananaland tee-shirts and other memorabilia; another shack offered an array of current Central American leftist political propaganda; and The Dictator himself (played to perfection by actor/chef George Nikas) served banana flambe at Anastasio’s Café.

The show began when The Dictator dressed in his full military regalia and dark glasses, mounted the corner balcony and commanded our attention with his boombox blasts of pre-recorded applause. He ordered us to enjoy ourselves and spend lots of money as he directed us to the different tours about to begin, depending on the color of our tickets.

My first stop was the Plantation Train Ride, where our guide (played with great energy by Tayor St. Clair) took us on a tour of a banana plantation, complete with moving (puppet) banana trees and real rainstorms, and told us the complete history of the banana. We were then ushered into the United Fruit Company museum, which contained the Carmen Miranda Bananabilia Collection, C.R.A.S.S. (Caucasian Reaffirmation of Superiority Space), a life-size sea captain who told stories for a quarter, and displays describing the history of Unifruitco. In that space we also were welcomed via videotape by fundamentalist Rev. William Wright (played by Atlanta actor/playwright Levi Lee), and then later treated to a recreation a 1956 awards ceremony honoring public relation counsel Edward Bernays, who spoke of the importance of controlling information in a democracy via public relations.

Our last stop was a Bananair plane trip to Guatemala – back in time – to 1954, where we were given the political history of U.S. Intervention in that country’s government form the Eisenhower administration to the present via a clever household objects puppet show presented by Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts puppeteers and performance artist Neal Bogan and Jim Brooks. Once we landed, we toured the Invasions Exhibit, with the Gallery of Dictators, archival videotapes of “official” U.S. foreign policy statements, and the Window of the World murals.

If all this sounds like too much of a good thing, it could have been. I left feeling slightly bushwhacked by a lot of propaganda that was somewhat tempered with humor. However, after I read Ruby Lerner'’ "Some Thoughts on Bananaland” found in the program, I became more and more convinced that Bananaland is a mostly successful experiment in combining the serious subjects of U.S. politics and the third world with the post modern aesthetics of art-making that draw on all the forms and content of cultural history, including modern mass entertainment forms like theme parks. I think it succeeds, for the most part, in educating the audience, whether they realize it or not, about an intentionally obscure portion of American history, in a non-didactic format that uses humor, and in making them put all the disparate pieces together to form their own conclusions. As Ms. Lerner states in her essay:

“Throughout two-and-a-half years of research we had become fascinated by the onion layers of complexity in the story of our country’s relationship with Central America. We wondered if, rather than attempting to simplify the information, we could instead embrace it’s complexity by splintering the story into it’s component parts. Could we find a form that would mirror the way we actually get information in our daily lives in bits and pieces, and from a variety of sources? …Many of us are information junkies these days, but the live artistic work we see rarely tries to engage us this way. Bored by both plays and esoteric performance art, George and I also wondered whether a documentary performance/installation could be humorous, informative, entertaining, and disturbing, all at the same time.”

Bananaland also succeeds in its mammoth undertaking to produce a truly collaborative work of art where all types and varieties of artists where given the opportunity to create parts of the larger piece. The fragmented, kaleidoscopic form of the work helps the many different elements simultaneously stand alone and fit together as a loose whole. As part of this collaborative process, the piece was first performed at the Nexus Contemporary Art Center in 1987, where Lerner and King then solicited critical opinions from a number of artists, which then caused them to change the structure from it’s more linear leanings to the current non-linear form.

Bananaland: A Central American Theme Park was a rare and wonderful explosion of Atlanta’s collective artistic talents, successfully exemplifying our culture’s postmodern sensibilities. It succeeded as both entertainment and serious art as it rummaged through the musty attic of our country’s recent past and unflinchingly displayed the worst of our government along with the best of our artists.

Robin Reidy was Director of IMAGE Film/Video Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fall 1988