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D.W. Jacobs was nearing the end of his freshman year at the University of California, Santa Barbara, when his brother, who was enrolled in the university's College of Creative Studies, called to encourage him to come listen to an amazing guest lecturer. That spring day in 1968 was his first exposure to R. Buckminster Fuller.
"I popped down before class and listened to him for a while," he recalled. "I went to classes, came back, and he was still talking. I ate dinner, came back, and he was still talking. I went to a rehearsal, came back, and he was still talking."
Although he was intensely interested in science and math in high school, Jacobs' focus had shifted to literature, international relations and political geography before swerving off into theater. Fuller's ideas encouraged his bent toward being a generalist, however, he did not dive deeply into Fuller's ideas until the early 1980s, when "I started stumbling onto his books on remainder tables and bought everything I could find," he recalled.
"Out of the blue," he was approached to organize the opening ceremony of a Fuller centennial celebration in San Diego in 1995, produced by GENI. As part of his research, he talked with Fuller's daughter, Allegra Snyder, who provided some fascinating insights into her famous father. Allegra's husband, Robert Snyder, was an important documentarian, and his work laid something of a foundation for all attempts to dramatize Fuller's life. Jaime Snyder, Fuller's grandson, traveled with him during his later years, and had some very important input on the show.
"I asked her about his taste in music," he said. "She said his taste in music was not very high. He liked old music-hall tunes and vaudeville songs. He couldn't really dance. Allegra, who headed the UCLA dance program for 25 years, said he had a very energetic clogging kind of dance that he would do even while cooking. Jaime, a musician, said his grandfather sang like a foghorn, but the whole family was convinced he had a deep wish to be a song and dance man. That's when I knew there was a play hidden under this mountain of material."
Jacobs ultimately resigned as San Diego Rep's artistic director to concentrate on creating the show. "Fuller tends to turn people's lives upside down," he noted with a chuckle. "Everyone who has worked on this show felt that at some point they were falling down the rabbit hole."
R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE opened in April 2000 to rave reviews. The San Diego Union-Tribune called it "a highly physical, and powerfully metaphysical, evening of theater." Later that year, Foghouse Productions brought the play to the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, where critics and audiences were equally enthusiastic. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "the best college lecture anyone could ever hope to attend…emotionally full and not at all dry. It's inspiring and invigorating."
The play has been performed approximately 600 times to date, including very successful runs in Seattle and Chicago. It had its French-language premiere at the Theatre Alambic and Theatre Denise-Pelletier in Montreal in October 2005.
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