Drama in the desert

In 1968, a replica of Shakespeare's Globe opened with a fanfare in Odessa, Texas. But then the theatre fell into decline. Now its fortunes are on the up again. If only, as Damian Barr discovers, the Bard didn't have to share the stage with a certain local hero...

In the desert city of Odessa, at 2308 Shakespeare Road, stands a cultural oasis: the Globe of the Great Southwest. On opening night, in 1968, this wattle-and-daub wonder was the most complete reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe. Today, compared with its stately cousin on London's South Bank, the Globe of the Great Southwest is endearingly inauthentic.

Elizabethans didn't watch Shakespeare from red, cinema-style flip-back seats. Odessans do. "Folks here expect comfort. They wouldn't stand for three hours – not even for the President," says Anthony Ridley, the Globe's Artistic Director. The roof (painted sky-blue inside) is a concession to the climate – stage make-up and theatre goers would melt in the Texas sun. "We'd prefer thatch but it would burn," says Ridley, pointing to his parched rose garden.

Grafted alongside the Globe is a full-size, air-conditioned replica of Anne Hathaway's cottage complete with two fitted kitchens, one of which can be reached by a lift. Built in 1988, the cottage acts as a library, meeting place and costume shop.

"I fell in love with the cottage on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. I returned on reconnaissance but nobody would tell me about the cottage's dimensions and construction," grumbles Bill Rochester, a local entrepreneur and arts patron. "So I took a bunch of photos and bought little models. We based our plans on them," he says.

Nationalist snobs and Shakespeare purists may sniff at the Globe of the Great Southwest, but its boards were being trod 30 years before Sam Wanamaker broke ground on South Bank. And, due to its inauthentic roof, it enjoys superior acoustics. Hathaway's Texan hideaway can be forgiven as a kitschy crime of passion.

"We no longer claim to be an authentic replica of Shakespeare's Globe," explains Ridley, who was imported from New York City with his wife, Kathryn Graybill, and charged with turning the Globe around. Along with the health of its founder, Marjorie Morris, and the fortunes of oil-dependent Odessa, the theatre had declined. "When we arrived, the Globe was run down. Most productions were poor and audiences had drifted away," says Ridley, who hasn't had a decent cappuccino for 18 months. Graybill is more direct: "Without Mrs Morris there would be no Globe. Without oil there would be no Odessa. Without either, the Globe almost closed."

With no new boom in sight, Odessans are weaning themselves off oil. Many view the Globe as a symbol of the city's nascent economic diversification. Consequently, arts funding is finding its way here. Ridley and Graybill plan to woo professional players and bigger audiences back to the Globe, which is currently a home for community theatre. Community theatre is a great thing, but the trouble is, no one travels to see it. Ridley, who first visited the Globe as an actor in 1980, has big plans: "I didn't move here just to run a community theatre. In 1968, the Globe ran the first professional Shakespeare festival in Texas. We're re-launching it this year."

Ridley's vision of Shakespeareville has a precedent in Oregon, where a dying sawmill town was revived by what is now the USA's biggest Shakespeare festival. "There's no reason why we couldn't do that here," he says.

Actually, there might be one. Despite dying last year, Marjorie Morris remains a strong presence at the theatre she began building in 1958. "Marjorie was very forceful," says Rochester. "She built that theatre board by board, beam by beam. Bankers in Odessa have a back door, so they could escape when they saw Marjorie coming. If she caught them they couldn't say no."

Having hounded the county sheriff into the toilet and doorstepped every Odessan with cash, Morris raised the money to build her shrine to Shakespeare. The daughter of a Nazarene preacher, Morris was as devout as she was determined: Shakespeare would have to share the stage with Jesus.

"Shakespeare is full of profanity and Marjorie didn't condone it," explains Geneva Hooton, one of Morris's closest friends. "She thought she could replace it with something pretty. Marjorie promised God the Globe would be used for good, truth and beauty."

Lady Morris, as she liked to be called, was obsessed with foul language. Hamlet was very different by the time she'd finished with it. Costumes were also altered, as Morris raised plunging necklines and flattened pert bosoms. The sign she hung in the theatre forbidding blasphemy remains, alongside a vast canvas depicting Morris costumed in full Gloriana drag.

"Sometimes I wonder whether Marjorie really understood the plays ," ponders Ridley. But Hooton, Morris's pupil, believes she did. "I took one of her English classes and if you couldn't learn under Miss Marjorie, you'd never learn. I wasn't fond of Shakespeare. But she made me like him."

Graybill believes Morris had to clean Shakespeare's act up. "She was afraid that people here wouldn't fund the Globe if they thought Shakespeare was dirty. So she cut the dirt to raise the cash."

Hooton agrees. "God helped Marjorie build this theatre and good Christian families paid for it and she didn't want to let either of them down."

In Odessa, the only person more popular than Jesus is George W Bush. Ridley and Graybill, left-leaning, non-evangelical Christians from New York City, tread the fault line of local opinion carefully.

"On our first night, someone told us we couldn't use the word 'whore' because it would upset people," says Ridley. "We said it. Nobody complained. The sky didn't fall down, the building didn't rumble and Marjorie's ghost didn't appear. In fact, the show sold out."

The Globe continues to stage plays containing words not often spoken in Odessa. "People are now exploring words and situations they might have been taught were bad or wrong. We're broadening their horizons," says Bill Fowler, President of the Globe's board of trustees.

Ridley continues to assuage conservative Christians concerned about bad language. His list of "hot words" grows longer, though ever more slowly. "We have to be careful. It all comes down to the part of the world we're in. There are issues, like homosexuality, that we just can't examine."

But Graybill believes Ridley will soon be able to discard his list. "Audiences here are used to theatre reaffirming their beliefs but, gradually, they're accepting more challenging plays. Theatre is the place to make changes, and we're doing that bit by bit."

The Shakespeare Festival (001-915 332 1586; www.globesw.org) 29 Aug-8 Sep