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The Naga-Guthrie Theater link.
June 26, 2005
For background "Naga" refers to the seven-headed cobra adopted by the SLA as a symbol. It is found in several places in India and the far East. The most famous of these is the Ankor Wat temple complex in Cambodia. To find our more about the Naga symbol search the US House Report on the Symbionese Liberation Army. http://presslord.com/housereport.html
"Guthrie" refers to the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota which opened in 1963. It grew and thrived as a "world class" legitimate theater in the heartland of America. In the mid to late 1970's there were a number of stories about Minneapolis being the "per capita cultural capital of the US." The local economy was affected far less by the ongoing '70's recession and the Twin Cities did have a lot of "arts" such as live theater. Our perennial competitor for the "arts spending" title has and still is Seattle but in the 1970's Seattle was reeling from a severe economic downturn. (Remember "Would the last one out of Seattle please turn out the lights.") The Guthrie website is http://www.guthrietheater.org/
For investigators seeking the ten fugitive Kathleen Soliah the Guthrie website was a logical site to check but a long shot. Brother Lance Soliah lives 150 miles south in Decorah, Iowa and the Soliah family had spent the early years living in Barnseville, MN (20 miles southeast of Fargo-Moorehead). The Guthrie was the the Twin Cites "flagship" live theater. At the time of arrest police said that they saw her picture right on the opening page of the Guthrie website. This is a bit of a misnomer. In the upper left hand corner of the website (which I can't find now) there was a small thumbnail picture of a woman that could be her. Soliah's mother had reportedly shown police a two year old picture of their fugitive daughter. The website thumbnail was too small to positively ID but it would be the type of thing that would motivate a more thorough search of the Guthrie website. The investigators cryptically said there were people "who did not like her" after the arrest.
Fast forward to last week when I enjoying one of those $1 new release movies from the http://redbox.com kiosks at McDonalds. (The Aviator, pretty good movie). I tend to "surf the net" when watching most TV and a "get to" project was to check what play were performed at the Guthrie by artistic director Garland Wright. I had remembered this from a CrimeMagazine.com article http://crimemagazine.com/bang7.htm that mentioned Garland Wright and Soliah/Olson. I looked up the plays produced under Garland Wright's direction and a 1993 one was "Naga Mandala". I immediately thought I had hit a "two-fer" since a far left cause after Vietnam was apartheid in South Africa but Nelson Mandela is spelled with an "e". That leaves "Naga". The investigators are no doubt familiar with the SLA story so "Naga" should ring a bell with them just as it did with me. I more recently did google search on plays in the US that had the title "Naga" but found nothing except for the Guthrie production. It may be nothing but coincidence that "Naga Mandala" was chosen as a Guthrie play but I sense a potential "secret signal" that the investigators and eventually I picked up.
I would like to thank my latest unwitting supporter http://redbox.com Most new release movies tend to "suck" so I can merrily watch them and do research at the same time, especially when the rental only costs a dollar. As a side note redbox has "Kinsey" this month. Back in the 1970's "The Kinsey Report" was a college mainstay and the movie received a lot of favorable mainstream press when it came out. It played at my neighborhood theater but I didn't see it and don't plan to rent it. I checked http://imdb.com to check it's box office. It bombed badly. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362269/business Box office was less than estimated production cost. This tends to be a really bad indicator. More evidence of the decline of the 1970's "new left".
A project of Soliah.com
Last updated 06-25-05
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