By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Gilead, Wisconsin isn’t quite as beautiful as it looks in a magazine.
Percy Talbott (Alyx Fisher) finds that out when she arrives, newly released from prison, after those beautiful fall colors have faded.
The colors aren’t all that’s faded. With the major industry, a quarry, closed, Gilead is a place that people leave, not come to.
But Percy is looking for a place to start over. Sheriff Joe (Jared Droesch) who is supervising her parole tris to help. He brings her over to the Spitfire Grill because he figures the owner, Hannah (Annelise Clifton), limping from bad hips, could use some help. She’s not so sure, but lets Percy stay on anyway.
What the sheriff doesn’t foresee is that Percy will help revive not only at the grill but the whole fading community.
The musical “The Spitfire Grill,” opens a two-weekend run tonight at 8 p.m. in the Black Swamp Players theater at 115 E. Oak St. in downtown Bowling Green. Showtimes are Feb. 17, 18, 24, and 25 at 8 p.m. with Sunday matinees on Feb. 19 and 26 at 2 p.m. Tickets for general admission seating are $25 each. Click to purchase.
The musical, written and composed by James Valcq and Fred Alley, is directed by Lauren Lash with musical direction by Joelle Stiles.
This is a musical in the truest sense. The dialogue is spare – just enough to set up the next song. The Americana score is the heart of the production. Opening with Percy’s longing ballad “A Ring Around the Moon” reflecting her hopes and the “Finale” where strangers express their hopes, often desperate, for living in an idealized version of Gilead.
But then everyone, even the mysterious visitor (Andrew Varney) in Gilead has their own dream.
Hannah’s nephew Caleb (Heath Diehl) wishes for the old days. He’s in real estate now, but only, he says, until the quarry opens again. Then he’ll return to his management job there. That fits more with his vision of manhood. “A man is more than skin and bone when he’s shoulder to shoulder digging stone,” he sings.
The sheriff sings of catching a train and leaving Gilead and the wide woods his family owns. The loggers clear cut the best wood, and now only left scrub, he explains.
Effy (Karen Noble) , the post mistress and proprietor of the general store only wants to have her nose in everyone else’s business, and Percy’s arrival is “the biggest thing to happen in Gilead since the quarry closed.”
Hannah just wants to be free of the grill that chains her to a troubled past – her dead husband and her lost son.
When we meet Caleb’s wife Shelby (Samantha Heater) she doesn’t have any dreams. Asked if she wants a cup of coffee, Caleb answers for her. She doesn’t like coffee and should be getting along home, he says.
But when Percy has to take over the eatery when Hannah is injured ,in a fall, Shelby steps in to do the cooking. That’s a boost for the grill, and a life changing experience for her. Shelby cooks up a dream of independence for herself, much to her husband’s chagrin. She’s found a new home at the Spitfire with Percy and Hannah.
“My friend and family are with me tonight,” the trio sings. “And this old grill has come alive again.”
But this in part is because of the scheme Shelby and Percy cook up. They start a mail in raffle for the grill. For $100 and an essay on why they want to own the Spitfire Grill, dreamers from around the country can have a chance to take over the operations. The entries come in by the bag full.
The letters put to song speak of despair, helplessness, and a dream of leaving in an idyllic place – the vision that drew Percy there.
The audience gets to experience all this in the intimate space of the theater. A few even will be able to sit at tables in the grill that are set up in front of the stage.
Some action takes place in a corner in the rear of the house. And at times, the cast surrounds the audience with song.
The audience becomes, in a way, part of Gilead, a place made better by the arrival of a good-hearted ex-con.
Even more reason theatergoers should take a chance on “The Spitfire Grill.”
