By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The folks at 3B Productions are returning us to North Carolina where the residents have “a thousand eyes and one small mind,” yet where goodness may prevail.
“Bright Star” is on stage at the Maumee Indoor Theater Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 12, at 3 p.m. Click for tickets. The show is a collaboration between Steve Martin and Edie Brickell
This staging comes just 16 months following the Perrysburg Musical Theatre’s production, and this new edition shows if nothing else that “Bright Star” has enduring appeal, and allows different troupes to put their own stamp on the show.
Joe Barton, who played the evil Mayor Dobbs in the PMT show relinquishes that role to Lane Hakel and takes control as director. Janine Baughman is musical director with Brittany Kupresanin, who performed in the PMT version, as choreographer.
Emma Skaggs returns in the lead role of Alice, though, here she plays both the 18-year-old and the 41-year-old Alice, not just the character’s younger self.
The show has two plot lines. One set in 1923 relates how the young Alice, already passionate about literature, falls in love with kindred spirit Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Wesley Grudzien, who also played the part in Perrysburg). He’s the son of the aforementioned mayor of Hayes Creek to whom those 1,000 eyes all seem to report.
The second plot follows aspiring writer Billy Crane (Ben Tittl) just returned from World War II. He’s not above telling a lie – a transparent one – to get his stories published in the Asheville Country Journal. His mother nurtured his love of writing by having him copy stories from the magazine to get the feel of what real writing is.
He arrives home only to find that his mother has died. A “visitor” came and took her away as his father played by Chuck Kiskaddon (another PMT holdover) poetically puts it.
Alice (Skaggs) with her hair piled on her head) now edits the magazine. She is a woman who spends her evenings finding superfluous adverbs and “cutting off their heads.”
Having one person portray Alice at both ages puts her more fully into the center of the play. Skaggs carries it off with deft acting that makes subtle connections between the two, heightening the audience’s curiosity about what brought about the change.
Alice opens with “If You Knew My Story.” Skaggs makes it clear she has the voice to carry the show. Joy and pain never last long, she sings, foreshadowing what we’ll learn as her story unfolds.
The next scene is Billy’s homecoming. Margo (Emma Glover), the 21-year-old proprietor of a local bookstore, is thrilled to see him. Crane proclaims that he’s going to follow his “Bright Star” as a writer. Margo, who has been serving as his friendly copy editor, at once longs for him to be successful, and yearns for him to be with her. This emotional pull comes out in “Asheville,” as she hopes that as he pursues his literary dream, he may dream of her as well.
The subtext throughout is the need for writers to tell southern stories about the way people live now. Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, and Thomas Wolfe are among those name checked. “Bright Star” tells just the kind of story characters envision. That story is pulled along on an undercurrent of deception.
The tale, based on a true story, is full of the quirky and colorful characters we expect in the setting.
The most colorful are the flirtatious Lucy (Bridget Drew) and closeted gay Darryl Ames (Nicholas Yates), Alice’s office staff and gatekeepers. They clearly liven things up around the office, and burst into action when they introduce Billy to the city nightlife in “Another Round.” It’s one of several rousing dance numbers.
The other side of the spectrum are Alice’s parents ((Jill Reinstein and Dennis Kale) who consider her a black sheep, a lost lamb as a teenager. Daddy Murphy colludes with Mayor Josiah Dobbs, whose mantra is “A Man ‘s Gotta Do” no matter how brutal, in a betrayal of his daughter. That action at the end of the first act provides the hinge connecting the two plots.
It is the music, laced with Americana tunes and bluegrass colors, yet soaring as is befitting a Broadway score that carries the emotional load, and enfolds the audience in the southern atmosphere.
