LA
Times (Critic's Choice)
THEATER REVIEW
Exceptional 'Days' hits its targets
By David C. Nichols, Special to The Times
The idiomatic voice of Lanford Wilson buoys "Book of Days," receiving
its local premiere by Theatre Tribe in North Hollywood. This 1998 seriocomic
reverie on America's religious-political devolution is a riveting achievement.
Its archetypal setting is Dublin, Mo., whose industrial center is the cheese
factory owned by Walt Bates (James Handy). Walt, his gruffness concealing true
morality, is more attuned to his loyal manager, Len Hoch (Nathan Brooks Burgess),
than to his edgy, ambitious son, James (Thomas Burr). The internecine tangle
takes in Walt's wife and former "prettiest girl in town," Sharon
(Pat Destro); Len's mother, ex-hippie Martha (Jenny O'Hara, who alternates
with Sherri Lubov-Ripps); James' love-starved wife, LouAnn (Dawn Cochran);
and Ruth (Mary Thornton), Len's wife and Walt's bookkeeper.
Guest big-city director Boyd Middleton (Jon Cellini, alternating with Jeff
Kerr McGivney) and Dublin-based assistant Ginger (Corie Vickers) cast Ruth
as star of the community theater revival of Shaw's "Saint Joan."
The Rev. Bobby Groves (Scott Ashby) targets the show, which, along with Walt's
shooting death — an accident, according to employee Earl (Scott Donovan) — turns
Ruth into the Maid of Dublin. Sheriff Atkins (Kyle Colerider-Krugh), like most
of the township, dismisses her suspicions.
"Book of Days" has been likened to the works of Thornton Wilder in
its direct address, vivid imagery and bucolic darkness. But Wilson's choral techniques,
ripe wit and murder-mystery trappings form their own enthralling animal (albeit
an overpopulated one, the main liability).
Stuart Rogers' brilliant staging features keen, lean designs by Barbara-Julie
Miller (set), Peter Strauss (lighting), Courtney-Lynn Iverson (costumes) and
David Kronmiller (sound). His cast is seamless, with Thornton's Ruth and Burgess'
Len focusing a wholly invested troupe.
Near the ending, Ruth decries theocratic hypocrisy: "It hasn't changed.
In 600 years! They were just hiding behind dogma and power and they still do." Indeed,
and such unsettling pertinence distinguishes this idiosyncratic masterwork
by a matchless American craftsman.
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From the LA Weekly (theater
Pick of the Week)
Lanford Wilson’s complex, fascinating play seems eerily prescient. Written
in 1999, it couldn’t have been a comment on the career of George W. Bush,
but nevertheless some parallels emerge. Wilson sketches the portrait of a town — Dublin,
Missouri — and the rise of a ruthless young politico (Thomas Burr), who
wins the support of local Christian fundamentalists. Their arrogant, self-righteous
minister (Scott Ashby) helps him to annul his marriage to an inconvenient wife
(Dawn Cochran), intimidate his detractors and conceal misdeeds that might send
him to jail. Meanwhile, a young bookkeeper, Ruth (Mary Thornton), cast as Joan
in a local production of Shaw’s St. Joan, becomes obsessed with the role,
and finds herself playing it out in real life. She must fight both church and
town to unmask corruption and the murderer of her boss (James Handy). Wilson,
juggling a huge array of characters, themes and plotlines, blends them into
a seamless whole and seasons them with wry comedy. Stuart Rogers directs the
large and splendid ensemble with a careful blend of passion and detachment.
Among the fine cast, Burr, Thornton, Nathan Brooks Burgess, Corie Vickers and
Jenny O’Hara deserve particular praise.
Note: Some roles alternate.
—Neal Weaver
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BackStage
West (Pick of the Week)
Southern CA March 24, 2004
Reviewed By Travis Michael Holder
Lanford Wilson has created yet another remarkable play, melding Our Town and
Equus into a fascinating tale of a georgic Midwestern community and the secrets
lurking beneath the surface of its bucolic hum. Questioning whether the death
of a local businessman was an accident or a shockingly impenitent homicide
weaves though Wilson's disquieting view of present-day Americana, but along
the way he stealthily blasts the hypocrisy of small towns and smaller-minded
people who hide their hate and intolerance behind masks of decency, religious
fervor, and resolute daydream of right and wrong.
Stuart Rogers stages this classy production
with boldly arresting simplicity, dealing with the many short scenes
by leaving the entire company onstage throughout, leaning on doorways
and sitting on benches scattered around the effective two-level set.
As the townsfolk tell their sides of the unfolding tale, the others watch,
listen, and often react to what's said, punctuating both the camaraderie
and the leering inquisitiveness of contemporary rural life. Roger's conception
is an ingenious choice, letting the play flow seamlessly while pointing
out an almost palpable mood of deception and faith-based agrarian claustrophobia.
Wilson slyly parallels his narrative with a community theatre
mounting of Shaw's Saint Joan. Local bookkeeper Ruth (Mary
Thompson) comes to audition with You're a Queer One, Julie
Jordan because she's heard the same playwright wrote My
Fair Lady. But after grabbing the title role with a college monologue as
Shakespeare's Juliet, she begins to understand the injustice
suffered by Joan in a play described by the local pastor
as "socialist anti-church propaganda." Ruth also
soon becomes the unappreciated inquisitor in the suspicious death of her
beloved boss.
Thornton is ambrosial as Ruth, beautifully
complimented by Nathan Brooks Burgess as her adoring husband Len, a
pair whose lifelong residency in this town is not enough to turn them
into the parochial clones most have become. This is partly due to the
countercultural nurturing of Len's former hippie mother, Martha (Jenny
O'Hara), whose breasts once graced a calendar of scenes snapped at Woodstock.
Though now the dean of a conservative Christian junior college, Martha
has not forgotten her early sensibilities, seeing her students as having
little choice between "multiple piercings and total denial of their existence." O'Hara
is instantly charismatic, possessed of impeccable timing and the ability
to make us easily fall in love with her outspoken character.
Wilson would be proud to see his message absorbed and as effortlessly proclaimed
as it is by Rogers and his magnificent troupe. An often misunderstood and badly
performed playwright, whether he knows it yet or not, he has found a perfect
voice in this sterling new acting company.
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Daily
News (Four Stars)
Friday, May 7, 2004
In a nutshell: A play that owes a debt to Thornton Wilder’s “our
Town” and leaves it in the dust. Theatre Tribe and director Stuart Rogers
deliver one of the best small theater productions of the year.
Book of Days’ is impossible to put down
How did this play elude the radar? Admittedly, playwright Lanford Wilson
(“Tally’s
Folly,” “The Hot L Baltimore,” “Burn This”) may
not strike oil every time he drives a spade into the soil. But “Book
of Days,” his 1998 “our Town” homage, is an awfully well-written
piece of work. That it took six years for an L.A. production to surface is
quite surprising, but it’s here now and director Stuart Rogers and his
Theatre Tribe ensemble play it for all it’s worth. And then some.
Part whodunit, part personal crusade, part a celebration of stage performance,
the play is a crackling good evening. Rogers has cast it superbly. Wilson’s
characters — who, I suspect, might be thinly written — come expertly
to life, and the cozy Theatre Tribe stage adjacent to the El Portal contains
the action smoothly as well. This play probably doesn’t belong in a much
bigger house.
There’s something distinctly wistful in Wilson’s tale of a suspicious
death in a small town. The bookkeeper of a cheese factory moonlights playing
the title role in a community theater production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint
Joan.” Life revolves around hunting season and church sermons. When a
character tells another character that he has unearthed dirt via the Internet,
it’s a bit of an eye opener. Oh, right. We’re in the present, after
all.
In Rogers’ production, the burg of Dublin, Mo., population 4,780, is
a two-level box with some wood planking and very few props. The same setting
serves for a church, a forest, the factory and a rehearsal hall. Grover’s
Corners, constructed out of thin air an imagination by any ensemble of Thornton
Wilder’s “Our Tow,” easily could be this nondescript.
Ruth Hoch (played by Mary Thornton) may make the mistake of singing a song
from “Carousel” for her “Saint Joan” audition, but
she’s no dummy. Once she burrows into the plight of Joan of Arc — and
understands the value of a crusade — Ruth becomes a veritable pit bull.
Since nearly everyone else in town is either hiding skeletons or is afraid
of bucking the influential Rev. Bobby Groves (Scott Ashby), Ruth’s determination
becomes essential.
Walt Bates (James Handy), the owner of the cheese factory, dies in a questionable
hunting accident. This sets off a potential power struggle between the factory’s
manager, Len (Nathan Brooks Burgess) and Bates’ feckless, philandering
son, James (Thomas Burr). Since Ruth doesn’t buy the hunting accident
explanation and since she’s married to Len, things start to get complicated
in a hurry.
Thornton’s steely Ruth anchors the cast. Playing a woman who bulldozes
through her own self-doubts, Thornton conveys steely resolve, never martyrdom.
She partners smartly with Burgess’ less-assured Len and with Ashby’s
unctuous Rev. Groves.
—E.H.
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Frontiers News Magazine
At times, this 1999 Lanford Wilson play brings to mind a mix of "Twin
Peaks," "The Laramie Project," and "Murder, She Wrote." Yet
its documentary-style tale of the investigation of a murder in the small town
of Dublin, Mo., boasts an invigorating dramatic style of its own. Like most
of Wilson's works, the play encompasses several interlocking themes and a fascinating
array of complex characters. Its first Los Angeles production benefits from
the inspired direction of Stuart Rogers, who elicits a marvelous ensemble effort.
There are characters and subplots aplenty in this piece, but the central conflicts
revolve around the supposedly accidental death of a cheese-factory magnate
(James Handy) and the investigation of the killing by his bookkeeper Ruth (Mary
Thornton). Wilson adds an intriguing layer to the narrative by having Ruth
appear in the title role of Joan of Arc in a community theatre production of
George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan." The role has interesting similarities
to the real-life situation in which Ruth finds herself. She digs deeper into
the events surrounding her former boss's demise, and discovers a complex web
of conspiracy among the local businesses and the fundamentalist church, opening
the possibility that she, like Joan, will become a martyr. Wilson lucidly and
compellingly points out the moral ambiguity surrounding this situation. He
shows how people sometimes hypocritically hide their most venal characteristics--like
bigotry and greed--behind the cloak of honor represented by the church and
other respected institutions. Rogers' staging is filled with ingenious touches,
such as having all actors remain onstage most of the time, lurking in the background
and reacting to the scenes that are played out. This not only emphasizes the
gossipy nature of small-town life, in which it is nearly impossible to keep
secrets, but it keeps the episodic action flowing briskly. Heading the list
of fine performances in the 12-member cast are Jenny O'Hara's bravura turn
as Ruth's former mother-in-law, an ex-hippie with a still-defiant spirit; and
Thornton as the admirably brave and high-principled heroine. A lean, clean
production design is perfectly attuned to Stuart's uncluttered approach to
the script's presentational style. Providing a startlingly pertinent snapshot
of many ails confronting contemporary society, this shapes up as a thought-provoking
effort from one of America's greatest playwrights.
--Les Spindle
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