by dick kerekes dickkerekes@yahoo.com
Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre presented the 2nd part of its reader's theatre double header on April 26 and 27. Local playwright Ruth Coe Chamber's play, She's Wonderful was selected as the winner of the NE Florida's Playwrights Competition last year, and received its first ever public reading with Libby Maxwell as Director.
Most reader's theatre presentations just utilize a few chairs and music stands for holding the scripts, but this production had furniture, props, and costumes. The setting was the living rooms of two homes in Pittsburg PA and one in the State of Georgia in the year l988. The story unfolds using the technique of a telephone conversation.
Our leading character, Jeanie Allen was at her home in center stage as she calls her Mother Sylva in Georgia. Sylvia is dying of lung cancer, but continues to smoke and drink as she talks with Jeanie. She expressed her loneliness since her daughter and her husband moved to Pittsburgh for his better employment opportunities.
A third character is Jeanie's Pittsburgh neighbor, Marissa, who has befriended her, in a bit of an unusual relationship. Marissa is married to a psychiatrist and has 2 teenage daughters, and moved to America from South Africa in l983. She too, has her problems as she is haunted by the memories of being under Nazi's torture as a child in l938. In addition she misses South Africa where she had servants and lived as a member of the elite class.
Jeanie relates to Marissa that she was adopted when she was very young but her mother never told her, and she only learned the truth from her father as he was dying.
Mother Sylva feels guilty she has never related this adoption to Jeanie and at one point Sylvia seems to imply that her cancer is God's punishment for not being honest with her daughter.
The play ends when Sylva finally telephones her daughter and tells her she has something important to say to her! Curtain. End of play.
Now all of this may seem like a lot to happen but the two act play only ran for one hour and could easily have been done as a one Act.
As with all reader's theatre presentations, I consider them works in progress, and Playwright Chambers certainly has several directions she can enrich this play to make it a full two act presentation. As it stands, in my opinion, it mainly appeals to women or so it seemed from this presentation.
Kat Attaway made her theatre debut as the young Jeanie, and even though this was reader's theatre she appeared to have memorized a good bit of the dialogue. An attractive young lady, Ms. Attaway will be back since she was thrilled at this first opportunity to be on stage.
Jane Bull was excellent as the mother. She hid her script very effectively in a book she pretended to be reading. Her role had most of the humor in the script and Ms Bull made the most of it. Jane is well known in the beaches area as the co-founder of Y-Bag, teaching dancing to seniors, and from several fine performances in plays like Steel Magnolias, Nunsense and the Octette Bridge Club.
JoAnna VanderKolk as convincing as the foreigner Marissa. Ms. VanderKolk has done some memorable roles on stage and most recently was in Steel Magnolias at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine. I especially enjoyed her in Seeing Stars in Dixie and Crimes of the Heart. Joanna has made many contributions in the technical aspect of community theatre and is an expert on dressing a stage and finding usual props.
Miss Maxwell has been involved as an actress for many years on all the local stages but this is her first time to direct. Directing reader's theatre is a formidable task as the actors are tied to carrying the scripts and thus creating stage movements can be challenging. In addition ABET's small stage, with three households across the short space makes creating action difficult. Libby did well and looking forward to her next play as a director.
This play was well attended and I have no doubt that the $ 5.00 admission was part of the reason for the good turnout as well as the popularity of the playwright in the beaches area.
ABET's next full stage productions opens May 9th. To Gillian on her 37th Birthday is being directed by the principal founder of ABET, Carson Merry Baillie.
Article Published in the May 2008 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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