By Andrew Beck
Hartford Arts Examiner

 

 

Audiences attending the world premiere of Lary Bloom's new play, Wild Black Yonder, at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center this weekend will discover three things:

 "The Kate," as the theatre is fondly nicknamed, does work as a venue for serious plays requiring elaborate sets.

The Margreta Stage Company, a mix of amateur, professional and experienced theatre artists in the Saybrook area that is producing this play, is no flash in the pan, and

 Lary Bloom is capable of writing a good, dramaturgically-sound drama.

Bloom has created five believable characters who are capable of acting in surprising, yet consistent ways.  There is no doubt that their actions--reluctance, anger, curiosity, stubbornness, jealousy, love, frustration and guilt--spring from very real and legitimate places.  As a result, the characters all feel real, quite an accomplishment for a playwright who is seeing his new staged before a paying audience for the first time.

He raises a variety of legitimate issues over the course of the evening, most of them dealing with the repercussions of the Vietnam War some 40 years later, reflecting how much our country has changed or not changed during that period.  Familiar themes are introduced, such as the nation's treatment of returning Vietnam veterans, the plight of those missing in action, and the horrifying fates awaiting those Vietnamese who worked with the United States once the last helicopter lifted off from the US Embassy grounds in Saigon.  But Bloom puts a fresh spin on most of them, taking them to unexpected places, such as when Lenny, a Vietnam vet, now a journalist, recalls the first time he was actually thanked for his service, a reflection of this country's changing attitudes.

I liked too how Bloom demonstrates that the immigration experience somehow never changes, through the character of Michelle, an American-born and raised daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, who has absolutely no clue about her family's history, partly because of their reluctance to share some painful or shameful memories.  The thoroughly Americanized Michelle, however, who cannot understand Vietnamese, can say "whatever" like any typical California girl.  Bloom even throws in a touch of George and Martha from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in the initial banter and flirting between Janet, the still-denying military widow, and her college professor boyfriend, Edgar.

Jeanie Rapp, the Artistic Director of the Margreta Stage Company, has directed Wild Black Yonder with the utmost professionalism.  She has obvious respect for the material and attains a fluid, cinematic feel throughout the evening.  Of tremendous help is the magnificent set by legendary designer David Hays, making use of the full depth and width of the stage.  The bamboo and jungle foliage that fills the back of the set, along with a cross section of a military tent effectively evoke Vietnam, while several rows of barely balancing books, a wooden desk, several chair, a coffee table and a jumble of storage boxes create Janet and Edgar's living room.  Off to the side are a small table, two chairs and a partition representing an Asian fusion restaurant where Michelle waitresses. The lighting and sound are all first-rate.

 As would be expected in a theatre company that mixes amateur and professional artists together, the performances can and do widely vary from person to person, but none so much as to undermine the overall effectiveness of the play.  Especially impressive was Kevin Michael Johnson as Adam, the pilot who went missing in 1969 over Laos, who handles his soliloquies into a tape recording and his ghostly appearances in the jungle with a stolid distinction.  The company did grow into their roles as the evening progressed, including former television news anchor Janet Peckinpaugh, whose journey anchors the play.  It's also great that Bloom allows the characters of  Janet, Edgar (Wil Brardford), and Larry (Ira Sakolsky), who are certainly close to 60 if not over, to be fully sexualized characters--something rarely demonstrated in plays of the past and just as rare nowadays when people of that age are infrequently front and center on stage.

This production clearly takes the three year old Margreta Stage Company to a higher level and they are up to the task.  This combination of theatre professionals and enthusiastic community members fosters a synergy that at least in this production brings out the best in all parties.  It also shows how creative theater artists can use the facilities of the Kate to the maximum, which should encourage a wide variety of performers and musicians to want to be on this stage.

As for Bloom's play, it deserves further life following this production.  At two hours with no intermission, it is a tad long, but through judicious cutting and expediting, its flow can be easily improved.  While it is always pleasant to hear some great 60's music between scenes (thanks for the Nick Drake, by the way), those breaks don't need to be quite as long and some dialogue could be tightened.  But the author of Wild Black Yonder is definitely a talented playwright, who knows how to keep characters interesting, maintain a sense of momentum as the play moves along, and knows how to parcel out information for the utmost dramatic advantage.  For a play that was being performed in front of an audience for the very first time, it was in good shape.