DUSK RINGS A BELL
produced by Shaker Bridge Theatre
directed by Bill Coons
We all yearn to go back in time.
Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or under age four, which is roughly around the time when we start to realize that life's not fair, humans do stupid things which hurt others, and that any second chances we might get are paid for in blood, sweat, tears, and oceans of regret.
Is it the awareness that we can't go back the very thing which makes us want to fade into our own pasts - that dreadful finality of not knowing what we've got until it's gone, when we cast our thoughts back and paint those bygone days with the soft pastel colors of ennui and nostalgia?
Or is it being mired in the stormy present, surrounded by the detritus of our choices, wondering how to cope, and yearning to escape and "undo" that which we hath wrought?
DUSK RINGS A BELL, as produced by Shaker Bridge Theatre, doesn't go out of its way to answer these questions, but to raise them, and provide theatre-goers with some of the reasons why two people do what they do, what's possible when they come together at a point where their particular pasts and presents converge, and what potential future might be shaped from that convergence.
DUSK's story is fairly straightforward- Molly (Tracy Liz Miller) remembers a note she wrote to herself and stashed away in the cottage she vacationed at the summer she was fourteen. Now, twenty-five years later and on the cusp of forty, she wants to find that note, perhaps to recapture whatever youthful optimism might have existed then.
She breaks into the cottage and retrieves the note, only to be discovered by the caretaker, Ray (Kent Burnham). As Molly awkwardly rationalizes her reasons for breaking into the cottage, it turns out she and Ray met one incandescent night the very same summer Molly penned the missive to herself.
Their shared past rediscovered, both Molly and Ray then relate their life stories from the point when they first met, and the play takes off from there.
It's at this particular point that the gifts Miller and Burnham bring to the stage manifest themselves; as Molly and Ray, both actors articulate psyches which are scored and pocked by the lives they've chosen, yet they each manage to hold onto a sense of wonder at how the fates have conspired to reunite them, and the hope that they can make some sense out of where they are now, as the choices they made in the past bubble up from the well of secrets each thought had long been boarded over.
The chemistry between Miller and Burnham is palpable almost from the first, and it is to each actor's credit that when they step away from interacting with one another to attend to other matters, they manage to pick up where they left off with the same intensity.
This ability serves the play well, because DUSK doesn't follow a chronologically linear through-line; instead, it skips back and forth in time, powered by Molly's and Ray's conversations and woven artfully with revelatory monologues which bring the characters out of themselves and in direct contact with the audience.
In the hands of a less capable company, this method of staging would smack of artifice, but director Bill Coons's imprimatur is commanding and disciplined without being intrusive; through his cast, he manifests tight control over DUSK's transitions and interstitials, using them to sharpen the focus of what the characters want and how they seek to attain it, while retaining the play's edgy sensibilities.
As Molly and Ray get reacquainted, a terrible shadow falls over them, largely unstated in their moments together, yet brought sharply into view through the confessions they make to the audience; no matter what they do, any chance that they might have as a couple is doomed.
In and of itself, this precursor to a not-so-happy ending would not only severely handicap a play, but stop it cold. However, playwright Stephen Belber's intuitive treatment of Molly, Ray, and their situation ensures that being doomed isn't the relationship-killer one assumes it ought to be; it's an obstacle, and a daunting one, but both Molly and Ray manage to get around it, and move forward, by themselves and, yes, as a couple.
How they do it, and whether the fruit of their efforts yields sweet fruit or bitter, is a journey worth witnessing.
This is the last play of Shaker Bridge Theatre's fifth season; it can certainly be argued that the company has made its bones by proving that the place where the company does its work is incidental to the extraordinary scope of craftsmanship of which the company is capable.
Shaker Bridge Theatre has made quiet Enfield their home, and, in the past five years, has demonstrated that art can and does thrive within a small community's rural boundaries.
As a native of this West Central New Hampshire hamlet, I'm delighted that Shaker Bridge Theatre has made my boyhood hometown their chosen vale, and reinvigorated not only the stately old town hall auditorium in which they perform, but also the larger community of theatre lovers who look for something beyond what might ordinarily be available to them.
When season 6 rolls around in the fall of 2012, you'd be well-advised to stray from the more familiar theatre paths you're used to, and treat yourselves to what Shaker Bridge Theatre offers. I know I will.
“Caught In The Act”
Michael J. Curtiss
I'll be taking some production photos this weekend when the show closes, and I'll post them here next week. For now then, it's back to reading tons of scripts to come up with a season six.
- Bill
