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Home > Blogs > Arts and Entertainment > Archives > 2008 > July > 27 > Entry
Futurefest play mixes fun and hate
Scripts by Carole Lockwood and Carl Williams, who have both had plays produced at previous Futurefests, closed out the Dayton Playhouse’s 18th annual new play festival on Sunday, July 27.
Lockwood’s disarmingly and imprecisely titled “The Mary Band Road Show,” was the stronger and more original of the two.
A sometimes surreal combination of “Nunsense,” “Waiting for Godot” and “Strange Fruit,” it followed a consistently comic Act 1 with a tragic Act 2 and the parting silhouette of Ku Klux Klansmen.
Directed by Alan Bomar Jones, who was also pressed into service as an actor in early scenes due to the late arrival of a cast member, it takes place in 1965 near Montgomery, Ala., along the route of a march led by Martin Luther King.
Characters include Catholic nuns Agnes (Dodie Lockwood), who’s 89 and doesn’t suffer fools, or anyone else; Mary Mary (Renee Franck-Reed), who’s 65 and as simple-minded as a child until she displays complete clarity of thought during a crisis, and pragmatic young Cathy (Becky Barrett Jones), who’s still in training.
The leader is Agnes, who was portrayed with such detail that Act 1 might have been called The Dodie Lockwood Show.
Her equal is elderly black preacher Eli (Roi Williams), who surfaces in the same roadside shack as the northern sisters while waiting for this grandson, an angry young man named Jonesy (Duante Beddingfield).
Meanwhile, the Klan prowls the night for victims. As Sister Agnes points out, Catholics, too, had reason for concern.
Some scenes run on into repetition. One or two might be cut entirely. But “Mary Band” is an unusual pairing of fact and fantasy that like another of the festival’s plays, “Heartland,” offers a fresh look at history.
It juxtaposes opposites that others wouldn’t consider or dare combining — most notably a lynching with the “Banana Boat Song.” The results are both off-putting and thought-provoking.
Williams’ “Coming Back to Jersey” is a fairly conventional domestic comedy fueled by martial boredom, suspicion, jealousy and revenge. Jim Lockwood directed a cast including Dave Nickel and Debra Kent as Howard and Norma Karchmer, Lynn Kesson as Louise, Robb Willoughby as Freddy, Susan Robert as Dorothy Arnfield and Richard Young as Sidney Hersch.
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By Papa Ubu
July 28, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this
It was better than most of the Theatre of the Absurd dramas I see performed by Bill Pout and the Daydream Creative Crass!