Story Photos
 Photo Wimchael Williamson Cheese plant manager Len Hoch (Jess Sari) listens to wife Ruth (Morgan Painton) during the first act of 'Book of Days.' The play is being staged at LCC's Center Stage. |
Book of Days
Thursday, March 6, 2003 9:13 AM PST
By Randi Rice
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E-mail this articleLike those little Russian nesting dolls, "Book of Days" is a play within a play. And as the dramas unwind, their themes will ring true with local audiences.
The title is from the Medieval practice of keeping a book of days, a detailed record of daylight and darkness to track the changing seasons. Likewise, the Lanford Wilson drama latches onto the essentials of human nature --- competition, greed, ambition and yes, integrity. Add some of George Carlin's "seven words you can't say on television," a little adultery and a few lies.
When the play first opened on Broadway, Variety magazine called it "an intriguing and thoroughly engrossing depiction of contemporary small town life with a murder mystery at its core." A Vermont reviewer wrote, "The play is set in a dying Midwestern town whose dwindling inhabitants are encrusted by values that imprison them like rime ... To be really saved, one must flee at all costs."
"It is about honor, not doing what is convenient, not following the crowd, doing what is right," said Don Correll, director of Lower Columbia College's Center Stage.
The play, written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lanford in 1998, opened Wednesday at LCC.
Set in the small town of Dublin, Missouri, population 5,000, the story revolves around Ruth Hoch, a bookkeeper at the town's cheese factory who a lands the role of Joan of Arc in the town's production of George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan."
Shaw's theatrical production told the story of the French girl who in the 1420s led armies of men on a crusade to get Charles VII crowned as king. Shaw's play revealed the pain, suffering and deceit Joan of Arc endured.
As "Book of Days" unfolds, it becomes evident that Hoch suffers similar experiences, but in a different era. And like Joan, Hoch sticks with what she believes is right and true --- with parallel consequences.
"It hasn't changed. In six hundred years!" Hoch tells her husband. "They were just hiding behind dogma and power and they still do."
Eighteen-year-old Morgan Painton, an LCC freshman, plays Hoch.
"It is the hardest role I've done," Painton said. She isn't much like her character, who is described as having the "tenacity of a bull dog," an Erin Brockovich kind of character. Painton says her insecurities show sometimes.
She never expected to land the part. She just wanted to be in the play. Now she says the part has stretched her capabilities.
"You can't let yourself control the character. You have to let yourself give in," the 18-year-old actress said.
The antagonist is James Bates, the ruthlessly driven son of the factory owner. His father, entrepreneurial, crusty good ole boy Walt Bates, is played by LCC faculty member Mark Bergeson.
Freshman Richie Laursen, 20, who plays James Bates, admits to having an aggressive spirit similar to his character's.
"I am competitive," Laursen said. If "this is the role I want, I am going to get it."
He doesn't see Bates as a "bad guy," he said. Rather, the character rationalizes his behavior as part of the game of life. "He goes after what he wants," Laursen said, "just like everyone else."
Bates is little different from today's politicians and businessmen, the actors said, clawing their way through the American system.
The play "strangely resonates more now," Correll said, with Dublin mirroring Longview's dependence on a handful of industrial giants like Longview Aluminum, and the power of those employers over the town.
This is not a play that can be viewed through "rose-colored glasses," Laursen and Painton said.
"This show demands sincerity," Laursen said. "It makes people think."
Background music for the LCC production includes country and bluegrass, classical, folk, rock, a rendition of "Let the Sunshine In" and even John Phillip Sousa's resounding "Stars and Stripes Forever."
Laursen and Painton said they like the play's modern applications. Anyone can "turn on the television" and get a taste of the dramatic themes. "Everyone who comes will take away something different," they said.
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