By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
A nuclear accident at a government lab in a remote corner of New Mexico brings six lost souls together in a tiny chapel nearby.
Tucson must be full of people like the six troubled souls who butt heads for two hours in the Winding Road Theater Ensemble's haymaker production of Lanford Wilson's “Angels Fall.”
There is an uncanny fit here, which director Molly Lyons seems to get even though the show's program identifies her as “an international director/actor recently transplanted from Chicago.”
But first, the set-up. “Angels Fall” premiered on Oct. 18, 1982, a time culturally closer to the rigid Cold War Era than to our own free-floating anxiety these days about most everything, especially the global warming that has replaced nuclear destruction as the most imminent threat to our future.
Wilson has set his play in the 1950s at an isolated Catholic chapel in a sun baked desert corner of New Mexico, not far from a federal government project involving uranium mining and top secret nuclear research.
Pure chance and a recent atomic energy “accident” which the government refuses to talk about have blocked the nearby highway, forcing four random travelers to cross paths with Father William Doherty (David Alexander Johnston), in charge of the chapel, and Don Tabaha (Luke Salcido), an interning doctor serving the chapel and the nearby Navajo reservation.
Seeking a public telephone so they can call for help (it is the 1950s) are a fatigued college professor Niles Harris (Glen Coffman) and his young wife Vita (Shanna Brock), as well as promising tennis phenom Salvatore “Zappy” Zappala (Cole Potwardowski) and his older companion, the wealthy widow Marion Clay (Susan Cookie Baker).
The only thing all six of these people have in common is a desire to be somewhere else. Well...that and a troubling suspicion life – like a sneaky con artist – has fooled them into wasting away their years instead of doing something worthwhile.
That's where the Tucson connection comes in. Is achieving success here in the Baked Apple really as good as the Big Apple, or the Big Easy, or the Second City, or some other place with a snappy nickname?
Lyons has drawn some fine performances from her cast members, each one playing a different sort of mentally displaced person. As actors their total ensemble effort gives us much to ponder about choosing our own practical values and situational ethics.
Most intense is Salcido as the idealistic Navajo who wants to do so much to help his people. But the reservation is so undeveloped, so polluted by the uranium mining. Though he has the energy, these overwhelming problems have turned his energy into anger.
Potwardowski is intense and also funny as the insecure tennis pro who wonders if he is talented enough for the game. He keeps getting matched against the toughest competition at every tournament, and then defeated in an early round.
The most powerful performance goes to Johnston, creating a complex priest filled with desire to do the Lord's work but also to wonder how much it can matter when he is forced to serve in such a forgotten backwater. Johnston paces the play evenly, then steps aside for each of the others to have their big scene.
“Angels Fall” is not as well remembered as some of Wilson's other plays, such as “Hot l Baltimore,” “Fifth of July” or “Burn This.” But WRTE's production will draw you in with it's direct language and old-fashioned belief that each of us must always want to be the most that we can be.
Is this desire to be more, to want more, mean we are more valuable members of society....or is it just another form of selfishness?
“Angels Fall” continues through March 1, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, in St. Francis Chapel, a part of St. Luke's Home, 639 E. Adams St. at North First Avenue. Enter the chapel from North First Avenue, where curbside parking is available.
Tickets are $28 at the door, $25 in advance, $15 students, active military, first responders. For additional details and tickets, 520-401-3626, or visit windingroadtheater.org
No comments:
Post a Comment