Date: Fri 07-Feb-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SUEZ

Illustration: C

Location: A12

Quick Words:

Centerstage-Bus-Stop-theatre

Full Text:

(rev "Bus Stop" by Centerstage Co. @WestConn, 2/7/97)

Theatre Review-

A Promising Debut For Centerstage Co.

By Julie Stern

DANBURY - What the playwright Tennessee Williams was to southern Gothic, his

contemporary, William Inge, was to the Heartland. Along with Come Back Little

Sheba and Picnic , Bus Stop articulates the dreams and pathos of small town

midwesterners.

Centerstage, a new dramatic group at Western Connecticut State University, has

chosen to make its debut with a revival of the 1955 comedy-drama, and what a

promising debut it is!

Using the intimate layout of the Reimold Theater, Vincent Roca's lovingly

crafted set is a delight on its own. On a tiny stage surrounded by three rows

of folding chairs, Roca has re-created an archetypal American diner, a place

where the Greyhound gives riders a 20-minute rest stop at three in the

morning, complete with plastic upholstered stools, Formica tables, a beat-up

refrigerator, and walls plastered with sagging calendar prints and years'

worth of faded snapshots and forgotten postcards.

The play takes place on a long winter night in Kansas when the bus heading for

Topeka is stranded by a snowstorm, leaving its hapless passengers to pass the

hours in the "Bus Stop" interacting with the locals - Elma Duckworth, the

gawky teenage waitress; Grace, the world-weary owner; and Will Masters, the

wise, tough, philosophical sheriff.

Inge's world is populated by lonely dreamers, searching for the warmth of real

companionship, reaching out for contact with others who seem inappropriate or

at least unlikely candidates for their affection. Both the drama and the

comedy come from the tenacious perseverance with which these strangers grasp

at possibilities.

At the center of the story is the mulish determination of the egotistical

young cowboy, Bo Decker, to win the heart and hand of a somewhat tarnished

nightclub singer, Cheri. He has carried her onto the bus by force, and intends

to take her home to wedded bliss on his Montana ranch.

In a role made famous by the Marilyn Monroe film version, a squealing Cheri

seeks protection from the sheriff and the others in the diner. Meanwhile,

Carl, the slick-talking bus driver, romances Grace into inviting him upstairs

to her apartment, leaving the bookish and bespectacled Elma in charge of the

restaurant.

Elma is entranced by the erudite but seedy ex-professor, Dr Lyman, who hugs a

dark secret to his chest, along with a much-used whiskey flask. The cast is

completed by Virgil Blessing, the shy guitar-playing ranch hand who raised Bo

after he was orphaned in childhood.

Under Michael Hartel's impeccable direction, the cast handles all these roles

beautifully, milking the laughs when they come without detracting from the

underlying humanity of the characters. James Hook is terrific as Bo -

awesomely simple-minded, but appealing at the same time.

As the hapless waif from Appalachia who admits to having known a lot of boys

since she was fourteen, Carrie Keeler's Cheri admits to being a bit intrigued

by the virile rodeo cowboy, observing that the other patrons of the Blue

Dragon nightclub had always been too drunk to actually listen to her sing.

Beneath the bluster and the denial, it is clear there is an electric current

linking this pair.

Walter Moran plays Dr Lyman as a stumbling drunkard who recites Shakespearean

poetry with a gleam of undisguised lechery in his bleary eye, but this is no

deterrent to Danielle Dauphin as the eager teen, who aspires to a world of

ideas beyond what small town Kansas has to offer.

Trying to distract the fractious Bo by arranging a "talent show," Elma plays

Juliet to Lyman's Romeo in a balcony scene that is at once awful - as befits a

high schooler's idea of dramatic interpretation - and at the same time

meaningful in that it forces Lyman to cut through the screen of his own

pretenses and face the reality of what he has become.

Joe Shaboo does a wonderful job as Sheriff Masters, a great bear of a man

whose calm and quiet presence is both comforting and effective in keeping the

fractious in line. As Grace and Carl, Aline Flynn and Bob Bray are equally

convincing, two people who ultimately settle for an arrangement that is

perhaps less than what they might want, but better than total loneliness.

And total loneliness is what is conveyed by Greg Harkins, as the sad and

gentle Virgil, whose closing line ("some people will always get left out in

the cold") could be an echo of the playwright, who took his own life in the

early Seventies.

Bus Stop is fun, it's absorbing, and its portrait of oddball Americana is

infused with an underlying decency that is highly satisfying. As another

example of the fine work being turned out by WestConn's theater department,

and as entertainment in its own right, it is definitely worth going to see.

(Centerstage will continue its production at the Reimold Theatre through

February 9. Remaining curtains are Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm. Call

837-8732 for tickets ($5/advance; $7/door), or information.)