'Prairie' uses distinct voices to tell stories

John Olive’s “The Voice of the Prairie,” the Lycoming College theater department’s second play of the spring semester, is a tale of intersecting lives that encompass David “Davey” Quinn’s adolescence and adulthood.

Time jumps back and forth through nearly 30 years through Quinn’s life, which, naturally, is a long enough time to encounter some interesting characters.

Confusing? It could be, especially given that the myriad characters are personified by just four actors, juniors Tom Robinson, Jesse Shade and Joshua Troxler and sophomore Molly Collier. However, their superb transitioning between characters never leaves you wondering who is who. It’s just as well, as the more engrossing stories are watching Quinn grow into an adult, coaxed by stories of his youth and how a small-time radio entrepreneur coaxed audiences into accepting the radio as prime entertainment.

“Prairie” begins in 1895 with young Quinn (Troxler) as he travels to various saloons across the nation with his grandfather, who shares boisterous stories of the heartland.

Flash forward to 1923. Quinn (Robinson) has grown up and now works as a farmhand. While visiting a radio station one day, Quinn encounters radio entrepreneur Leon Schwab (Troxler), who is looking for a more dynamic form of radio entertainment than simply playing music.

He invites Quinn to sit down and speak to the audience. Quinn is unsure at first, not knowing what to say or how to approach unseen listeners. However, he begins to tell stories of his youth when he was left on his own after his grandfather’s death and traveled the country on his own as a hobo and most notably, when he met Frankie (Collier), a blind girl who wanted to escape her abusive father.

Quinn’s “Davey and Frankie” stories, easily likeable because they are of two young people who have the world on their shoulders as a burden to overcome tough obstacles and at their fingertips to explore without constraint, win the hearts of listeners and he is invited back by Schwab for frequent installments.

It becomes a difficult request for Quinn to accept, because he and Frankie were separated after stealing a watermelon and they hadn’t seen each other in the 30 years that passed. However, he does acquiesce, because radio is beginning to boom, and it’s a good way to make money.

The ways in which the flashbacks (and flash-forwards) are presented are one of the production’s most interesting facets in that they follow radio style. Three of the actors step forward and recite various lines from the upcoming scene (and sometimes they are the most sensational, such as Schwab referring to President Hoover as a Bolshevik), as a sort of advertisement to “stay tuned” to what is about to come.
When Quinn steps up to the microphone, he is alone in a room with the instrument, yet his memories are vivid as he streams his stories across the airwaves. Listeners at home may gather around their radio, but their imaginations run wild as they visualize what Quinn is telling them. Both of these scenarios reflect the dichotomy of a calm, intimate setting with chaotic scene depictions. The duality of these feelings were well represented through the set and lighting design.

The late-1800s portrayals of Davey and Frankie traversing the country have the space of the entire stage, in contrast to the “present” (1923) scenes which are only confined to one room. Here we can imagine that they are in a place surrounded by fields, cliffs and train tracks. A wall of wooden slats represents the barn where Davey first encounters Frankie. Mild strobe lights signal a moving train that Davey and Frankie jump on and off.

No, grassy fields, cliffs and train tracks were not actually built by anyone on the scenery staff; the actors portraying young Davey and Frankie simply jump around onstage, but physical elements are not needed in this manifestation of someone’s memory. The lighting and scenery are not overly complex, but are on-point with the homespun atmosphere that the play has created.

Because four actors portrayed multiple characters, use of imagination is required here as well, as characters were both young and old grow younger or older in the middle of a scene. While some transitions between times or characters would take place as the theater lights are completely lowered; at other times, an adult character may shed some of their more “mature” clothing and step right into their “teenage garb,” whether a vest or a floral skirt (as the adult Frankie did for one of her reminiscences).

While all of the actors transitioned seamlessly between characters, perhaps the most impressive was Troxler, who was responsible for young, naïve Davey, business-minded and slightly hucksterish Schwab, and the desperately clingy asthmatic fiancé of the adult Frankie, James. Physically, Troxler may have only had to change a vest or a hat to represent the characters, but he adopted three of the play’s most distinct personalities without falter.

As referenced above, Frankie does return as an adult after Schwab managed to track her down. The reunion with Quinn is painful for both of them; they have both not stopped thinking about each other (even though Frankie had become engaged), but they are also angry that they were separated. Yet, they manage to forgive each other and try once again to rekindle their old adventurous spirit (they get caught trying to steal chickens from the mayor’s porch).

I received the plot point of Frankie’s return with a bit of conflict. Sentimentally, I wanted the two back together because they were so close as teenagers. From a ratings perspective, listeners wanted the two together as well. Because Quinn’s stories had grown so much in popularity, when Frankie came to town, everyone could identify her as being “Frankie the Blind Girl,” and it was almost inevitable that the two would once again cross paths.

On the other hand, Frankie’s presence as an adult almost ruins the air of mystery that Quinn’s stories had. Even Quinn himself had begun to have doubts as to whether their teenage saga had indeed been real. Frankie had been so fond of telling him “when we’re together, we’re invisible,” and having them together only as teenagers seemed to make memories all the more important.

Alas, Frankie does seem to be the connection between the two poles in the “radio biz” that Schwab and Quinn had represented. While Schwab and his entrepreneur ilk are more than willing to sell falsehoods (through fake medical remedies or fabricating an advice show from “Miss Emily”) to make a buck and keep people entertained, Quinn showed that some entertainers do come from a real place, making what they do all the more meaningful to their audiences.

“Prairie” was directed by Gretchen Lynne Wingerter.

'How Do You Know' doesn't seem to know itself

The film “How do you Know” stars Reese Witherspoon as a career softball player named Lisa, who, at age 31, was just cut from the all-American team. The explanation for her dismissal is that she is a tad slower than her fellow team hopefuls.

Lisa reels from being cut, and all she seems to do for the remainder of the film is take the “slow” insinuation to heart: she loses her focus and wanders around in an unshakeable fog that make many of her actions inexplicable.

Her first downfall is in starting a relationship with Matty (Owen Wilson), a baseball player for the Washington Nationals who is the epitome of many of the womanizing narcissists that we see in many pro athletes. Matty is too full of himself to respect Lisa, but she doesn’t care: he’s good for the purely physical relationship and she doesn’t want to bog herself down in a commitment.
That decision does not seem so out-there at first, since her commitment to the softball team had ended badly. She was just looking to take her mind off her troubles.

Almost as proof that she and Matty were just “friends with benefits,” Lisa agrees to go on a lunch date with George (Paul Rudd), who was set up with her through a mutual friend. George is also having a spell of bad professional luck. He recently received a document informing him that he was being indicted by the federal government for a wrong-doing at work.

So, the two sit in a fancy restaurant, each seemingly aware of the other’s job-related woes as one would be aware of a big elephant in the room; but, of course, they don’t address it. In fact, when George starts nervously rambling to Lisa at the restaurant because he is nervous about his feelings toward her or is just generally confused about the state of his life now that he is being indicted (or a combination of the two), she tells him to be quiet. She wants the two to sit in silence so she can clear her head.

The “elephant in the room” idiom (not addressing or ignoring obvious, looming truths) is, ironically, the best picture of how this film plays out. Many of the problems between the characters are never truly explained or thought through. Why does Lisa, who could possibly commiserate her woes with George, tell him to be quiet? If she doesn’t want to discuss her problems, she should have just stuck with Matty and not even bothered with George.

As for George, a federal case is made out of the fact that he is the target of…a federal case (investigation details are so bad that his secretary tells him she will be fired if she lets anything slip to him). However, the charge is never specified. Wikipedia’s explanation: he is “the target of a criminal investigation for criminal malfeasance.” Okay, then. It’s awfully lofty for a guy who seems like he tries to do well, but let a bad thing trip him up.

Perhaps Lisa’s telling George to be quiet was her way to try to regain power after her (and his) professional losses; a way to become more centered and move forward. But this is the only action in the film in which this could be an adequate description.

When the two meet back in his apartment in later days to talk, George pours his heart out about his feelings about life, people, his job woes, whatever, and all Lisa can respond with is “Huh?” or some other noise of incomprehension. Any moment between the two is lost. Lisa becomes so cloying that you want to yell, “snap out of it” to her mid-way through the film.

Lisa gains no more stability with Matty, with whom she decides to move in. Strange, again, as Matty has barely been able to distinguish her from one of his many other one-night stands (the man has closets full of women’s clothing so his conquests don’t have to leave his apartment to do the “walk of shame” with last night’s ensemble, for crying out loud). Now they love each other? It doesn’t take long for Lisa to realize that, gee, Matty is a self-absorbed jerk and she’s better off without him. So she leaves with her suitcases in hand and goes back to her one-sided chats with George (who, in another fuzzy plot point, may or may not be her new love interest).

“How do you Know” is as vague and frustrating as the question posed in the title (How do we know… what?) It is even more of an anomaly considering the leads. Witherspoon has found her niche in playing cute, bubbly girls who have to face obstacles and prove that they are tough cookies (who says cute girls are too weak to face their problems?) Simply think back to “Legally Blonde” where she played a ditzy sorority girl who managed to graduate Harvard Law School, or in her dramatic turn in “Walk the Line” as June Carter Cash, a woman who supported her country singer husband, but refused to be overshadowed by his fame. After considering those roles, it is hard to see why she chose Lisa, a woman who is completely unsympathetic in her actions and does not resolve to adequately solve her character’s problems by the end of the film.

As for Rudd, he comes close to playing his lovable average-Joe type (the man who isn’t the classic stud, but still manages to woo the ladies based on his charm and general cuteness), but considering George seems to have no more grasp on what a more positive direction for his life should be by the film’s end, he doesn’t quite endear as much as he should.

Finally, in the wasted talent category, we come to Jack Nicholson. Yes, THE Jack Nicholson is in this film as George’s executive father and boss. Normally, Nicholson has enough presence and clout to be mentioned much earlier in a review, but here he has been relegated bumbling old curmudgeon who seems to thrown his hands up at his son’s misfortune as if to say “what can I do?” He is not the rabble-rousing revolutionary we know from the likes of “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and other legendary works in the actor’s repertoire.

Alas, Witherspoon, Rudd and Nicholson can’t always play the same parts (but all three do niche performances so well). And perhaps these three wanted to try something different when they chose this script, but that “something” is not clear.

Overall, the film is flighty in every aspect of its development. Characters’ problems were brought up, but scarcely fleshed out, which is inexcusable for a nearly two-hour long film. It leaves more questions than answers, certainly what a film that seems to be billed as a light-hearted romantic comedy should never do.

Lyco theater gives memorable performance of 'Brighton Beach'

Lycoming College theatre director Grechen Lynne Wingerter said that her favorite part of putting a play together is when the actors first read through their lines; it is a time when she can “finally hear the characters in the actors’ voices.”

And, while watching “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” the second of Lycoming’s main stage theatre productions of the year, those voices come out loud and clear, especially from the play’s central character, 15-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome, played with fantastic energy by freshman Taylor Anspach, as he narrates the goings-on of his family in their cramped home in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Set in 1937, “Memoirs” is the first of playwright Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical play trilogy which features the many stages of Eugene’s coming-of-age (“Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound” follow).

Eugene keeps company with his headstrong mother, Kate (Alyssa Allen) who is always hot on his heels, reprimanding him for misbehaving; his older brother, Stanley (Chase Mack), age 18, whose story finds him trying to help out his family while discovering the adult perspective of right and wrong (and who, despite his difficult transition, receives fierce admiration from Eugene); his aunt Blanche (Molly Collier) who came to live with them upon the passing of her husband; Blanche’s two daughters, the youngest (and sometimes sickly) Laurie (Elle Ingarra) and the trying-desperately-to-be-independent teenager, Nora (Hannah Eyler); and finally the beleaguered father, Jack (Jesse Shade) who tries to keep the family together and be a father figure for both his sons and his nieces.

While comedy/dramas about families are about a dime a dozen in films and on television, there is something inherently heartfelt about the Jerome saga because they prove that a family’s love for one another is steadfast, no matter what curve balls life throws them.

The hardships that befall the Jeromes are many. Father Jack is unable to keep his second job selling noisemakers because the party supply store he works for went out of business. Stanley, whom the family depends on as a second source of income, is nearly fired as he tried to stand up to his boss (albeit immaturely—he swept dirt onto the boss’s shoes) who had been treating a co-worker badly following a workplace accident. Blanche, who all along had been trying to build herself as a strong, capable single mother following her husband’s death, is beginning to lose herself again after she fears Nora, who wishes to leave home (and high school) to pursue a career on Broadway, will be gone someday for good. Finally, Kate, who seems to have shouldered much of the family’s responsibilities to keep themselves together, is letting her bottled-up frustrations from trying to keep her rambunctious sons in line, being a good second mother to her nieces, and trying to support her sister’s re-emergence as an independent woman, get the best of her by frequently by bursting angrily at any little (or big) mishap her family seems to encounter.

Despite these many tribulations, there are moments of hilarity as well. Mostly, it is from Eugene, who acts like a teenage boy to a T. While it is obvious by his under-the-breath grumblings that he doesn’t like helping his mother with housework or eating the liver she prepares for dinner, it is equally clear that he has a strong admiration for baseball and girls. Whether he is turning a package of food into a makeshift baseball, catching and throwing it to himself while he receives cheers from an imaginary crowd, or not-so-discreetly dropping his dinner napkin under the table so he can look up Nora’s skirt, Eugene comically builds upon these interests throughout the story.

Eugene is perhaps the biggest reason why the audience automatically wants to root for the Jeromes to stay tightly knit. Their story is told through his eyes, and they are certainly those of a young teenager with the world at his fingertips; he holds many hopes and aspirations of being a writer or a professional baseball player. And he can only prosper by having his family, the ones who encourage him to dream, right by his side.

What is also great about the way Simon wrote “Memoirs” is that while Eugene connects with the audience in his narrative asides, the family’s inner-workings and dealings are made between themselves; the audience is merely privy to watching their highs and lows, their tears and laughter. But the fact that they are able to come out happily in the end shows that they grew not only individuals but as a group, which makes the conclusion to this story all the more sweet.

While researching a prior article on the theatre department, Wingerter and many of the student actors agreed that working on a Lycoming College theatre production was like being together with family; all become very close and supportive of one another. Seeing this demonstrated so well on stage makes “Brighton Beach Memoirs” an altogether perfect choice for the College to produce.

“Brighton Beach Memoirs” will continue to run Nov. 18-20, beginning at 8 p.m. in the Mary L. Welch Theatre. For more information contact the box office at 570-321-4048 or visit www.lycoming.edu/theatre/tickets.html.