Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310113
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT RIVENBARK SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"Coastal Disturbances" is a contemporary love story set on a beach in Massachusetts where Holly Dancer, an eccentric young New York photographer, has come to recover from a disastrous love affair with Andre Sor, owner of a gallery where she hoped to show her work.
What Holly doesn't know is that she's about to entangle herself in another relationship with Leo Hart, the beach lifeguard.
Leo, on the rebound from a bad relationship, quickly falls for Holly. Holly plays coy, trying to sort out her feelings about Andre, but soon falls for Leo.
Their steamy embraces on the beach are interrupted frequently by the supporting characters, who include a 7-year-old named Miranda, her 8-year-old friend Winston, Miranda's mother Faith, Winston's mother Ariel, and Hamilton and M.J. Adams, an older couple.
Counterpointing Holly's youthful struggles to define herself as an artist with the frustrations of the elderly M.J. Adams, who sacrificed her artistic ambitions to raise nine children, "illustrates the changing nature of male-female relationships," Director David Johnson said.
Near the end of the play, Andre shows up and throws Holly back into the emotional turmoil she was beginning to recover from through Leo's influence.
The play's conclusion leaves many issues unresolved.
"Tina Howe is primarily a portraitist of behavior," Johnson said. "Coastal Disturbances" features Kathy Pope as Holly, Howard Simpson as Leo, and Adam Breske, Elizabeth Green, Sioux Madden, Deborah Hunter, Vince Randall, Carole Barnes and Rick Knack in supporting roles.
Set design and lighting are by Randy Ward, costumes by Anisha Evans.
"Eleemosynary," an experimental play, explores the relationships between three generations of women in the Wesbrook family, which resides in a nebulous locale somewhere "in the East."
What really matters are the universal themes of how one generation affects those that follow it, and vice versa.
Dorothea, the matriarch of the Wesbrook clan, begins a quest "to be extraordinary" after meeting a spiritualist. Dorothea accuses the spiritualist of using the supernatural as an escape from reality.
The spiritualist tells her "Look around you. Don't you just itch to escape? The best thing about it is, no one holds an eccentric responsible."
Dorothea decides that eccentricity will be her ticket to freedom from the binding obligations of womanhood. She plunges into experiments in levitation, mind reading, faith healing, UFO investigation - all in an effort to soar above mediocrity in pursuit of the impossible, the poetic, the ideal.
She films her daughter Artie making the first flight using home-made wings. Artie runs as far away from mother as possible, but when her daughter Echo comes along, she passes the love of eccentricity on to her.
Echo develops a mania for spelling and becomes the teen champion of the spelling bee, winning the grand prize with "Eleemosynary," which means "of or pertaining to alms; charitable."
The play uses a fluid theatrical technique that has the characters leap around in time from childhood to old age. The action takes place on stage decorated only with several black platforms.
Director Roger Bedard stressed that "Eleemosynary" is not a women's play.
"It's obviously concerned with women's issues, but there's a universality here. It's about relationships, generations, expectations."
"Eleemosynary" features Nancy Kirakofe, Cindy Babson and Susan Sidman as Dorothea, Artie and Echo. Randy Ward designed the set and lighting.
"Eleemosynary" will be performed at Playhouse 460 on June 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, and 24 at 8 p.m. "Coastal Disturbances" will be performed June 21, 22, 28, 29, and July 1 at 8 p.m.
All tickets are $3 and available only at the Playhouse 460 box office, which opens at 7 p.m. on performance nights. For more information, call 231-5200 or 231-5335 in Blacksburg.
by CNB