Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 9, 1990 TAG: 9007090056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: BIG STONE GAP LENGTH: Long
It is in its 26th summer season, and some of its cast members have gone through quite a few character incarnations.
Take Rick Horne, who works at a car dealership here. As a youth, he started out in the role of little Bub Tolliver, and a few years later was playing an older version of the character.
In subsequent seasons, he appeared as Willie Thompson, the town drunk who witnesses a murder; Cousin Dave, rival of hero Jack Hale for the affections of June Tolliver; and "Bad Rufe" Tolliver, the villain who renews a feud between the play's two mountain clans.
This year, he is "Devil Judd" Tolliver, patriarch of the Tolliver faction.
Others have grown up with the drama, or are doing so now. Eight-year-old Mark Steven Mears, one of this year's young Bub players, started at age 2 in one of the children's roles. His mother, Holli Mears, has been part of the drama for six years either on stage or behind the scenes. Hobart Crabtree, whose Uncle Billy character provides a narrative continuity for the play, and his family have been involved in the drama for 11 years.
Only Charles "Pee Wee" Lovell has appeared in the show all 26 seasons. A mandolin player, he is one of the musicians in the musical scenes.
The play is based on the popular novel by John Fox Jr. about the coming of Eastern coal-mining developers to the Appalachians and their effects on the mountain culture. It was made into a movie in 1936 with Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney, though it scarcely resembled the book at all.
Adapted by the late Earl Hobson Smith, the outdoor drama is set around the turn of the century, but some of the cultural changes it depicts are still affecting the Southwest Virginia coalfields today. Some cast members whose families have lived here a long time may be descendants of people on whom Fox based his characters.
Some of the actual characters are known. The story's gospel-spouting killer, Red Fox, is based on preacher and moonshiner Doc Taylor, who was hanged for murder at the Wise County courthouse in 1893.
"Bad Rufe" Tolliver is based on Talt Hall, the first man ever hanged there. "Devil Judd" Tolliver is believed to have been drawn from "Devil John" Wright, a mountain gunfighter who was helping Consolidated Coal Co. by getting land options in neighboring Kentucky counties during Fox's time here.
Ramond Burgin, assistant professor of theater here at Mountain Empire Community College, has been directing the play for five years and is also playing "Bad Rufe" this year. The only characters he cannot direct are the jurors picked from the audience at each performance for Rufe's murder trial.
A few times, a jury has come in with the wrong decision for the script and the judge has had to overrule it. Fortunately for Burgin, that has not happened during his tenure.
This year's judge is played by Greg Kallen, assistant commonwealth's attorney in neighboring Dickenson County, who was the prosecuting attorney in the play for two previous years.
Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts Inc., the local association that has produced the drama since 1964, had bought what is now called the June Tolliver House a year earlier, fixed up its rooms in turn-of-the-century style for tours and placed a gift shop in it. Tradition holds that this was the house where the mountain girl on whom Fox based his June Tolliver character stayed when she was brought to school in the Gap.
In the story, it is eastern engineer Jack Hale who meets June while hunting coal seams in the mountains and tries to provide her with educational opportunities. She develops a girlish crush that grows into a real love for Jack but, as her musical talent makes more of the outside world available to her, she finds growing horizons, while Jack absorbs some of the values of the mountain culture.
Much of the play's suspense lies in whether they will grow too far apart culturally to give the audience a happy romantic ending.
Marcia Quesenberry, a college student from Big Stone, is playing heroine June Tolliver for the second season. She and her sister, Kathy, got their start in the drama in children's roles and later in crowd scenes before moving up to bigger roles.
But the first June in 1964 was Barbara Polly, a Lynchburg native and Emory & Henry College graduate who came here as the wife of a local dentist.
Polly played June for the first five seasons. Then she became the play's director, general manager, filled in for various parts, and today is president and board chairman of Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts.
She has also been chairman of the John Fox Jr. Museum for eight years. In 1970, the association bought the house where Fox had lived when he was here, restored and refurbished it and opened it as a museum.
"I love all of it," Polly said of the work. "The tourism is really taking off in this area. People are getting tired of the interstates, and they're looking for the smaller communities."
Another tourism attraction is the Harry W. Meador Jr. Coal Museum, located in the building which served as Fox's library and study and bought in 1972 by Westmoreland Coal Co. to display the region's coal-mining heritage.
Still another is the Southwest Virginia Museum, an 1888 four-story home now operated since 1946 by the Virginia Department of Parks and Recreation and currently undergoing a major renovation.
The job includes a thorough cataloging of artifacts donated to it by the late C. Bascom Slemp, once a 9th District congressman and private secretary to President Calvin Coolidge. Its artifacts include about 5,000 books, 2,000 photos, tools, musical instruments and other artifacts.
"It amazes me how many people have heard of Big Stone Gap, Va.," said Paula Davis, one of the museum staff members. "I've lived here all my life, but it still amazes me."
If Barbara Polly and the other association members have their way, there will be even more to bring visitors here in the years ahead.
Polly, now a real estate broker, envisions construction of an amphitheater where the drama can be performed here on the Mountain Empire Community College campus. It would also be used by the college and the community for programs involving cultural arts, education and the preservation of the mountain heritage.
"It's all in the dream stage right now," she said. "We feel like Big Stone Gap is going to be a special community."
The drama is performed Thursday, Friday and Saturday through Aug. 25 at 8:30 p.m. on an outdoor stage next to the June Tolliver House. Tickets are $6 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and $4 for children, with group rates available. Further information is available by telephoning 523-2060 or 523-1235.
by CNB