Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 7, 1993 TAG: 9308070110
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Director Jere Lee Hodgin described "Foxfire" as "an intense character study which provides amazing insight into a vanishing era in which honesty, tranquility, quality and self-sufficiency were touchstones."
The story centers on a widow, Annie Nations (played by Ann Pierce), who lives on an Appalachian homestead with the ghost of her dead husband, Hector (played by Edward Seamon). Together, they represent the strengths and weaknesses of a traditional lifestyle they built on the foundations laid by their forebears.
Annie represents the courage to move forward with changing times, however, her initial resistance to let go of old-time traditions is what keeps her charge ahead in perspective. She is continually confronted by real-estate developer Prince Carpenter (played with flair and humor by John E. Sauer), who wants to buy her land and turn it into an exclusive subdivision.
Hector appears on stage as her companion and adviser either as a spirit, visible only to Annie, or in flashbacks. In death, he represents the dying ways of the mountain people, ways that stubbornly reappear from time to time in the Southern folklore and language.
Like the foxfire that glows in the dark in the Southern Appalachian woods, a hardy lichen that feeds on dead, fallen trees, old values and traditions are not so easily extinguished in a forest of new growth. These old ways are written down and preserved in a popular book series titled "Foxfire," upon which the play is based.
Seamon portrays Hector as a stubborn, surly but lovable curmudgeon, somewhat on the order of Archie Bunker. Hector is provincial, often backwards in his way of thinking, but what he says sometimes holds a universal ring of truth.
Pierce portrays Annie with the enduring inner strength and courage women have universally been known to summon when faced with the challenge of keeping their families together during hard times. Annie is struggling to hold onto her land and with it, all the precious family treasures, despite pressure from the real estate agent and her son.
Her son, Dillard (played by Michael Davenport), is the only child of five to come home to the hills in several years. He has returned to persuade his mother to come live with him and her grandchildren in Florida.
Dillard is a rising country-and-western music star who lives mostly on the road with his band, the Stony Lonesome Boys. His nomadic lifestyle is foreign to Annie, who must be coaxed into attending one of his concerts. But his roots are clearly reflected in the poignant lyrics of his songs.
Davenport is an able singer. He portrays Dillard, not as the thankless child his father accuses him of being, but as an introspective sort who has ventured out to view the world, then returned home with a newfound respect for his beginnings.
It is this tender human connection that Dillard cannot sever, the stories, values and experiences that bind a people and keep families together, that is at the universal heart of this play.
Other cast members include Jeanne Boisineau, who plays a neighbor, Holly, and Charles I. Presar, who is the country doctor in a flashback birthing scene.
The play and songs were written by Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn with music composed by Jonathan Holtzman.
Set designer Deborah Jasien has created a detailed and charming semblance of a mountain log cabin atop a Georgia hill for Mill Mountain's main stage.
\ Karen L. Davis, a Roanoke free-lance writer, has reviewed theater for this newspaper since 1985.
by CNB