Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 2, 1994 TAG: 9409020048
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The stage adaptation of Stephen Crane's classic novel, ``Red Badge of Courage,'' is written and directed by Randy Strawderman of Richmond. Strawderman, a free-lance director, founded the Studio Theatre of Richmond, which later merged with Theatre Virginia, where Strawderman was associate director before leaving to produce ``Red Badge.''
The musical score is by Richmond-based composers Carlos Chafin and Robbin Thompson (``Sweet Virginia Breeze''). Chafin and Thompson attended Virginia Commonwealth University, as did Strawderman. Thompson has released several albums and performed with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Linda Ronstadt, among others.
Although set during the Civil War, ``Red Badge'' is about the universal war and the universal soldier, Strawderman said. ``It's really about the moral and psychological battle that goes on inside the soldier.''
``Red Badge'' is being produced under the auspices of the Richmond-based Colonel Read Foundation for Courage in the Arts and in conjunction with Virginia Military Institute. The nonprofit foundation, which Strawderman founded and heads, has raised funds for the $380,000 production through grants, investments and donations.
The Lexington premiere will be dedicated to the memory of the late Col. Beverly M. Read, who graduated from VMI and who edited the VMI Alumni Review from 1972-86. He died in 1991 from a brain tumor.
Strawderman, who has been working on the play since 1989, credits Read's vision as the real inspiration behind the production.
Strawderman said it was Read who first suggested bringing the play to Lexington because of the area's historical significance to the Civil War era. The Corps of Cadets fought in the Civil War at the Battle of New Market. Plus, VMI cadets are about the same age as the central characters in Crane's story, he said.
Strawderman named the foundation for Col. Read because of his inspiration and because, ``I saw how courageous he was as he faced death,'' he said.
But because VMI's theater cannot accommodate a Broadway-scale production, the nearby Lenfest Center was chosen for the play's first full staging.
About 15 cadets, along with professional actors, make up the 38-member cast. Included are John E. Van Patten of Staunton, who plays the tattered soldier; Rodney Teal, who plays the singing soldier, representing the universal soldier's conscience; and Mark Eis, an Equity actor from New York who plays the tall soldier, representing The Great Death.
Richmond-based actor Duke Lafoon, who has appeared in films and on television, has the starring role of Henry Fleming. A cadet, David C. daCosta, plays Wilson, Henry's best friend.
``Henry is not a typical hero,'' Strawderman said. ``He romanticizes about war and enlists with his hometown friends. But he runs from his first battle experience and feels like a coward.''
Henry later rejoins another regiment, the Red Brigade, whose members have been through battles and seem somehow changed by the experience.
``Henry becomes envious of their experience and wants his own red badge of courage,'' Strawderman said.
Eventually, he does go into battle and is heroic, but afterward, he has an entirely different idea of what war and courage are all about. ``He comes out of it with a greater sense of self and more compassion,'' Strawderman said.
Crane's rite-of-passage exploration was first published in an 18,000-word newspaper serial in the fall of 1884. The stage premiere is ``in the cusp of the 100th anniversary of the publishing of the `Red Badge of Courage,''' Strawderman said.
While the novel progresses in chronological order, using flashbacks to recount Henry's leaving for war, the play starts at the end of the book with Henry telling his mother (played by Mary Beth Wise of Washington, D.C.) about his battle experiences. As he tells the story, he begins to relive it, and the scenes come alive on stage in non-stop movement around him.
The continual action takes on a seamless quality with the help of an ingenious steel-and-fiberglass set designed by Keven Lock and built by a union scenic shop in Sarasota, Fla.
Strawderman describes the massive but simple set as ``a slab of bronzed, sculpted land that forms a horizon line about seven feet off the floor upstage and rakes into the orchestra pit.'' Soldiers march up over the horizon, descend into the pit, go under the stage floor and come back up again. Lighting is crucial to the effect.
The music, too, has a seamless quality, bleeding in and out of the dialogue with live and recorded instruments and some sound effects. Musical director David Russell conducts an orchestra and synthesizer.
After the play's run in Lexington, Strawderman said he hopes to move it into the national theater arena.
``If the play is successful and goes on to New York, the Col. Read Foundation will give a set percentage of the royalties to VMI for launching the first production,'' Strawderman said.
The two-act play lasts about 21/2 hours and has one intermission.
``Red Badge'' opens tonight at 8 at the Lenfest Center for the Performing Arts at Washington and Lee University, Lexington. $15; $12.50 senior citizens. Play runs Wednesdays-Sundays till Sept. 17. Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. 463-8000.
by CNB