
DATE: Thursday, July 10, 1997               TAG: 9707100106

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ADAM BERNSTEIN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   81 lines

A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO THE TURBULENT 1940S

WITHIN A two-hour show, the new play from Commonwealth Musical Stage, ``I'll Be Seeing You,'' aims to encapsulate arguably the most dramatic decade in U.S. history, the 1940s.

How to capture the romance, passion and conflict of a decade on stage? The theater's top man and the show's director, Jeff Meredith, used more than 100 slides and 52 big-band tunes sung by a cast of 14 to encompass the eruptive grandeur of the era.

``This is not a history lesson,'' said Meredith, 50, a keen lover of classic Broadway musicals. ``First and foremost, it's entertainment. I didn't get any grants for writing a history lesson here. What's important to me . . . is an accurate overview.''

Meredith conceived the show more than a year ago while thumbing through old family photo albums. He came to appreciate a sepia-toned commonality of the era.

He fell under that old black magic called nostalgia.

To re-enact his view of the 1940s,

Meredith designed a show that used a series of actors who, through singing various popular songs, portray how the American character changed because of World War II.

The roles include four teen-agers, young marrieds and three blacks. Each set of characters evolves as the war progresses.

One of the bookish students goes overseas, and when he returns, he takes advantage of the G.I. Bill, intending to be a businessman.

The young wife finds she is pregnant on the evening that her husband must tramp overseas to fight.

And while the black characters are segregated at the ``pre-war'' start of the show, the black women interact with the white women when the men leave, demonstrating the race-barrier-lowering solidarity of war-factory work.

``I'll Be Seeing You'' uses the songs to advance the plot, but for convenience, Meredith, on occasion, ignores the actual year a song became popular.

For example, the evening - the decade, as the play would have it - ends with ``Sing, Sing, Sing,'' a rousing big-band favorite that achieved fame when Benny Goodman played it at Carnegie Hall. Only Goodman played that concert, a pivotal moment in bringing jazz into the mainstream, in 1938.

Much of the show, as Meredith admits, is structured on the philosophy that it may not be 100 percent true to life, but ``dramatically it serves the moment.''

That's hardly a crime in theater, especially when the show at hand is subtitled ``A Nostalgic Musical Journey Through the 1940s.''

Besides the characters on stage singing and dancing and the old family photos projected on the screens, Meredith uses historic Life magazine photographs capturing poignant moments.

Resurfacing from the crypt are also old front pages from The Virginian-Pilot and the now-defunct Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch as well as military recruitment posters and milestone radio broadcasts, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's announcement about the Pearl Harbor attack.

``We have this incredible photo, I don't know who took it, of a G.I. at the end of the war,'' Meredith said. ``It's taken from the hip down. At his feet is his duffle bag. His wife is by his side. Wrapped around one of his legs is a 2-year-old child.''

While that slide is projected, the song ``It's Been a Long, Long Time'' plays. A tune, Meredith added, ``that says it all.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Vicki Cronis/The Virginian-Pilot

Kristen O'Donnell and Jeff Warner celebrate...

Photo

L. TODD SPENCER

From left, Shirley Barnes, Kristen O'Donnell and Jeff Warner are

among the dancers who perform in the Commonwealth Musical Stage's

production ``I'll Be Seeing You.''

Graphic

WANT TO GO

What: ``I'll Be Seeing You,'' presented by Commonwealth Musical

Stage

Where: Virginia Beach Pavilion Theatre

When: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 6 p.m. Sunday