377 days - Blog #68 Anne of Green Gables, the play and then some

I can’t deny it is difficult to have an open mind when going to see a show about a book I have loved for so many years.  Add to it, I was in two different stage adaptations of this book (albeit both almost twenty years/half a lifetime ago).  AND… in the pursuit of doing some publicity for this show, I stumbled upon a fascinating tidbit or five about the author.  So preconceived notions are difficult to cast aside.

I am making that disclaimer.  I will expand on the middle statement by saying I really do not like this adaptation of Anne of Green Gables.  I was in a production of the play in 1996.  I played Diana’s mother.  I thought I forgot all about it… but sure enough as the scenes played out tonight, I found my brain remembering quite a few of my lines and a vague comprehension of their staging.   

The script is abstract.  Maybe that was a trend when it was written.  Filling in the blanks between scenes with a deadpan through the fourth wall to narrate what happened that can’t be played out on the stage.  Indeed… a lot of the play is expository conversation about things that happened offstage.  It is a common occurrence in adaptations of novels for theater.  But in this one, I grow weary of it.  That and interrupting every other scene with a “As Mrs. Lynde says…”

Bleh.

Now I need to say that.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the merit of tonight’s performance and everything to do with my opinion.  Because I was in another adaptation on the Barre Players stage 21 years ago.  It was a youth production.  It was the first ‘official’ production on that stage.  Technically the first play was a fundraiser run of Lend Me a Tenor.  But, it was special because we were one of the very first casts to turn that space from an abandoned church into a theater.

It was also special because that was when I started to think I actually had an ability to act.  I went through high school always getting bit parts and scenery placements.  I got my first lead in the musical right before I graduated, which elevated my confidence.  But I think that confidence had been elevated from being welcomed into the Barre Players family the Christmas before (I’ll write about that later).  I was the oldest cast member in that Anne of Green Gables.  I played Marilla – because I had the height and probably the most matronly look of all the other teenagers.  I did have to put silver hairspray in every night – something I find highly amusing now.

Anyway, it was a much better script.  Or so I tell myself from memory.  I haven’t actually gone upstairs to pull my tattered and highlighted copy off the shelf to verify my opinion.  BUT it didn’t rely on silly stage devices to explain the bits it cut out.  And it cut out a lot less.  Namely… something I thought to myself as we edged towards the end of Act Two tonight and looked in the program to remember if she was a character… the deletion of cranky Aunt Josephine.  To be fair, I understand the need for casting economy.  But I think she is a pretty important part of Anne’s life.

So I liked that script better.  I liked the whole production better.  The abstract one had the one bonus in that it introduced me to Jane Perron, who would within a year’s time come to work with us at Higgins Armory and become our earth mother.  I have to heave a sigh as I write this and fondly remember Jane and her gift of a frog prince to me…

But, the other show… I actually got a little teary tonight as I sat in the middle of house right and saw an actor start to rock in a chair, remembering Doug Ingalls sitting on stage left in a rocking chair and talking to me about how I was about to go off to college to become a teacher.  Funny how he ended up becoming a teacher and I didn’t.  I miss him, too.  I think of him a lot as I return to Barre.  I think he was pretty close to my age now back then… and he had come back after being away… after being a teenager with that group.  He did some great things for Barre.  He put a lot of much needed energy back into that theater.

So I digress.  But not really.  This show, this script, this book is so loaded with emotion and sentiment for me.  It was difficult to sit and watch the show with an open mind.

And that’s okay.  We do that.  That is part of what makes art real.

It also – if I let it – lends itself to a layer of appreciation.  A whole other generation – a generation that was not even born when I was in either one of those shows – brought this story to life tonight.  It was a show that was as much about the youth as it was about the grownups of the theater community.  And there is something still so new and so raw about their performing.  Not polished, no.  But full of nervous energy and free from the snobbery or jadedness that comes with years of doing theater.  They got to put their playacting on the stage… and I hope for those young girls it was a chance as it was for me to be a little closer to our beloved Anne Shirley.

But I’m not going to give it all to the kids.  My favorite performances were Marilla and Matthew.  They were the super serious or super quiet/wry amusement contrast to the youthful energy.  The two played well off of one another and were completely comfortable in their movements and dialogue.  I thought about how I played Marilla at age 18 and probably had no idea – no idea – what it was to be a woman of a certain age without a husband, set in a certain routine of how things have to be done… responsibly.  I imagine I am much closer to Marilla’s age now.  Well, duh.   I suspect she was in her 50’s, if not 40’s.  That would be the age of an old spinster a hundred years ago.  Sobering thought.  But not so sobering, I didn’t see the beautiful frailty of the performance on the stage tonight.

And one more thing… before this reflection gets too long, I liked the costumes.  They had to change quickly to show that flow of time passing.  But they had a lot of nice details and color to flesh out the minimalist stage.

There is a part of me that would like to direct an adaptation someday.  To give some breath of life to my idea of Anne… but I also know this little theater has done some stage version of Anne Shirley THREE times in the last twenty years.  I think we can wait another twenty.