Theater Review: APT Wins Again With 'Forest'
Play Opens At Spring Green Theater
Updated: 3:12 pm CDT June 27, 2010
By William R. Wineke
Special to Channel 3000SPRING GREEN, Wis. -- First, just a personal note: I’ve seen actress Sarah Day in almost every American Players Theatre role she has played during at least the last 20 years. Her performance in the current production of Lillian Hellman’s “Another Part of the Forest” is, to my mind, the single best role she’s ever played.The play is set in Alabama in the years following the Civil War. It features two families, the Hubbards, who became rich because the patriarch, Marcus, was a blockade runner who charged his fellow countrymen through their noses for small bags of salt, and the Bagtrys, who lost their fortune through Quixotic participation in the war.Day. plays the role of Lavinia Hubbard, Marcus’s brow-beaten and somewhat batty wife, whose reason for living is to leave home and found a school for colored children so she can atone for her sins.We’re used to seeing Day play comic roles but in “Another Part of the Forest” she absolutely nails Lavinia’s personality, letting the character’s overt craziness serve as only a thin façade over the inherent decency and fragile dignity that lies beneath.Nor was Day’s the only superior performance in this moving production.Marcus Truschinski’s portrayal of Ben Hubbard, son and replica of Marcus – his goal is to cheat his father out of the family wealth, a goal actually shared by siblings Regina, played by Tiffany Scott, and Oscar, played by Eric Parks – is chilling.The other family is less evil, but not less clueless.David Daniel plays John Bagtry, a Civil War veteran whose goal is to find a new battle – he’s hoping for Brazil – in order to fight for the Southern Way of life. His sister, Birdie, is willing to risk losing the family plantation to the Hubbards in order to finance his Brazil fantasy.Tracy Michelle Arnold, as Oscar Hubbard’s prostitute-love object, is hilarious as she attends a family musicale, gets tremendously drunk, and, generally provides an image of authentic whoredom triumphing over pseudo-middle-class respectability.All in all, it was another great APT performance, marred not by any of the acting but of the severe thunderstorm that seemed destined to wash away the opening-night production. As the play reached its 11 p.m. ending, lightning flashed overhead and thunder almost drowned the dialogue. But the first raindrops didn’t fall until patrons were walking to the parking lot and most, but not all, managed to get in their cars before the deluge hit.These reviews are just one person’s observations about “Another Part of the Forest.” If you’ve seen the play and would be willing to share your opinions with Channel 3000 readers, please post your own review in the commentary box below.
Special to Channel 3000SPRING GREEN, Wis. -- First, just a personal note: I’ve seen actress Sarah Day in almost every American Players Theatre role she has played during at least the last 20 years. Her performance in the current production of Lillian Hellman’s “Another Part of the Forest” is, to my mind, the single best role she’s ever played.The play is set in Alabama in the years following the Civil War. It features two families, the Hubbards, who became rich because the patriarch, Marcus, was a blockade runner who charged his fellow countrymen through their noses for small bags of salt, and the Bagtrys, who lost their fortune through Quixotic participation in the war.Day. plays the role of Lavinia Hubbard, Marcus’s brow-beaten and somewhat batty wife, whose reason for living is to leave home and found a school for colored children so she can atone for her sins.We’re used to seeing Day play comic roles but in “Another Part of the Forest” she absolutely nails Lavinia’s personality, letting the character’s overt craziness serve as only a thin façade over the inherent decency and fragile dignity that lies beneath.Nor was Day’s the only superior performance in this moving production.Marcus Truschinski’s portrayal of Ben Hubbard, son and replica of Marcus – his goal is to cheat his father out of the family wealth, a goal actually shared by siblings Regina, played by Tiffany Scott, and Oscar, played by Eric Parks – is chilling.The other family is less evil, but not less clueless.David Daniel plays John Bagtry, a Civil War veteran whose goal is to find a new battle – he’s hoping for Brazil – in order to fight for the Southern Way of life. His sister, Birdie, is willing to risk losing the family plantation to the Hubbards in order to finance his Brazil fantasy.Tracy Michelle Arnold, as Oscar Hubbard’s prostitute-love object, is hilarious as she attends a family musicale, gets tremendously drunk, and, generally provides an image of authentic whoredom triumphing over pseudo-middle-class respectability.All in all, it was another great APT performance, marred not by any of the acting but of the severe thunderstorm that seemed destined to wash away the opening-night production. As the play reached its 11 p.m. ending, lightning flashed overhead and thunder almost drowned the dialogue. But the first raindrops didn’t fall until patrons were walking to the parking lot and most, but not all, managed to get in their cars before the deluge hit.These reviews are just one person’s observations about “Another Part of the Forest.” If you’ve seen the play and would be willing to share your opinions with Channel 3000 readers, please post your own review in the commentary box below.
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