Powerful drama directed by Phyllis Silverman earned standing ovations and presages what may be an even higher level of dramatic quality
The stage at The Bare Stage, a platform for stunning drama.
Patrick O’Heffernan, English Editor.- The audience at last Saturday’s production of These Shining Lives at the Bare Stage Theater in Riberas sat in stunned silence for a few seconds when the play ended and then gave it a standing ovation. The production, which told the story of the “radium girls” who painted watch faces with radium for a company that hid the effects of “miracle chemical” on their health even as they wasted away and filed suits and labor actions that changed worker safety law in the US, was that powerful.
Although These Shining Lives was a “readers theater” in which the actors sit on stools onstage and read from scripts, it was as riveting as a fully staged play. The delivery of the lines, the actors, assumption of the characters, and the careful pacing and direction produced a drama with the impact of a fully staged production.
Director Phyllis Silverman worked for two years on the play, since the last production at the Bare Stage in 2020 before it was closed by Covid. During that time she assembled a cast she recruited reflected the outstanding talent in Lakeside, paired them for a chemistry that seems impossible for a staged reading but which was palpable – especially between Frank Lynch and Linda Goman as a loving husband and wife – and pulled emotions from them that literally filled the open-air theater.
That chemistry between the actors was a throughline in the relationships among the other radium girls – Darlene Sherwood, Louise Ritchie and Giselle Phipps evolved as their characters unfolded their souls and Graham Miller revealed the evil of the corporate soul of the watch factory.
Bare Stage Artistic Director Roseann Wilshere has spectacularly elevated the already good quality of drama at the theater with These Shining Lives, attracting actors and a director and selecting scripts that appeal to the theatrical audience in Lakeside, but push the boundaries and demand more from them than passive consumption.
The upcoming (April 22nd, 23rd & 24th) production of the Norm Foster comedy The Long Weekend, promises to maintain the level attained by These Shining Lives. Wilshere’s judgment in choosing a play by Canada’s most produced playwright, frequently compared to American playwright Neil Simon, not only reflects a continuation of the quality brought to the Bare Stage by These Shining Lives, but is a smart nod to our Canadian neighbors.
Wilshere has assembled a team with solid talent – Kathleen Morris, (last seen in LLT’s production of Silent Sky), Sally Jo Bartlett, Pamela Johnson, Douglas Pinkerton & Ken Yakiwchuk. Tackling a comedy – a very hard medium to work in – after raising Lakeside’s expectations of high quality, will be a challenge. If These Shining Lives is any example, The Bare Stage could just raise the bar again
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