|
Quirky campers cook up comedy
[Times photos: Lara Cerri]
Take a trip back in time with American Stage’s production of Camping With Henry & Tom. |
By PETER SMITH
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 16, 2002
Take three historical Americans with large egos and lots of eccentricities, throw in the context of their times, simmer with humor, and you've got a recipe for hearty entertainment.
|
 |
ST. PETERSBURG -- A president with a sex scandal and a rich business tycoon convinced that he should be president -- we've run into these people before: to be exact, in 1921.
"The first time I read the play, I knew essentially nothing about the characters," says director Wendy Leigh of her latest project, Camping With Henry & Tom, opening Friday at American Stage. "I was surprised by them all. I laughed out loud. It's hard to ask more of a play than that."
The play's time (1921) and the placement of the major characters (Warren G. Harding, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison) are historically accurate. Harding, Ford and Edison did indeed go camping together in Licking Creek, Md., on July 24, 1921.
Playwright Mark St. Germain has taken liberties with dialogue, as he explains in an author's note: "This play is a fiction suggested by facts . . . documented personal philosophies and the political climate of the time." What we know, he explains, is that "Harding did not want to be president, Ford did, and after many annual expeditions, this was Edison's last camping trip with Ford."
Working at American Stage is a rarity for Leigh. She usually directs at a theater she had a hand in creating.
Leigh has been a staple of Tampa Bay theater for more than 25 years, beginning with the Alice People in 1975, then moving to the Loft, on Fletcher Avenue in Tampa. The pleasantly shabby space she created was the center of new theater in the area. She then moved to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, running the Off Center Theater there.
"I didn't know the history of the play's time, and the characters did things that upset me, particularly Ford. I started out liking the Ford character, and then the kind of man he was is brought out, and I was horrified," she said of the auto titan, a virulent anti-Semite.
Col. Edmund Starling (Ned Averill-Snell, left), Warren G. Harding (Steve Wise) and Henry Ford (Jeff Norton) pose in a scene from Camping With Henry & Tom.
|
American Stage's communications director, Jennifer Silva, explained that the play was chosen to fit in with the theater's theme this year of unsung heroes and uncommon acts of courage. "Harding isn't on most historians' lists of great presidents, but in this play he does something heroic," she said.
Steve Wise plays Harding in the production. "You can't play him like a loser," he explained. "Nobody thinks of himself that way, and even though he didn't want to be president, he has to live up to it occasionally."
A regular at American Stage, Ronald J. Aulgur plays Thomas Edison. "We're not doing imitations," Aulgur said. "First of all, who would know? I did a bit of research, but I am working from my imagination here."
Also in the production are two mainstays of area theater, Jeff Norton and Ned Averill-Snell. Norton worked with Leigh in School of Night, one of the best local comedy groups in the past 20 years. He plays Henry Ford in the production. "Actually, I've worked with Wendy since we started the Alice People, which was 1975. And I know a lot of the ideas Wendy uses when she directs can be traced pretty directly to School of Night. Of course, we had youth and energy on our side.
"Playing Ford is an interesting experience, because you think of it as history, but it wasn't history to the characters; it was life."
Averill-Snell plays the only part in the play that is fictional, Secret Service agent Col. Edmund Starling. "Everybody else is a real person. I got to try funny accents," Averill-Snell said. "My character is the intruder here. The president has sneaked away with Edison and Ford. The problem is his wife believes he is with another woman, which is not entirely unreasonable.
"The president has to be protected from himself mostly, which is impossible."
For Averill-Snell, this play continues a work relationship with Leigh that began at TBPAC's recent production of Yasmina Reza's comedy of bad manners, Art. "Wendy is a wonderful director. Her vision is one of the clearest I've run into. The thing that startled me the most was not how different the plays she chooses to do are, but how different she is for each play. There are sides of her I would have never seen without this play."
Leigh is certain about the inherent appeal of the play. "People care about our pasts in a way they didn't not too long ago," she said. "I directed a play about Zora Neale Hurston a while ago. She was born just outside Maitland, here in Florida. And Edison and Ford both had homes here. I guess my specialty is becoming plays about Florida residents."
* * *
PREVIEW: Camping With Henry & Tom opens Friday and continues through June 9 at American Stage, 211 Third St. S, St. Petersburg. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. (No matinee May 18.) $20-$28; opening night $30. (727) 823-7529.
Back to Weekend
© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
|
