By Mahonri Stewart
If their production of John Patrick’s The Curious Savage is any indication, the Pleasant Grove Players are an unheralded gem in Utah’s community theatre circuit. With expert directing; a strong, talented group of actors; and sensitive handling of a gorgeous, funny script; this cast and crew have much to be proud of. Seeing The Curious Savage so wonderfully enacted by this talented community group certainly made me want to support future productions of the PG Players.
The Curious Savage is a play I have heard people rave about for years, but which I had never had the chance to see until now. On multiple occurrences, I heard theater friends cite it as one of their favorite plays. It seemed to garner a particularly fervent following among the Hale Centre Theatre regulars and producers. Now I can see why the play inspires such devotion.
The story’s premise starts with a widowed Ethel Savage (played with great grace, intelligence, and wry wit by Lucy Bradford) being placed in a care home (The Cloisters ) for a group of lovable characters with mental illness, psychological trauma, and mental disabilities. The problem is that she has no such disorder, the plan being hatched by her stepchildren to lay claim to the fortune that they believe she is throwing away by producing bad, non-profitable plays and (the more pressing issue) a Foundation that is set up to fulfill “foolish” whims and wishes, and run by a board of common people rather than businessmen and celebrities. No sane person, Ethel’s step-children rationalize, could have all that money and throw it away on such whims and fancies. Fortunately, the staff and psychiatric patients of the home have grown very fond of Ethel and desire to support her in her resistance against her greedy and powerful family, which include a senator, a judge, and a six-time divorced socialite and celebrity.
Premiering in 1950, John Patrick’s script taps into universal truths that are as relevant now as they were over a half century ago. The story reminds me a lot of the classic, black and white Frank Capra film starring Gary Cooper, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. That story, too, had the good-hearted heir to a fortune persecuted and suspected of mental illness for wanting to give his money away to the needy. That central idea behind their persecution, that selfishness is sane, is what the protagonists of both stories so valiantly fight against. Oh, and how such a message is applicable to our current cultural climate!
As to the psychiatric patients in the story, it would have been very easy to play each of the idiosyncratic characters broadly and stereotypically. John Patrick warned about this temptation in his forward to the play: “It is important in The Curious Savage that the gentle inmates of The Cloisters be played with warmth and dignity. Their home is not an asylum nor are these good people lunatics. Any exaggeration of the roles will rob them of charm and humor. The whole point of the play is to contrast them with Mrs. Savage’s children and the insane outside world. To depart from this point of view for the sake of easy laughs will rob the play of its meaning.”
As a father, uncle, and cousin to people with autism of varying severity; having seen mental disability and mental illness in other loved ones, ranging from depression, to bi-polar disorder, to anxiety, to Down’s syndrome, to possible schizophrenia; and having seen signs of, possibly, undiagnosed ADHD or high functioning autism in myself; John Patrick’s point is a very important one to me.
There is no problem, in my mind, of finding the humor in mental illness—like any kind of humor, truth can be told just as well with a laugh as a cry. A lot of what my loved ones with disabilities do and say is legitimately funny. But there is a balance. Much like other plays that deal with mental illness, for example The Boys Next Door, it would be oh-so-easy as an performer or director to allow stereotype and caricatured acting to stifle the nuance and humanity that comes with such conditions. The stigma of mental illness persists in pernicious ways due to such insensitive portrayals.
For example, my wife Anne and I have discussed the wild and excessive portrayals of mental illness in Batman’s rogue’s gallery (and Batman himself) and how it may impact our son’s viewing habits and how he sees his own atypical neuroability. As much as I love Batman, like really love him, and allow my son to watch the cartoons, read certain comics, etc., we make sure that it is balanced with discussion about such portrayals, and how (often irresponsibly) far they stray from reality.
Fortunately, this cast had no such issues with their portrayals. Each of the actors playing the residents of The Cloisters Home used skilled subtext, multiple layers, and sensitive subtlety in their characterization, playing their motivations and tactics with penetrating understanding rather than broad strokes.
Julie Roundy’s portrayal of Mrs. Paddy, who seems to suffer from selective mutism, was extremely effective in her physicalization and vocalization of the character, bringing both gentle humor and pathos to the character.
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Kimberly Raine’s portrayal of the child-like Fairy May, who is also a compulsive liar in constant need of praise and love, was a delight to watch, bringing exuberance and optimism to the character.
Kristen Leigh Metzger effectively plays Florence, who has a doll which she treats as if it were her lost son. Metzger achieves some stirring moments of emotion in the mostly tragic role, punctuated with moments of keen humor.
Richard Dover’s character Hannibal was of particular interest to me, as he showed signs of the autism so prevalent in my family, but of a particularly high functioning variety. In the play, Hannibal is a genius with numbers who can calculate large numbers in his head. Hannibal was a statistician professionally, until he lost his job at the rise of the electronic calculator. He, like some of the other characters, had shown the ability to live in broader society, if they were given the proper support and found the right role. He did not only live in it, but he excelled in his field.
It’s an important insight in the play—how much value do we place in the supposedly (and selfishly) sane and neurotypical, but who are deeply destructive to society (embodied by Ethel Savage’s stepchildren, the senator Titus, the cosmopolitan Lily Belle, and the judge Samuel, played with verve respectively by Jason Evans, Charlie Fuller, and Paul McNiven)? Then, in contrast, how much value do we place in the supposedly insane, but who are often harmless and often have the great potential to contribute?
Another representative in that category is the character of Jeffrey, played by Dallin Bradford. Jeffrey suffers from PTSD and a kind of amnesia, stemming from his time as a soldier in World War II. I won’t spoil his story too much of his story—he could have been an evocative subject of his own play—but he was a standout among standouts. One of my favorite performances of the night, Bradford played Jeffrey with such sensitivity, such tragic detail, and such talent that I wanted to just hug the character and find a way through the mists of his mind so that he could return home. Yet, authentically, Patrick gives us no such easy answers for these characters and their struggles.
Finally, to round out the cast, we have Becca Ingram and Dennis Purdie, playing the staff members of the Cloisters Home, Miss Wilhemina and Dr. Emmet. Becca Ingram proved herself a powerfully capable actress, showing great nuance and discipline in her performance. She also proved that one doesn’t have to be showy to be a great actress, as she incorporated gentle confidence, expert detail, and humane feeling into Miss Wilhemina. Her performance is a class act.
Dennis Purdie also showed a great deal of professional restraint, proving that less is more. His Dr. Emmet did, indeed, seem like many a doctor and quiet professional that I have met. A smaller, but very important character in the play, Purdie provided a sense of realism and steadiness that stood in appropriate contrast to the more colorful personalities of the other characters. That steadiness made his final, impassioned defense of his patients near the end of the play all the more powerful since it was a moment he had earned with previous balance and equilibrium.
The production team—from Jessica Holcombe’s costume and prop design to Kathryn Little’s period appropriate sound and music design to the uncredited set and set dressing—all did well, especially as it was evident that PG Players is a smaller organization with limited resources. But those resources were certainly enough to put on a tight, beautiful play.
This great cast were obviously pulled together with talent and skilled orchestration by the directors Kathryn and Howard Little. In full disclosure, I know Kathryn well, and have worked with her on a couple of my own projects, and she proved then, as she and Howard continue to prove now, that they are consummate professionals. In a small theater in the basement of a small-town library, with limited resources, they took a classic play and a talented cast, and put them to proper use. Brava, Bravo, to both of them, for granting their storied histories as theatre artists and consecrating that talent to the good of their community. And it is evident that their community responds in turn, as the opening night was completely sold out. Whether you live in Pleasant Grove or live miles and miles away from that lovely little city, this play is worth your time and support. I came away from the production deeply impressed, deeply touched, and deeply edified.
The Curious Savage is playing at the Keith Christenson Little Theatre in the basement of the Pleasant Grove Library, 30 East Center Street, Pleasant Grove, UT; (801) 922-4524. The show plays Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, with a Saturday matiness on April 29th at 3:00 pm. Tickets are $10 for adults and $9 for students and seniors over 55. ($1 less for the matinee.) Seating is reserved and tickets may be purchased online at pgplayers.com. The box office will be open for current and future sales on performance nights from 6:45 pm to 7:30 pm. There is a 2 for 1 ticket offer (promo code “TWOFER”) on the opening Friday, April 14, and Saturday, April 15, evening performances. Discounts may not be combined.
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