Last year the Actors Theater of Orcas Island staged “Brilliant Traces,” the critically acclaimed play by Cindy Lou Johnson, starring Melinda Milligan and Norm Stamper and directed by Doug Bechtel at the Grange.
This proved to be their most popular five-performance production ever, averaging more than 71 people per showing.
“Many of our friends who saw the show suggested that we remount it so they could see it again,” Bechtel said. “Others were sorry they missed it and asked us to repeat it. Since our audiences here on Orcas liked it so much, we decided to redo the show on Orcas and take the show to Seattle as well.”
Norm Stamper plays Henry Harry, a lonely, embittered hermit who lives in a converted barn deep in the remote woods of Alaska. Henry is awakened in the middle of the night by a stranger – Melinda Milligan’s Rosannah DeLuce, who has fled an impending marriage and is, herself, emotionally wounded and distraught.
Together, Rosannah and Henry, in the words of the playwright, “alternately repel and attract each other … In the end, their very isolation proves to be the catalyst that allows them to break through the web of old grief and bitter feelings … and to reach out for the solace and sanctuary that only hard-won understanding, self-awareness and compassion for the plight of others can bestow.”
Frank Rich wrote of “Brilliant Traces” in the New York Times, “Johnson has spun an alternately comic and anguished fable about contemporary men and women who run away from home — whether from parents, children or mates — and she has written it with an imaginative disregard for pedantic reality. [The play deals with] common issues of love and family … with characters, stories and dialogue so fantastic that they could exist only within the enchanted realm of the stage.”
The three performances on Orcas will be Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 14 to Oct. 16. The performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Grange. Tickets are $10 and are available at Darvill’s Book Store, at the door and online at www.orcasactors.com
The Seattle performances of “Brilliant Traces” will be at the Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Avenue on Capitol Hill, Oct. 21-24, Oct. 29-30 and Nov. 5-7. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at www.orcasactors.com and at the door.
Opening Night in Seattle on Oct. 21 will be a fundraiser for the Seattle non-profit New Beginnings, an organization dedicated to providing shelter, advocacy and support for battered women and their children and changing attitudes and social institutions that foster and perpetuate violence.
For additional information, call Doug Bechtel at 317-5601.
