THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701300157
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: THEATER REVIEW
SOURCE: Montague Gammon
LENGTH: 93 lines
The Little Theatre of Virginia Beach infuses its production of ``Bus Stop'' with a gently naive quality that emphasizes the innocence at the core of this play, superficially dominated though the script is by various couplings.
William Inge's story of a promiscuous young singer and her lately virginal cowboy admirer is as much a meditation on loneliness as it is an investigation of pair bonding. It's structured in a familiar format, using forced captivity to throw an unlikely group of characters into inescapable contact.
A Middle Western blizzard strands a handful of cross-country bus passengers in that archetypal American refuge from the inclement, the roadside diner.
The bus deposits at Grace's Diner the self-styled chanteuse Cherie and her lover Bo Decker, who mispronounces her name as ``Cherry'' with delicious and inadvertent irony. Three other wayfarers stagger in from the snowbound bus.
There is Gerald Lyman, an aging alcoholic former college professor, whose yen for very young girls focuses upon teen-age waitress Elma.
There is bus driver Carl, who soon sneaks away for a recreational fling with the middle-aged restaurateur Grace.
There is also Virgil Blessing, employee, sidekick and surrogate parent to Bo. His stoic acceptance of a solitary life, is, one suspects, Inge's commentary on what he saw as the necessarily painful alternative to the equally troublesome and inevitably temporary bliss of romance. Local sheriff Will Masters is apparently unpartnered as well; he pops in and out of the diner as a link to the world outside.
Lesa Azimi grounds her enjoyable characterization of Cherie in the young woman's giddy, almost childlike wonder at the behavior of all these people who are so different from folks she has known before. Despite a history of sexual activity that began in her early teens, she is at heart an emotional innocent who takes gleeful delight in the novelty of mature emotions.
Like a child, Cherie forever wants to be the center of attention, and like a child revels in the spotlight. The manic laugh Azimi gives the character is itself worth the proverbial price of admission.
Scott Rollins brings a clear sense of Bo's good-natured simplicity of heart to that role. He's well cast in the part, looking and sounding like the robust son of the American West that he personifies.
The two lovers provide the most enduring memories of the production with some charming, tender moments as the show nears its conclusion.
While Sandra Holcombe looks more like a high school senior than the freshman or sophomore the lines of waitress Elma seem to indicate, she is on target as a sharp, literate girl who will find a future outside the small community where she has been raised. Her fascination with the learned and very tipsy Gerald is a dominant subplot.
Bentley Anderson sinks his teeth into the flashy role of Gerald and shakes it for all it is worth. When he reels across the stage as a booze-sodden Romeo, reading Shakespeare's balcony scene with Elma, he shows how flamboyance can be grandly portrayed without diluting the character's posturing with the performer's.
Yet Anderson plays Gerald's quieter, more introspective moments with patterns of speech and gesture that are quite familiar to people who have seen him in other roles. Like the similarly experienced and highly competent actress Carin Cowell, who plays Grace, Anderson seems to have been left largely to his own devices by director Shirley Hurd while she concentrated on the younger performers.
Cowell easily makes Grace accessible and real, though the character doesn't give her much chance to exercise her considerable range. The diner's owner is fundamentally amiable, down-to-earth and good-hearted, and that's about as deeply as Inge constructed her.
The author drew Virgil, played by David Applegate, and Will, played by F. Terry Elliott, even more simply than Grace. Both actors are believable, though Applegate looks a little young for the role, and both are easy to watch.
Anderson designed a nicely detailed set, lighted by Jim Mitchell.
This ``Bus Stop'' is a calm, pleasant piece that picks out an emotional warmth from a bleak picture of human interaction as its travelers find warm shelter from the snowstorm. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WHEN & WHERE
WHAT: ``Bus Stop,'' by William Inge
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 15, 3 p.m. Sundays through Feb.
9, and 8 p.m. Feb. 13.
WHERE: Little Theatre of Virginia Beach, 24th Street and Barberton
Drive
TICKETS: 428-9233