For the thousands who adored “Plainsong,” the Denver Center Theatre Company’s folksy adaptation of Kent Haruf’s best-selling novel about life on the 1980s Colorado plains, its new companion piece will wrap them like a warm winter blanket.
***1/2 rural redux
And those who were driven batty by all the rapidly shifting scenery and the over-reliance on lyrical direct-address narration as a substitute for more substantive interaction and dialogue will be frustrated anew.
But they will be in the vast minority. “Plainsong” and its campfire storytelling style made an enormous emotional connection with Denver audiences last year. And the both nostalgic and devastating next chapter, “Eventide,” will only deepen those bonds.
While “Plainsong” celebrated the resilience of the mutating American family, “Eventide” becomes a sweet celebration of finding first love . . . in your 70s. While many characters have come and gone, the emotional center of fictional Holt — and “Eventide” — remains the McPheron brothers, isolated old cattle ranchers who take in a pregnant teen.
They’re tough old geezers, but have no female experience, which has left them with a childlike sense of decency. But the tide never stays even, as they say, and tragedy will force one brother to start his life over again, alone.
In life, though (and in theater), from tragedy often springs the opportunity of a lifetime. Not just for rancher Raymond McPheron, but also for actor Mike Hartman, who creates a character of such vulnerability and straightforward decency, he’ll have audience members members channeling the collective American grandfather — whether he ever existed or not.
Into his life comes Rose, a widowed social worker with whom love blooms. The audience need not know the actress is Hartman’s real wife (Lauren Klein) to appreciate the palpable bond they forge on stage — but it makes it all the sweeter if you do.
“Eventide” again focuses on nontraditional families. DJ, a motherless boy of 11, is being raised by an ailing, acidic grandpa. That’s the most aching undercurrent of this whole “Plainsong” saga: Dislocated young people whose survival depends on the kindness — and intervention — of a greater community.
Sixty years ago, it was the orphaned McPhersons. In “Plainsong,” it was pregnant teen Victoria. Now, it’s young DJ (Augustus Lane Filholm).
Which takes us to a disturbing and borderline offensive subplot: that of the Wallace family, headed by a married couple (David Ivers and Leslie O’Carroll) who are not just simple and ignorant, they are utterly incapable of raising children. One already has been removed, and the two youngest are now being beaten by a venal uncle (William Zielinski). It’s worth asking why, of this entire community, adaptor Eric Schmiedl chose to make the Wallaces such a focus when they foster such disturbing stereotypes about the poor and uneducated.
Then again, it affords the tour-de-force role of O’Carroll’s two decades with the theater company. Her stringy, dirty hair and thrift- store clothes; her tortured, vacant stare; why, her utter, indignant stupidity, all make for a haunting personification of our failed educational system. But she loves her kids, and when she collapses in a courtroom, it’s just horrible to watch.
It’s odd how “Eventide” often feels simplistic, sentimental, even a bit corny, when it is so often anything but. At the end of the day, “Eventide” accomplishes to far greater effect what so few new plays achieve: A real catharsis.
That there are new actors in old roles, and old actors in new ones, may take “Plainsong” audiences some getting used to. The new actress playing Victoria, for example, doesn’t really seem to embody her character’s troubled past.
Still, the “Plainsong” saga is on its way to becoming the DCTC’s signature creation under director Kent Thompson. New work is often derided for relying on pre-existing source material. But when it’s adapted with such intelligence and sincerity, there’s no shame in giving people what they want.
And have no doubt: This is what this audience wants. “Eventide” is for 60-year-olds what “Legally Blonde” is for tweens. And 60-year-olds make for a far more reliable audience.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Eventide”
Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Stage Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets.Adapated by Eric Schmiedl from the novel by Kent Haruf. Through Feb. 27. 2 hours, 45 minutes. 6:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; and 1:30 p.m. Sundays. $18-$51. 303-893-4100 (800-641-1222 outside Denver), at all King Soopers stores or