Stage West Tackles a Serious Drama About Life and Death

Most community theaters stick with tried and true comedies and musicals with an occasional murder mystery drama thrown in. However, Stage West isn’t afraid to “think outside the box” and produce serious plays with adult language and sometimes controversial subjects. “The Shadow Box” is such a play.

Each season, Stage West chooses at least one serious thought-provoking play for its repertoire. In 2022, it was “All My Sons,” a play about honesty and deception. Last year it was “The Laramie Project” which depicted the outward and inner prejudices that even basically “good” people hold.

If you go to the theatre to laugh and escape from reality, then this is not the show for you. But, if you want to see fine acting that will pull at your heartstrings and you don’t mind a topic that is serious, timely and one that almost everyone can relate to, then you don’t want to miss “The Shadow Box.”

The drama takes place at a hospice facility and focuses on three people who have a terminal illness. It depicts the different ways that the patients and their families deal with the finality of death. The patients are two men and one woman of varying ages.

Brian is a middle-aged man whose lover, Mark, is not coping well with Brian’s impending death and resents the flippant way in which his partner is dealing with his own imminent mortality. Joe is a married man with a teenage son. Joe’s wife, Maggie, refuses to acknowledge that her husband is dying and has kept that fact from their son, Steve. Felicity is an elderly woman with dementia but she has moments of lucidity. Her daughter, Agnes, is a mousy spinster and has always lived under the domineering shadow of her mother.

The play is directed by Lil Barcaski, who has directed more than fifty plays, including dramas and musicals. Her favorites are “Doubt” and “Rabbit Hole.” Although her niche is directing, Lil has acted in a couple of independent films, such as “Monster,” starring Charlize Theron.

“The theme is difficult and often some scenes brought the entire cast and crew to tears. But we are very supportive of one another and that has made this easier to deal with,” Lil states, “Being able to craft the little things, small movements, line inflections−I could do that because of the level of acting put forth from these actors,” she adds.

Lil is already looking toward her next play to direct. “Waiting for Godot” is one that’s on her bucket list. “I have directed that in the past, but it would be fun to bring that to life again. I like working on plays with deep meaning. I am a playwright, myself, and hope to start our playwriting and adult acting workshops up again.”

Robert Grogan portrays Brian and states, “In a way, I’ve been preparing my whole life for this role. I saw this play in 1978 and fell in love with it. The year I graduated from college, one of my professors asked me if I could come back the next year. He wanted me to play Brian then. I couldn’t because I’d already committed to going to Grad School. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to play this role.”

Although Robert has been acting since he was in junior high school and got his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, the role was still somewhat difficult. “The overlapping dialogue and the sheer amount of dialogue were challenging. The good thing is that from the very beginning, I understood the way Brian thinks.” Playing the part of Renfield in last year’s “Dracula, The Musical” is special to Robert because it was his first show at Stage West and he was awarded a HAMI (Stage West’s version of the Tony Awards) for his acting.

Timmy Spence, who plays Joe studied drama under the well-known acting teacher Stella Adler. He acted in New York, Los Angeles, and even Paris. His favorite roles were Biff in “Death of a Salesman” and Cassius in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” His most challenging role was that of Irving Berlin in the play “Coming Back Like a Song” because he in no way resembled the famous composer and he had to practice quite a bit to get Berlin’s accent down. “Berlin was a short Jewish guy with no hair and it was a challenge to look like that. It had a lot of singing and my singing voice is okay. It’s not a great singing voice,” Timmy admits.

For Kristoff Stens who portrays Mark, this role has been his most challenging. “It’s extremely emotionally taxing and there’s no way that you can NOT feel it [the emotion]. While you’re under that emotional stress you have to be thinking about projecting properly, going to the right mark on stage and remembering your lines.”

Besides acting on stage, he’s been in a number of independent films and would like to do more. Kristoff’s favorite role was playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” in a high school production.

Lynda-Dilts Benson is another seasoned actor who found some challenges with her part of Felicity. “I had to really compartmentalize Felicity and the others in this play, so they did not bleed into my daily life,” Lynda remarks. Her three favorite roles in her acting career have covered the entire spectrum−drama, musical and comedy. “The role of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in ‘The Lion in Winter’ allowed me to stretch my acting abilities. She was regal and vulnerable while being the strongest woman in the realm.”

Playing Golde in “Fiddler on the Roof” was fun because she got to act opposite her husband, Dalton, who played the role of Tevye. Frau Blucher in “Young Frankenstein” and Eaddy in the “Four Old Broads” series were just pure fun to Lynda.
Denise Glickler who portrays Felicity’s daughter, Agnes, has been acting almost non-stop since she was twelve. Although she gravitates towards comic roles, one of her favorite portrayals has been Miep Gies in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” She chuckled as she commented, “I was the only Jewish person in the cast and I was playing the only non-Jewish female in the show.”

It’s evident that Denise loves acting from the way she talks about the plays she’s been in. “If I stop acting, I get withdrawal symptoms,” she quips.

Monica Van Nort portrays Joe’s wife, Maggie. Although she’s fairly new to acting, the range and subtlety of emotions that she exhibits as Maggie are that of a seasoned actor and evidence of her acting potential. Monica’s favorite role was the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz” and she would love to play the part again. “I grew up on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and the Wicked Witch is iconic. Plus I’m gifted with that cackle.”

Michelle Root as Beverly and Allexis W. Connery as Steve give outstanding performances in their supporting roles and help give a bigger picture of the relationships among the characters.

As you sit through the play certain lines will ring true to you, such as when Joe says in referring to his terminal illness, “You get scared and then you get p…ed.” Or when Brian says, “Most people spend their entire lives pretending they’re not going to die.”

Just because this is a serious play doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of comic relief. Aside from the sad topic, “The Shadow Box” is not depressing. And if the character arc is the sign of a well-written story, then the play definitely shows the changes that take place in most of the characters.

“The Shadow Box” won the Pulitzer Prize for its playwright, Michael Cristofer, in 1977 and garnered two Tony Awards that same year. The play was even adapted into a television movie, directed by Paul Newman and featuring Joanne Woodward and other well-known actors, such as Christopher Plummer and Valerie Harper.

The skill of the director and the actors enables “The Shadow Box” to rise up from being maudlin and melodramatic and leaves you thinking about your own attitude towards life and death and your relationships with your family and loved ones.

Stage West will only have three performances of the play−Friday, September 6th at 7:30 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, September 7th and 8th at 2:00 p.m. Call 352-683-5113 to purchase tickets or order online at www.stagewestplayhouse.org.