Feb 19, 2008
Town Players of New Canaan:
Shaw’s
Candida will open on Feb. 29
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In the hands of a good director and fine cast, there’s nothing like the humor, intelligence, heart, and verbal jousting of a George Bernard Shaw play to bring delight to an audience. Celebrating 25 years of occupying the Powerhouse Performing Arts Center in Waveny Park as its permanent home, the Town Players of New Canaan will present George Bernard Shaw’s witty and spirited play
Candida. The show will be the Town Players’ 118th major production in the Powerhouse since it opened March 18, 1983, and the 212th in its 61 years of providing family entertainment in New Canaan.
Candida’s performance dates are Friday and Saturday, Feb. 29, March 1, 7, 8, 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. with Sunday matinees on March 2 and 9 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $18 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. The Powerhouse is handicapped accessible. To reserve seats, call 203-966-7371.
“Set in London’s East End during the Victorian era,
Candida,” as dramaturg Janice Paran wrote for the McCarter Theatre, “is about the domestic turmoil that ensues when an impetuous young poet comes between a progressive-minded clergyman and his charismatic wife. Though the story is centered on a classic romantic triangle, the questions it raises about the nature of love, fidelity, and the imagination of the artist are as provocative and enduring as ever.” The love triangle develops over a morning, afternoon, and evening of a fine October day in 1894 when “an immature poet proves more than a match for a charismatic clergyman” as they battle for Candida, the clergyman’s wife. The New York Times has touted Candida as Shaw’s most popular play.
Candida’s producer is Sheri Dean, who, with the late John Rogers, co-directed The Powerhouse Premiere, a theatrical extravaganza and free gift to the town that over two weekends featured 17 different performing groups, as well as a core group of Town Players actors and singers who performed at each performance. On the stormy opening night, torrential rain poured down, driving sheets of water across the Powerhouse patio. The audience cheered when duo pianists Ethel Mae Gullette and Dorothy Forrest played Rachmaninoff’s “Floods of Spring.” Today, the Town Players offers a three- or five-show subscription series; Stage II for new plays or directors; fall, winter and spring Student Stageshop classes; as well as Summer Stageshop for elementary through junior high students. The Town Players also rents the Powerhouse for special performances, seminars, recitals and concerts.
With
Candida, Skip Ploss of Wilton, who spent his early childhood in New Canaan, is making his directing debut with The Town Players. Mr. Ploss has been actively involved for 15 years with The Wilton Playshop and is also a former president. His directing credits include
The Nerd, The Foreigner, Wenceslas Square, 1776, How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying, Guys and Dolls, Arsenic and Old Lace, and as assistant director,
Deathtrap!
Taking the roles of Candida Morell and her husband the Rev. James Mavor Morell will be Stamford actors Kimberley Lowden and Michael Day. Mr. Shaw describes Candida as possessing the double charm of youth and motherhood and has her say, “This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me.” Ms. Lowden, last seen on the Powerhouse stage as the much set upon wife, Ruth Condomine, in
Blythe Spirit, has appeared in previous Town Players’ productions as Mrs. Webb in
Our Town, Ada Lou Morgan in
Quiet! Three Ladies Laughing, Cecily Pigeon in
The Odd Couple and Carol in
Black Comedy. Mr. Day appeared last spring as the father in the Town Players’ production of
Proof. Other acting credits include The Wilton Playshop’s
Dinner with Friends and regional roles in
Conversations with My Father, Heidi Chronicles, Sisters Rosensweig,
Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night and
The Dresser. His Broadway debut featured him as the Dance Captain in
A Chorus Line. Mr. Day will direct
The Fantasticks, which opens July 25th. As Morell, a brilliant preacher and spellbinding public speaker whose private life as husband is shaken to its core, he opines, “These people forget I am a man: they think I am a talking machine to be turned on for their pleasure every evening of my life.”
Eli Peck of Redding will play Eugene Marchbanks, the young poet who muses, “We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the first prayer of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy.” It is he who impulsively exhorts Candida to choose between Rev. Morell and him, setting up the heart-stopping Act III denouement. Mr. Peck most recently was seen in the The Wilton Playshop production of
The Nerd. Other acting credits include performances in
Grease, All in the Timing, Caucasian Chalk Circle and
That’s Absurd.
Notably pert and quick of speech — and secretly in love with Morell, her boss — Miss Prosperine “Prossy” Garnett exclaims, “It’s enough to drive anyone out of their senses to hear a woman [Candida] raved about in that absurd manner merely because she’s got good hair, and a tolerable figure.” Portraying Prossy will be Victoria Roy of Rowayton who appeared in the 1995 production of It Runs in the Family and last winter as Lotty Wilson, the young matron who dreamed to get to Italy, in
Enchanted April.
Two talented actors from Fairfield, Patrick Kiley and John Pyron fill out the cast. Morell’s curate, the Rev. Alexander (Lexy) Mill, is a conceitedly well-intentioned, enthusiastic, immature novice who has won over Morell by a doglike devotion. In that role will be Mr. Kiley, who made his acting debut with The Town Players in the 1998 production of
The Rented Christmas and hasn’t stopped since! He has worked on dozens of shows onstage and offstage, is the current TPNC president, and most recently appeared in his original one-man show
A Tribute to British Comedy and
Bad Accents. George Bernard Shaw deliciously depicts Mr. Burgess, Candida’s father, as “a vulgar ignorant guzzling man, offensive and contemptuous to people whose labor is cheap, respectful to wealth and rank, and quite sincere without rancor or envy in both attitudes.” Making his debut appearance with The Town Players will be John Pyron who has performed Major Metcalf in Stamford’s Curtain Call’s
The Mousetrap while recent Westport Community Theater roles have been as Ed Devery in
Born Yesterday, Dean Strauss in
Spinning into Butter, Arthur Birling in
An Inspector Calls, Mr. Fowler in
Separate Tables and Mr. Spettigue in
Charley’s Aunt.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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