Our first evening UNDERGROUND...

Hello, folks, how are y'all?  It's Anne here on this fine Thursday to tell you a little bit about the opening night for The Inkwell's second Inkubator production, Underground by Jim McManus.  The play takes us to a small West Virginia mining town and into the lives of those who spend most of their waking hours in and around the coal seams.

We have another outstanding group of actors breathing life into this script — Clay Steakley, Andrew Price, Cindy Marie Martin, Steve Beall, Frank Mancino, Ben Shovlin, and Charlotte Akin.  As one audience members pointed out at the post-play discussion, this is a world that many of us urban folk don't see too often.  Jim's harshly poetic language, as well as the contradiction between each character's dreams and the seemingly mundane details of their lives (church, sweet tea with gin, poison ivy found in unusual places, pails of blueberries, dirty fingernails), quickly draw us into the rituals of small town life.  But we're also pulled into the mine itself, thanks to clever thinking by the design team.  It was a reminder to me about how theater can create magic with very simple effects.  I felt the darkness and cold around me just watching the actors in nothing but the light from their mining helmets.

What I've enjoyed most about witnessing the process of bringing Underground on its feet is the way in which the actors have worked with changes in the script that have put their characters on new and surprising courses.  Many of the actors were involved in the Page to Stage reading at The Kennedy Center this past September, and they were startled and a little uncomfortable with the revisions that Jim made over the past several months.  Steve in particular — who plays Tracks, the father of two young boys trying to get out of this town — has had to struggle with some dramatic changes to his character, including a drinking problem that surfaces halfway through the play.  It's been fascinating to see how these actors absorb these twists and turns and to see how it deepens the stories interwoven into the play.  Bravo, guys.

Unfortunately, Jim has not been able to come down to be a part of the rehearsal process, but he'll be here this weekend to see the show.  If you come on by on Saturday, you might get a chance to ask him a question or two about the play and where it's going.  It's so cool to see this play at this particular moment in time; it's likely to be entirely different after Jim sees it and continues his revisions.

And please, don't be shy about sharing your thoughts and impressions with us about these plays.  In the next posting, I'm going to throw some questions out there that you might want to think about before, during, or after the performances.  Please post your thoughts here at Inkblog!  You are a part of the play-making process.

Here's a shot of Cindy Marie Martin as Mindy Lee, a girl in love with a miner but with big dreams of heading to Nashville to start a singing career.  We learn a bit more about her struggles in this revision of Jim McManus' play than we did in earlier drafts. (photo by Melissa Blackall)