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When someone takes that final breath, the only way to communicate is through what was left behind.
So, although the audience of “Do Not Go Gentle” – opening this month as presented by Le Petit Theatre de Terrebonne – can see and hear the deceased Lillian Boedecker Barron and thus contextualize what they see, her family is left to judge slowly uncovered artifacts as they tag her household materials with prices for a rummage sale and bemoan her home’s unpleasant aesthetics.
But Lillian’s message is delivered to her family via murals she completed while living isolated with regret over fractured relationships with her son and her granddaughter. For much of the play they are covered by blankets draped over the walls.
“My son and I did not get on,” Edwina Yakupzack said of her character, who’s anchored between worlds by a longing to rectify her family. “I’ve always felt guilty about it, like he’s felt guilty about it. My pictures, I’m trying to show in the pictures that I did forgive him and I want him to forgive me. … I want the family to become one again.”
The play’s final scene seeks grandeur, for the characters and for the audience. Lillie Brunet is creating the paintings for Le Petit.
“When they tear down these sheets, it’s going to be nothing but color,” said the production’s director, Sue Peace. Beyond the hanging art, Peace said, much work has gone into crafting one of the more elaborate sets Le Petit has ever utilized. It will include a floral sculpture that stretches down to the stage floor.
“We have never done this kind of set before,” Peace said. “It’s going to be a huge production.”
Written by Suzan Zeder, the play is named after Dylan Thomas’ 1951 poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.” For Le Petit and Peace, both having the reputation of taking on mostly humorous material, the drama’s serious tone is a deviation from the norm.
“It is a powerful play,” Peace said. “If you want to see some good, solid acting, good, solid material, this is your show. It’s a thinking show. … It’s a lot of natural feelings that come with death and dying.”
“Do Not Go Gentle’s” characters are fleshed through liberal use of flashbacks, which allow Lillian to become more than just a ghostly commentator and illustrate her path to estrangement with her son, Windsor (Frank Davis). Both are stubborn, and his choice to join the Air Force despite his father’s death during World War II wrecks Lillian’s emotions, paving a rocky road forward in their relationship. Because he is frequently moving his family around to various bases, they don’t ever get around to mending their feelings.
Meanwhile, in the present tense, Windsor’s relationship with his daughter Kelly (played by Davis’ real-life daughter, Katie) is deteriorating. He doesn’t like her multi-colored hair and bratty behavior, and he doesn’t sympathize with her brooding, ignited by guilty feelings after she wrote a mean-spirited letter to Lillian prior to her death.
“Sometimes it’s hard to get the character’s feeling, but when you do it, you can understand how she feels and how angry or upset she is,” said Katie, a 13-year-old student at Vandebilt Catholic High School appearing for the second time. “She feels like she’s the reason her grandma died, because she sent her a terrible letter.”
Frank Davis joked that playing father to his real-life daughter doesn’t take much acting.
“It’s going to be just like at home – I shouldn’t say that,” he said. “She’s really working hard to get her character to be a little more stubborn than she is at home with me.”
Comic relief is provided by stage veteran Jeanne Scott, who has the capacity to make the estate-sale agent’s stream of clichés palatable. Lydia Courtney-Voigt, last seen in “Halfway Up the Tree,” plays Lillian’s niece, Joanna.
“Do Not Go Gentle” runs from Nov. 14-24 at Le Petit Theatre de Terrebonne, 7829 Main St., Houma. Admission is $15. For more information, call (985) 876-4278 or visit www.houmalittletheatre.com.
– editor@gumboguide.com
Joanna (Lydia Courtney-Voigt) examines murals on the wall painted by the now deceased Lillian. Also pictured are Windsor (Frank Davis), Lillian’s ghost (Edwina Yakupzack) and Director Sue Peace.
