'The play's the thing' once again

The greatest loss in being laid off by the newspaper, besides the loss of income, was the loss of opportunity to review local theater productions. With a little academic background, a love of theater and, most importantly, a willingness to do it, I became the default reviewer for local productions by The Playhouse and Barton College. Over nearly 30 years, I saw a lot of great performances and only a handful of miscues. I spent many a late night laboring over a review that would appear in the next day's paper. I can honestly say that only one or two of the dozens of productions I saw were not very good.

I don't know that my reviews did a lot for theater in Wilson, but they did give each production an extra boost of attention from the newspaper, and I think, occasionally at least, might have led some audience to the theater. Paul Crouch, the retired director of the drama program at Barton, told me after he retired that he had always told his students and cast to pay no attention to the reviews in the newspaper because "None of them know what they're talking about." Fair enough.

Saturday night, I went to see "Member of the Wedding," one of two plays on this year's Theater of the American South playbill. I went without a notepad and pen and without a complimentary ticket. If I were reviewing this production, I'd say it was an outstanding staging of a powerful story by Carson McCullers with an honest depiction of interracial relationships in the Jim Crow South and the deep anxieties of a 12-year-old girl.

What was most impressive about the play were the performances of the two main characters, 13-year-old Maddie Taylor of Chapel Hill as Frankie Addams and Yolanda Rabun as Berenice, the family cook, who is also a surrogate mother for Frankie. Taylor, who has numerous film and television credits despite her young age, lived up to her highly acclaimed reputation. She had a stage presence that was gripping and endearing. Rabun captured her role beautifully with all the nuance of a life that is central to white society but outside of it. Rabun's combination of loving care and demanding discipline was perfectly on target, and her singing voice in three brief stagings was spine-tingling. Adam Twiss of Barton College directs a moving production with a more than adequate supporting cast. But it is Taylor and Rabun, who are onstage nearly the entire play, who carry the story and make the drama real.

How far has Theater of the American South, Gary Cole's bold planting of a major theater festival in sleepy Wilson, come? "Member of the Wedding" competes well with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" from the first year of TOTAS. It was good to see some local performers in the cast, albeit in minor roles, in a festival that has relied primarily on professional actors. The Wilson community remains enthusiastic about the festival, which also attracts patrons from many miles away for its plays, cooking demonstrations, lectures and other events.

With "Member of the Wedding," Theater of the American South is alive and well once again this year as it wraps up its 2010 season tonight.