Director turns to local theater vets for ‘Ages of the Moon’
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WHAT: Selah Dessert Theater — “Ages of the Moon"
WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Friday and Saturday through Nov. 7
WHERE: Selah Restaurant, 130 S. Bridge St., Struthers
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $19.50, including dessert and coffee at intermission and are available online at www.selahrestaurant.com/theater-events.
Director Mary Ruth Lynn revisits Sam Shepard with "Ages of the Moon," which opens tonight at Selah Dessert Theater.
Lynn directed Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Buried Child" at the Youngstown Playhouse in 2012, and said the final scene haunted her.
"Ages of the Moon" was one of the last plays written by Shepard, who died in 2017. It's about two old friends who spend an evening on the porch of a remote cabin, waiting to see a lunar eclipse. Fueled by bourbon and foggy memories, the two men bicker, reflect and confront their pasts. Lynn picked up a copy of the script because of her experience doing "Buried Child," and waited for the right time to schedule it at Selah.
"I had two guys that I knew could handle it," Lynn said.
Samuel Perry plays the cantankerous Ames, who has been exiled to the cabin after being suspected of infidelity. Tom O'Donnell plays Byron, his quieter friend, who Ames invites over to watch the eclipse.
Lynn has a long history with both actors. Perry appeared in that production of "Buried Child" and also shows at Selah Dessert Theater, which Lynn founded. She first met O'Donnell in the 1980s when she was doing shows at the Playhouse, and when she returned to the area from New Hampshire, she frequently relied on his knowledge of local talent. O'Donnell starred in Selah Dessert Theater's debut production, the one man show "Mr. Lincoln," in 2014.
"He’s always there for whatever I need," Lynn said. "He’s like my right hand man, and I love working with him. He’s great on stage. He can handle comedy. He can handle drama, and he’s a perfect fit with Sam in terms of the two characters, because the Byron character is a much lower-key character than Ames is, but he jabs at Ames and gets Ames to fly off the handle. I'm working with two men that I have great respect for in terms of their acting ability."
It also helps that O'Donnell and Perry have known each other for years when playing characters who have decades of history together.
"That’s really helpful in developing a play like this, which is two characters, and there’s very minimal blocking in this show too," she said. "It’s two two old geezers sitting on a porch and reminiscing about 50 years ago, and they work so well together. They have different styles of learning and working, but they are friends to begin with, theater friends, so that definitely helps develop the chemistry between these two characters on stage, for sure."
It's a dialogue-driven script and one that relies on the relationship between the two men. There are moments of humor, but also moments of conflict and confrontation.
The challenge for the director, Lynn said, "It’s making sure that you focus on the text and find those moments of humor and bring them out, allow for those moments of reflection to play with honesty and allow the play to go where it goes.
"They fight, but then they get back together, and they fight and they get back together as guys do. But in the end and really throughout the play, they deal with their lives and the losses in their lives. This humor that overrides everything is really a cover for the loneliness that these two old men feel at the end of their lives, and it’s all metaphorically driven by a coming lunar eclipse."