Pride's Crossing
by Tina Howe



"Pride's Crossing" has Timely Implications By Judy King(Special to the Valley Journal and The Glenwood Post / Independent

There is nothing like taking on multiple roles to showcase the full extent of a cast’s versatility. In “Pride’s Crossing,” Tina Howe’s discerning comedy-laced, emotionally engrossing drama, a talented troupe of seven doubles, triples, even quadruples up, to encompass a total of twenty roles, each of which is played to perfection.

In the only solo role in the performance, Valerie Haugen plays the central role of Mabel Tidings Bigelow with her usual blend of passion and subtlety, segueing from childhood to old age in smoothly alternating scenes. Those in the present are both humorous and moving, revealing the fear and confusion behind an ancient woman’s spirited crustiness. In scenes from Mabel’s past, Haugen portrays in exquisite turn a wistful child, a young girl yearning for self-expression, a young woman’s exuberant, defiant embrace of a beckoning achievement, a prime-of-life disillusion and an elderly lady’s grace in the face of regrets.

Richard Lyon is touching as the poetic, blundering Chandler Coffin and hysterical as Mary O’Neill, the Tiding’s cook, parodying up Irish eccentricities with Kristin Carlson as her lively daughter Pru, a serving girl who share her mother’s zest for Celtic superstitions. Carlson switches from daughter to mother as she plays Mabel’s granddaughter, a neglected Parisian wife, with Emily Cochran as her sturdy adolescent daughter.

Lon Winston bristles with energy as Gus Tidings, Mabel’s domineering father and also perfectly portrays the blend of abusiveness and self-pity of her alcohol husband, Porter Bigelow. Julia Whitcombe is consistently amusing as a trio of stately women, from Boston Brahmins to housekeeper, and Rob Taylor wonderfully juggles four parts, three young men and an old woman, the latter played at riotous comic pitch.

Stage manager Jennifer Springer adroitly handles the switches between scenes from past and present. Lon Winston’s set design creates the impression of a beach house that has seen better days complemented by Phill Gerdel’s lighting which bathes the past in a glow and keeps the present dim. The choice exception to the muted present is a wildly comic rule-breaking croquet game composed primarily of lifelong friends whose curiosity about one another remains freshly persistent. Their farcical game is made all the more charming by costumes Darcy Campbell designed to evoke the era of Mabel’s distant youth.

In the program’s notes, director Thomas Cochran makes the perceptive point that a play about living with the results of our choices and about the interconnectedness of lives is particularly timely. In her youth, Mabel overcomes the inhibitions and diffidence with which she was raised to dive into icy waters and embark on a record-breaking marathon swim. Cochran observes that we all have our “crossings.”

As the annual October journey from autumnal glow to the darkest days of the year takes on a new poignancy in the context of a national crossing from a seemingly safe era to another kind of world, it is heartening to watch a human spirit achieve it’s finest moment. Cochran concludes his notes by aptly quoting Mabel, “Good luck to us all.”

Lon Winston, Artistic Director
Thunder River Theatre Company

| TRTC Home Page | Guest Book |