Budding thespian book keeper, Ruth Hoch (Kate Fraser), is between Jesus freaks and a cheeses freak as she prepares to play Joan of Arc in Langford Wilson’s BOOK OF DAYS.
Similarly structured to Thornton Wilder’s celebrated stage play, Our Town, BOOK OF DAYS is a play within a play as the local theatre of Dublin, Missouri, prepares to mount a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan under the direction of two time Tony nominee, Boyd Middleton (Geoff Sirmai).
Ruth’s unorthodox Shakespearean audition lands her the Shavian role, the director taken with her forthright focus. It’s art imitating art in this instance as the actress playing the actress, Kate Fraser, fires this production with that same forthright focus.
Ruth’s day job employer is curd king, Walt Bates, big cheese in the manufacture of Missouri fromage, who also employs her husband, Len, who has a wicked whey with provolone
Enter James, Walt’s son, married to Luanne but having his wicked way elsewhere, who connives with cheese factory factotum, Earl, to do away with his father.
Familiar with firearms from her own father’s fascination with fusils, Ruth suspicions are triggered when Walt is topped during a tornado. But Bates and his cohorts are all part of a Christian congregation that close ranks against the hysterical rants of an actress immersed in an anti Church play.
The first act of this play is largely exposition and is presented in this production almost as if it was a rehearsed reading. A bare stage with a solitary tree as its central set piece adds to the unadorned aspect. There is some doubling and rewinding, re-enactments of events, verbal stage direction and qualifying narration.
The second act goes the full stilton in showing the hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christian faith in its complicity to homicide, its misogyny, its weight on State legislature. In texture, it’s chalk and cheese to the chunky cheddar first act, and delivers the bite of theatrical gorgonzola.
It’s as if the play has matured like Len’s prized provolone.
An uneven ensemble with an un-united state of American accents Swiss cheeses the production but Fraser’s Ruth, channeling Shaw’s Joan, cuts through with clear vocal quality and energetic stage presence.
BOOK OF DAYS plays New Theatre, 542 King street, Newtown till the ninth of August.