Tailor Made Actors fit roles perfectly in 'That'll be the Day'

TAILOR MADE
Actors fit roles perfectly in 'That'll be the Day'

By HARMEN MITCHELL
NEWS ARTS WRITER

There may be a movie still on the front of the program and, inside it, “special thanks” to Johns Ford and Wayne, along with Natalie Wood and Buddy Holly, but don’t get the impression as soon as you walk in the door that Albert Sjoerdsma Jr.’s “That’ll Be the Day” is homage to the Old West, the Gilded Age of Hollywood, or a rock and roll-tinged perspective on any of the above.

What “Day” is, is a very strong yet very low key one-hour, one-act play that takes an affectingly skewed perspective on a popular theatrical theme - the condemned killer and the people who know him - with a script and cast that interact like they were made for each other. The play began a two-weekend run Thursday evening at the Performance Network.

Sjoerdsma, a Hopwood Award winner and currently PN play-wright-in-residence, has constructed a three-character study of hardware store shovel salesman Ron Conway (Jon Smeenge), his mousy wife Galie (Cindy Hee) and her best friend (who is also having an affair with Ron), Peggy Ann (Barbara Newell).

There are three undivided sets (two living rooms and Ron’s jail cell). In one living room, the women keep a vigil before the television set as they await word of his execution or his sentence’s commutation. They talk about Ron and about life in general. In the jail cell, Ron recounts the plot of the John Ford movie “The Searchers.” In the other living room, all three characters acts out scenes from their life before Ron wound up on death row for a murder that isn’t described in much detail. (The implication, however, is that a gentle and frustrated man snapped.)

This viewer will admit to admiring the Mamet/Shepard-esque living room scenes and feeling a little dense while trying to figure out how to resolve the recounting of the movie plot as to how it alludes to, parallels, emphasizes or symbolizes Ron’s life or crime.

But frankly, you won’t spend a lot of time analyzing this - nor are you really encouraged to - when you’ve got three such strong characterizations played so well through the bulk of the play. Each role fits each performer so well you’d swear they were tailor made for each other: Smeenge’s Ron is tough, tender, and totally bewildered by both urges; Newell’s Peggy Ann seems like a classically shallow flirt, but is actually one of those folks who has totally bought into the dream world of TV and doesn’t see why life can’t be like a game show, and love like a soap opera sex scene - and she and Smeenge generate more than a little heat during their seduction scene.

The axis for it all Hee’s Gailie, a person who thought marrying Ron was the best thing that ever happened to her, and can’t figure out why it turned out to be the worst mistake of her life.

Taken as a whole, with Sjoerdsma’s script, and the simple but effective set (whose designer is left uncredited on the program), “That’ll Be the Day” sums up as a qualified success that deserves to be one of the biggest self-generated hits in the Performance Network’s history - and it might just be worth a trip back to figure it all out.

THAT'LL BE THE DAY
Al Sjoerdsma's play is presented at the Performance Network, 408 W. Washington St. Jon Smeenge, Barbara Newell and Cindy Hee star. David Hunsberger directs. The play continues this weekend and next. Call 683-0681 for more information.