Forty Shades of Green

Forty Shades Of Green

Boise Contemporary Theatre presented Stones in his Pocket by arrangement with Paul Elliott, Adam Kenwright and Pat Moylan. The play was written by Marie Jones. She is currently a resident of Belfast Ireland and was born and raised there, she has written a number of plays including several dealing with
Ireland.
Tracy Sunderland was the director; Ann Klautsch was the voice and dialect coach. The dance scenes were choreographed by Leah S. Clark and created an authentic Irish air to the whole story told in forty shades of green.
The play was made for the two actors that enact the story. Joe Conley Golden and Tom Willmorth transform characters right before our eyes, and they do it so well that it seemed there were a legion of actors instead of two.
Each character had a different dialect, and mannerisms, so one could tell when it was someone else speaking, the body language changed and so did the Irish lilt.
The story begins in the beautiful green country side of the Irish Highlands. We make out, uneven ground with many shades of green, flat stones piled in stacks to resemble a river bed along a horizon. To the left is a rack of shabby clothes, featuring many tweed type jackets and work boots such as an American director might imagine Irish peasants wearing in the countryside. The stage adapts itself to each scene with a trunk and a few chairs and was fashioned by Michael Baltzell.
A Hollywood Studio has arrived to stir up the rural Ireland Village to make a film called “A Quiet Valley” The company has decided to use the locals as extras in the production.
Charlie and Jake, two down and out Irishmen, are happy to make 40 pounds a day for their trouble, and rubbing elbows with stars, especially the extremely beautiful American Starlet, Caroline Giovanni.
In his pocket, Charlie who is from another part of Ireland, and a stranger in town, carries a well worn dog eared manuscript. It is a play he has written and he hopes to gain the attention of someone that could make the story into an award winning movie. His cheerfulness is touching in its optimism. The two actors change characters in brisk progression. Pay attention or you may miss something. Jake becomes the oldest living extra from the Quiet man, an efficient assistant to the assistant film director, and a troubled young man. Charlie becomes, Caroline the American actress, a Catholic father, the self important director, and an impatient assistant director.
Charlie and Jake make a reference to all the fake admiration that Hollywood holds for the beautiful Irish countryside, Hollywood is really only there to exploit and use it for their own purposes. One of them mentions, they must be getting sick of the forty shades of green by now. The two friends know full well that living in a luxury trailer and having meals catered and being waited on like royalty is not the same as living a simple life of hard work and perseverance.
We find that Charlie is not as cheerful as we originally heard, and Jake has his own demons to exorcise when his nephew kills himself by walking into the river with stones in his pocket.
The Director and his staff still expect the extra’s to behave in a joyful manner, and they do not want to allow anytime off for the funeral of the young man, who was a friend and relation to many of the extras. In the end, the publicity becomes the motivation behind “allowing” the extra’s to attend the funeral.
One amazing scene shows Charlie and Jake, doing a dance straight out of River Dance, to lively Irish Music. The oldest Living survivor from the movie The Quiet Man gets kicked off the set because he comes back from the funeral tipsy.
After the movie is finished, “in the can” as quoted by the old man, Charlie and Jake gain some confidence and take a movie idea to the pompas director. In between eating and talking with his mouth full, he completely changes their idea, and makes it his own. Charlie and Jake relentlessly decide that they have a good idea and will open their own company and produce the film themselves. They have complete confidence that it is going to be a success.
The lighting designer Deborah Penrod matched the colors of the lighting to what was happening on stage. She accomplished a sun set, and evening, and it complimented the whole story. I saw the forty shades of green, as accented by her lighting.