Like the circus that promises a thrill a minute but can’t quite deliver, People’s Branch Theatre’s new production of Hanging Mary is ultimately a disappointment. Matthew Carlton’s first full-length play, based on the factual 1916 execution of a Tennessee circus elephant, gets rolling in fine style, with an economically written Act 1 that genuinely blends vivid characterization with engaging exposition and action. But like many critically flawed works, Hanging Mary just, well, hangs there, and Act 2 is marred by a talkiness that in the end drowns out the colorful acting. Air is filled by speeches that tell us about elephants and the early history of Thomas Edison’s experiments with the electric chair—all very interesting to a point but mostly used to mark time until the play’s big climactic scene, in which a five-ton pachyderm is hanged by a railyard crane.

A very strong cast does all it can to infuse Carlton’s words with meaning, and they are successful as far as it goes. But once circus owner Charles Sparks (Brian Webb Russell) accepts that his rogue animal—who has stomped the head of its keeper in front of a townful of onlookers—is headed for the hereafter, all we get is a waiting game full of well-intentioned but vague sentiment.

It’s a clever gimmick to use manacled African American females as elephants—Nomolonga Eniafe, Katherine Grant and Hildateri Parks do an evocative turn in these roles under the attentive direction of Jon Royal. Yet it’s questionable whether the playwright’s metaphorical intent is fulfilled. The problem, of course, is that Mary the elephant really did kill a man (never mind that he was sort of an ornery cuss). That the actresses are black, or female, doesn’t necessarily translate into blatant outrage at their mistreatment. It’s not that we don’t see the metaphor; it’s that we’re not moved by it enough for it to matter—certainly not enough to overlook the second act’s structural limpness.

Derrick Phillips is wholly effective as the ne’er-do-well drifter who comes to a fatal end. So is Erin Whited as the nurturing Mrs. Sparks. Buddy Raper and Jessejames Locorriere do some entertaining character bits. In addition, Carlton’s original music is cleverly wrought, and for a show clearly on a stringent budget, the general circus ambience is convincingly realized.

It‘s one thing to use fact as the basis for a work of art, but it’s quite another to simply tell a true story as it really happened. There’s nothing wrong with the latter if the truth contains all the elements of successfully sustained drama. It doesn’t happen here, unfortunately, and cramming supposedly meaningful imagery into a scenario that requires better plotting won’t make a wise audience feel anything like guilt or remorse or contrition about various social injustices. Furthermore, Hanging Mary doesn’t hang as an effective-enough meditation on the death penalty, primarily because, in this case, the accused is guilty and we are the witnesses.

What happens to Mary is, for a while anyway, a fine study in pathos; it’s never uplifting when an animal has to be killed. But even Atticus Finch, an iconic standard-bearer for all things humanly just, had to shoot a rabid dog in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Hanging Mary’s conclusion is like that: inevitable.

Growing pains

Judy Blume is one of the most successful children’s authors of all time. She carved out a special niche for herself writing books that addressed the coming-of-age concerns of middle schoolers, with her canon of work embraced as readily as it was reviled for its thematic content, especially regarding sexual issues.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a relatively early Blume work (1972) with little of the controversy that helped make her famous. It’s currently onstage at Nashville Children’s Theatre in an adaptation by Bruce Mason.

NCT brings its usual earnest effort to the task at hand, conveying the story of Peter, a young lad who seems to have a healthy and normal family life in New York City, with a traditional mom and dad who clearly love him. But Peter also has a 3-year-old brother named Fudge who commands a lot of attention with his mischief. Sibling rivalry is a serious trial for Peter, and the show is filled with one domestic or social situation after another in which his patience is tested, culminating in a moment of horror when he realizes that Fudge has in fact swallowed his pet turtle, Dribble.

The Blume book probably reads better than Mason’s scripted play. A trip to the dentist, a play-date in Central Park, a visit from dad’s boss, a chaotic birthday party with nerdy neighborhood kids, even a nightmare sequence—these are the kinds of events that consistently present challenges to Peter’s self-esteem and his feelings about his little brother. As drama—albeit drama filled with plenty of humor—it wears thin, and the proceedings become tiresome as we enter the latter half of the production.

Director Scot Copeland extracts the usual competent performances out of a mostly veteran cast of NCT players, including Henry Haggard (who, as the dad, briefly shows off his juggling skills just for fun), Evelyn Blythe (a totally great mom) and Peter Vann (who plays the youngster Fudge with uninhibitedly troublesome glee).

There’s one fresh-faced newcomer to the NCT stage and that’s Thomas J. Besler in the lead role of Peter. He does nice work throughout, balancing his inherent kindly impulses with the understandable frustrations that come with being a big brother.

On balance, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is professionally rendered fare all the way around, projecting agreeable messages about family life. Yet the material doesn’t lend itself to the kind of magical experience that the company more commonly produces.

G.B. Shaw unarmed

It’s not a huge compliment to say that Shaw remains intact in ACT I’s production of Arms and the Man. But at least director Hank Hildebrand manages to achieve that much, with this safely staged rendition that features some generally competent performances. The time and place is late 19th century Bulgaria, during and just after the conclusion of war with Serbia.

Maybe the toughest thing about watching Shaw in a community theater setting is wondering how the master playwright’s genius might be expressed by more experienced actors. The rich dialogue, the sharp satire and the clever characterizations cry out for equally masterful stagecraft, which we only get here in fits and starts.

Luckily, Jack E. Chambers seems to have some grasp of the Shaw whimsy, and in the critical role of Capt. Bluntschli, he manages some deft underplaying and slyly elicits laughter. Jacob Truax is also very good as Major Saranoff, offering a tongue-in-cheek performance that makes us smile throughout. As the servants in the Petkoff household, Bob Young and Miriam Grey-Truax have their colorful moments with Shaw’s famous sarcasm about class distinctions. Weldon Stice, as Major Petkoff, soldier and patriarch, is gently and effectively befuddled.

The role of the ingenue Raina—so essential to the play’s heart—is played by Andrea Brooks. She’s a pleasant young actress with legitimate presence but is clearly out of her league here. Her attempts to portray sincerity occasionally connect, but the necessary combination of passion and fiery articulation simply never happens.

Fortunately, everyone survives the war, and, for theatergoers who like their Shaw—and see precious little of it in Music City—they could do worse than this fairly representative production.