David Alford's new play Ghostlight, presented by Mocking-bird Theatre in its world premiere last weekend, represents another step forward for the Nashville theater scene. Coming on the heels of Jeremy Childs' intriguing original script Palisades—whose run has been extended through June 5 at Bongo After Hours Theatre—Alford's creation, ostensibly a meditation on actors and acting, emerges as a more universally human story.
The temptation to read into this play is tough to resist. Alford is a local figure of some repute, and he's obviously drawn from personal experience in crafting his tale of three theater artists who gather for a rehearsal on a storm-swept night. Insiders close to the playwright might be able to view this work and connect the dots between fiction and real life. Yet even for the viewer who knows nothing about Alford, Ghostlight stands admirably on its own.
Ghostlight plays out in real time, offering its audience 90 minutes of uninterrupted slice-of-life voyeurism. Two actors, Vic and Wendi, meet for the first time on a bare stage. They go through the halting mechanism of getting acquainted and eventually get around to running their lines. Wendi is a little creeped out by the old theater building, which apparently is experiencing electrical anomalies that seem possibly otherworldly. Meanwhile, Vic serves up a solid lambasting of show business, denigrating his career as a television actor and decrying his experience as a student at the famed Juilliard School. Wendi counters with more heroic notions about the acting craft: To her it is a blessing.
Finally, the director, Stephen, makes a sudden appearance. He has eavesdropped a little on the actors' line readings and starts to pontificate dramatically on how their scene should be played. Caught off guard, Wendi and Vic engage with Stephen, who, it turns out, is distraught about something extratheatrical. Emotional tensions rise among the trio, and subsequent revelations of a deeply personal nature steer the play to its curious finality, with Stephen left alone onstage to ponder his demons.
Alford is self-assured as Vic, working his character's humorous side to excellent effect and capturing the self-absorption of a well-employed if determinedly cynical thespian. Jenny Littleton is also good, proffering her lines with a believable British accent, while taking her portrayal through various stages of wariness, fright, warmth and anger.
Jeff D. Boyet has the critical role of Stephen, and he seems to understand its basic thrust. But Boyet doesn't have the requisite gravitas to make us believe in his angst. His prickly demeanor descends almost into whininess, leaving us to surmise that director René Copeland may have appropriately clued Boyet into the character's internal processes, but without eliciting the best external results.
Nevertheless, Ghostlight still shines—and burns pretty brightly at that. The play continues through June 5 at the Darkhorse Theater.
—Martin Brady
