Arts & Events

"A Communist? What's that?"

"Someone who wants to take away private property."

"You mean like bankers?"

Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath' and the books and movies that followed it chronicled and made legend the impoverished families and the lonely men who crossed the country to the West Coast in the 1930s, trying to escape the ravages of the Depression and the Dust Bowl that them drove away from their farms, their homes ...

They're usually seen scrabbling for jobs, places to live, some respect--or fighting or running from oppression--Out West. But what were they like at home, before and during the ordeal that changed their lives and the history of the nation?

Actors Ensemble is staging Walter Halsey Davis' play with music, 'Panhandle,' through January 31 at Live Oak Theatre, which tells that tale, shows something of the lives of that community who saw their hopes blow away literally as dust on the wind. It's a perfect piece for AE, the Berkeley community theater company--the oldest theater company in Berkeley--to be doing, rich in background as well as foregrounded characters who rise from the ensemble, representing the community. And the music by Marc Ream and Jeremy Cohen mixes songs for chorus and individuals, both anthems and more reflective numbers that contrast the moods of those changing times. 

The story of 'Panhandle' follows a cotton-farming family, especially the younger generation, go-getter Orin (played with energy by Ben Grubb) and his new wife Clara (pretty, demure Laura Espino--who shows, too, that Clara can rise to the occasion)--and Orin's "Sis" (sprightly Erika Bakse), abandoned by her husband, who provides some comic moments with her Temperance spirit and spirited temper, no church mouse! 

Before economic chaos opens up, Orin's busy buying up land, a tractor, a radio--though the family has no electricity "yet"... As setbacks loom, he and Clara start a family of their own. Orin's extra-energetic optimism is a tragically perfect foil for the string of impersonal disasters--exacerbated by those who make personal hay from them--that plague the community, the whole region, one after another. 

The family circle's completed by Pa (Lee Vogt, who proves a fine tall-tale teller) and Ma (sympathetic Anne Fairlie), augmented by Orin's friends and (despite Sis' displeasure) whiskey-drinking buddies in quaffing and song, Clyde (Patrick Glenn--whose job opportunity in a jobless market as deputy has dire consequences) and Nase (comic Bruce Kaplan). Others who add their presence to the little town are Peter Weiss as a Preacher (one of the high points of Michael R. Cohen's overall even-handed directing--the Preacher, with townspeople backing him who morph into the choir, appeals directly to the audience with his high-flying words and loose-limbed strut) and Ely (Joseph O'Loughlin, alternating gravity with humbug), the local well-to-do citizen who gets the locals to sponsor his climb up the ladder of state politics. 

Perhaps the finest bit of dramaturgy, though, is the whole chronicle framed by the local storekeeper, The Old Man (played by the playwright), a gruff curmudgeon who proves the most tolerant of all, telling the story of the town's downfall to a WPA man (Chris Cruz) who arrives on the scene at the start of the play--that is,very late in the day--as a flashback over the better part of a decade, bracketing action and the history of disaster that stretches from the Crash of '29 to the Great War Veteran's March on Washington, 1932, put down harshly by the Hoover Administration, to the ascension of Roosevelt and the New Deal, only to fall back again with the drought and windstorms of the Dust Bowl, 1934-37. 

This tale-within-a-tale enables the audience to absorb all the action over the years and react to it as it happens, yet to experience a kind of haunting realization of the end effect of all the incidents, all the sound and fury, succeeded by an eerie silence, as capsulized in the Old Man's uncharacteristically mournful closing words. 

Owen Kelley's guitar and Moktai's banjo and mandolin are a constant onstage presence, with Alice Montgomery's piano, all accompanying the cast's singing as well as in purely instrumental playing. Paula Aiello's costuming and Lisa Sullivan's set design--a storefront and the stoop of the family home with the playing area focused on the bevel, the commons in between--set the place and the times. Other townspeople who perform and sing both roles and ensemble are David Weiner (bartender and auctioneer), Paloma George, Julia Plafker, Patricia Long Davis and Deborah Shaw. And stalwart Jerome Solberg of AE is the producer of this engaging, satisfying production.