ANOTHER RAVE REVIEW FOR LONG WAY DOWN!
Get your tickets now and see the production everyone’s talking about.
ONLY FOUR PERFORMANCES LEFT!
You don’t want to miss it!
LONG WAY DOWN continues through this Saturday May 28.
Purchase your ticket now at www.ticketsnashville.com
Via Evans Donnell and StageCritic
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – All too often theater, like life, becomes a place where the desire for comfort rules. Human nature makes it understandable, but that desire nevertheless undermines artistic, and social, progress.
Nate Eppler’s new play LONG WAY DOWN does not fall into that trap. There’s no easy path for actors or audience in 3Ps Productions’ presentation of one of the best plays produced in Nashville during this or any other season in memory.
There have been many plays that have dealt with maternal fitness before – Jane Martin’s KEELY AND DU to name one – but none quite like this. Eppler has devised some terrible yet heart-rending twists for this intense tale, which goes on to examine the values we collectively place on human life.
Director Lauren Shouse and her four gifted actors insure that intense and sometimes horrific story is balanced with the humor laced through Eppler’s script so that LONG WAY DOWN is bearable to watch. I didn’t write comfortable because it isn’t and it shouldn’t be. It is theater at its most vital, pressing us to examine our society and ourselves, however difficult that is, in hope that something positive may come from that scrutiny.
Eppler, a talented actor who recently earned critical accolades in Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s production of THE 39 STEPS, is that company’s present playwright-in-residence. He has already received national and regional notice for KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES and other works, and has such distinctions as a Kennedy Center-White House Historical Association commission to his credit (for the young audiences play THE AMAZING (UNBELIVABLE) AND (ALMOST) TRUE STORY OF EISENHOWER’S (GOLFING) SQUIRRELS).
The genesis of LONG WAY DOWN, according a program note from Eppler, came when he was assigned “to write a short scene featuring a damaged character” for a playwriting class at the Kennedy Center. That scene was expanded into a piece that was given a staged reading at TN Rep’s 2010 Ingram New Works Festival.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn (PROOF) was among those giving Eppler guidance and feedback as he prepared LONG WAY DOWN for its present full-production premiere with Johnny Pepper’s 3Ps Productions at Street Theatre Company’s Elm Hill Pike facility. What has emerged from a thorough process is among other things a stunning, and often darkly funny, comment on the fragile nature of human interaction.
Maybelline Ferris (Jennifer Richmond) is one of life’s innocents. She lives with her pregnant sister Saralee (Rebekah Durham) and Saralee’s forlorn husband Duke (David Compton) in their run-down family home north of Nashville. As the play begins, Karen (Rachel Agee) marches in to her friend’s house. “Doolee James’ kid came into Kindercastle today with a black eye,” the on-a-mission Karen tells the shocked woman she calls Maybe-Baby. “Doolee is beating her child.”
That accusation starts us down a road of shocking revelations and events. Before we reach this two-act drama’s end lives, and our perception of these characters, will be altered forever.
The four actors in this show have certainly demonstrated their exceptional skills in numerous roles; in LONG WAY DOWN they’re masterful. They’re funny, mad, scary, sad and so many other shades of the human palette. The exact formula that produces great theatrical chemistry between script and actors may be elusive to articulation, but you know it when you see it and you see it in this production.
Shouse has obviously given her cast time to explore these characters so that they not only breathe with believability but actually engage our sympathy. Yes, there are words and actions in this play that no reasonable person would condone, but we still feel for these people, still ache that their pain is so great that destruction is virtually assured. It’s a testament not only to Eppler’s words but to the director and actors’ contributions that we feel that way.
One of those actors has also designed a marvelous split-level set. Compton’s sharply detailed design features a living room and kitchen that prominently wear the decay of the Ferris family. Most telling is a wall crack that serves as an ever-growing sign of the story’s fissure between sanity and madness.
Acclaimed young actress Rosemary Fossee (Street Theatre Company’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND) shows she’s a good costume designer as well with clothing that distinctly mirrors the personality of each character. Fellow thespian Mike Baum (Boiler Room Theatre’s SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE) provides sound and Katie Gant the lighting and props that combine with other elements to make this theatrical portrait so potent.
It is a privilege to write about an art form I’ve loved since I was a child. It’s particularly a privilege to write about a play that seeks no comfort zone while offering a mind-searing picture of the human condition. I hope that Nate Eppler will continue to create challenging theater that provokes thought and inspires others to examine themselves and society. He and his collaborators have certainly done that with LONG WAY DOWN.
Read more at www.stagecritic.com
TO SEE THE SHOW
What: 3Ps Productions presents LONG WAY DOWN
When: Through Saturday. All remaining shows (Today-Saturday) start at 7:30 PM.
Where: Street Theatre Company, 1933 Elm Hill Pike
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Tickets can be purchased online at www.ticketsnashville.com.
Contact and more information at www.3psproductions.com
Nate Eppler 