Narration rather than action dominates `American Story'

Posted: Saturday, March 13, 1999

Like a colt taking its first wobbly steps, "American Story" is still a green musical - one that's come a long way but has a long way yet to go.

The musical, written by Amarillo College's Laurel Vartabedian and West Texas A&M University's Bill Evans, was put before an Amarillo audience for a third time on Friday. Last summer, viewers saw a reader's theater version, last month a more fleshed-out rendition. There's still some work to be done, but "American Story" holds promise.

The show tells a forgotten chapter in American history, the deaths of two women and 11 children during a chaotic labor struggle in 1914 Colorado. It's a subject matter ripe for dramatization, and Vartabedian and Evans have melded fiction and fact to tell a compelling story.

But telling is what they actually do too much of. The second act in particular relies too strongly on narration rather than action. For instance, the audience is told, "The strike wore on and on. The tensions got higher and higher." But we don't see that presented on the stage.

We're told how machine guns tear down the strikers, how a fire in their tent city claims the lives of innocents. Let's hear the bullets, let's see the smoke.

Robin Downs serves as the story's narrator, a 76-year-old Mary Thomas who tells the story during a 50th anniversary memorial service in 1964. Downs is a wonderful stage presence, feisty yet vulnerable.

Her younger counterpart, Brenda Scott, shows the audience what happens in the Colorado mining camp. She's abandoned by the husband she crossed an ocean to join when she decides to take up the union cause. Scott has a lovely singing voice, but she could stand more of Downs' fire.

Monty Downs is slickly charming as Billy Ivy, a dastardly public-relations man in mine owner John D. Rockefeller's employ. His solo number "Rags-to-Riches Rag" is an audience-pleasing romp, but it seems a little anachronistic. Certainly PR was used in the early part of this century, but would he entreat someone to call him "the master of spin?"

Cloyce Beard-Stradley rips into her plum character Mother Jones, an elderly labor agitator; she leaves you wanting more. Other actors, including the playwright's husband, do fine jobs in their roles as well.

But almost every character could stand more development. Mary's love interest, Don (played by Bob Vartabedian), seems almost an afterthought. Union organizer John Lawson (a fine-voiced Kelly Teal) is a bit of a cipher, as is the martyred Louie Tikas.

More time should also be spent in the opening scenes building up to the first-act-ending strike. Why these characters want to join the union and risk their lives is still too much of a question. Additional scenes like the one showing Mary and her young daughter in jail could be added to increase the show's humanity.

Also, some of the staging needs some refinement. Too many of the musical numbers end up with the cast assembled front and center, though the tight stage likely makes that a necessity.

"American Story" needs more gestation time, but it's a good testament to determination and vision.