stage matters / By Bob Doran

Homegrown Theatre

Dell’Arte’s Intrigue at Ah-Pah and the Mad River Festival

(June 18, 2009)  Dell’Arte Producing Artistic Director Michael Fields sits in a green plastic chair on the grassy slope in front of the Rooney Amphitheater stage. He’s watching Shannon MacMillan and Andrew Pheonix, students from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, run lines from the beginning of the noirish “eco-thriller” Intrigue at Ah-Pah.

MacMillan plays Scar Tissue, “Eureka’s only lady private detective.” As the story begins she’s taking a vacation from the city to get in a little fishing and visit Pops at his place in the mountains. At least, that’s her plan.

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Before it’s over the play becomes a ripped-from-the-headlines murder mystery touching on threatened salmon runs, stolen river water, dam removal and other hot-button issues. The topics seem fresh, but this is in fact a revival of a piece originally written and presented by the Dell’Arte Company 30 years ago, when their concept of “theatre of place” was in a nascent form.

Back then Fields was one of the Ah-Pah actors, along with Dell’Arte Founding Director Joan Schirle, who played Scar, and former artistic director Donald Forrest. “I was Pops,” said Fields, taking a break from rehearsal. “We did triples, so I was also Wilson, who gets killed, and The Guy in White. Andrew plays all three of those this time.”

Brian Moore from the Glasnost Family Band plays the three roles originally handled by Forrest, including Deep Trout, a very large fish in a trenchcoat. Tyler Olsen and Kate Braidwood fill out the cast.

A quick poll of the cast members present showed that none was born when the play debuted in Blue Lake’s Perigot Park in 1979.

According to Fields, one reason for the revival was the lack of progress in dealing with the issues involved. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “The dams were in the newspaper every day back then, the whole issue with the Klamath and the water.”

The massive salmon kill of 2002 comes up in Scar’s onstage conversation with Pops, an indication that the script has been tinkered at least slightly. “We will update a bit,” said Fields. “We haven’t rewritten a lot. Joan and I were talking about it a couple of days ago; it’s tricky because the play is so tightly plotted. Intersecting into plotlines become complicated, but we were looking at how we could bring issues into the informational sections without being didactic. The play doesn’t come out and hit you in the face.”

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