Reading: "Cherokee" at Shotgun Players

The fourth of six plays in Shotgun's Champagne Reading Series was this week, Lisa D'Amour's play "Cherokee". I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, because I had read the script a couple of years ago, and I understood that it had been produced, workshopped, and changed since then.

[And of course, the obligatory disclaimer: I am a production sponsor for the reading series as well as a board member at Shotgun.]

The Play

One reason I thought this would work well as a reading is that it's not complex in its setting. Most of it takes place in a campground in North Carolina, so atmosphere is probably more important than set design per se. And it's a small cast, so you don't need distractions.

So, two married city couples go camping. They anticipate that getting away will help them find some new paths. One character explicitly spells out what she hopes everyone will get from the experience. Needless to say, what they get is not what they expected.

Along the way, one of the campers goes missing, and a local part-Cherokee who works at the nearby casino shows up and facilitates their inner journeys. Much introspection ensues, and at some point or other, each character finds (or reveals) some part of them that perhaps they were not even aware of.

One of the fun aspects of the play is the way it injects aspects of theater into the play itself, not only with an actual play taking place inside the play, but also with some theatrical and improvisational exercises worked into the plot. There is good use of a "Yes, and..." exercise.

The Reading

I always have enormous respect for these staged reading teams. Over a very short period, with little chance to reflect or rehearse, they put together a very credible interpretation of a play. And this one is rather longer than a lot of the plays in the series, clocking in well over two hours, plus an intermission. But it didn't seem long.

For whatever reason, this show had a bit less polish than some of the others in the series. Might be the greater length, or cast members having less free time to work on the script. But it definitely worked. I can see where a fully-realized production might bring out some nuances that one can only anticipate from the reading. Some of the interpersonal interactions could be very revealing, but there certainly wasn't time to develop that kind of depth.

All the actors were good. I thought Sam Jackson as Traci and Algiin Ford as Mike definitely seemed the most comfortable in their roles. Rebecca Castelli as Janine was a special treat, as she has taught several youth classes that my daughter was in, and I hadn't realized she was going to be acting in this production. It was neat for us to see her working in a whole different context.

Ultimately, while everyone in the play gets to explore and discover new aspects of their identities, they will ultimately take their own paths. For some the "Yes, and..." is "Yes, and I will keep doing this," and for others it's "Yes, and I'm going home." I liked that.

The Season

During the talk-back session after the reading, there were quite a few good takes on the play and the material. There was a fair amount of allusion to Shotgun's production of "Caught," which is currently running. The Reading Series directors deliberately choose plays that work with similar or complementary themes and subjects to the corresponding main-stage productions.

And for the first time, I think I saw the thread that ties the whole season, main stage and readings, together. All the plays deal with discovering and experimenting with identities and roles, both internal and societal, and how one can change those or choose not to. And of course, lots of exploration of how those identities and roles are presented (or hidden).

It's been a good season of these explorations, with more to come, and of course, all the main stage productions will soon be back, running in repertory, so there will be lots of chances to compare and contrast and look for new themes.