"We used to be the entertainment capital of the world," each character sadly and proudly recants in the production of "Miss Margaret LaRuhe in ‘Milwaukee'" at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Written and directed by Milwaukee native Wesley Savick, the play provides a glimpse of the sorrowful present of a town living in the shadows of the long-dead glory of its past.
The theater space is intimate, with few seats, black brick walls and dim overhead lights that throw golden concentric circles onto the bare wood-plank stage. The theater smells faintly of dust and wood. A pile of pallets sits stacked to one side of the stage, and an armchair faces away from the audience on the other side, providing an oddly uninviting and vacant image.
"Milwaukee" opens with Danvers (played by Robert D. Murphy), an old-world singer and comedian, laughing along with his own puns. He moves jauntily, his mannerisms stiff with routine, wearing large black rimmed glasses and a red suit.
Stosh (Steven Barkhimer) and Schmitty (Tom Kee), two dock workers with thick Midwestern drawls, open the next scene. Their banter is irreverent and lively until their boss calls. Stosh answers, his voice suddenly high and timid, explaining nervously that they are still waiting for the shipment to arrive.
All the characters in the play are waiting for something. Elmer (Ed Peed) and Bridget (Shannon Garland) share a pleading and vacant exchange over Ritz crackers on a small, round table under a bare light bulb. Elmer is old and frail and wrapped in a plaid bathrobe as the youthful and perky Bridget stands, dressed to go out "to a meeting."
Bridget, like everyone else in the play, is trapped. She wants to care for the aging Elmer but also craves independence from him. She promises to find the lost actress Miss Margaret LaRue, the brightest star in Milwaukee before the lights of the entertainment capital of the world burned out.
The irony is that Bridget herself resembles the lost actress with her "faint twinkle around the eyes," a quality that makes her quest to break free from the past entirely impossible.
"Milwaukee" has much to say about society's connection to the past. Bridget and her significant other Randy (Evan Sanderson) reminisce about how they arrived at their present situations and how a chance meeting led to dating, which led to routine. Ruby (Kate Snodgrass), the diner waitress, pours coffee and sighs over the overwhelming and unshakeable sameness of day-to-day life. After Bridget visits the dock workers to ask about Miss LaRue, Stosh asks Schmitty how often he really thinks about the way things were.
"Time goes by, and you lose track," Schmitty says.
"Milwaukee" provides a pensive look at small town America after the industries and novelties disappeared, leaving the people with only their memories of the brilliance of the past. The actors successfully create characters that are pained and intriguing in a setting hauntingly familiar for those accustomed to small town life.
The characters perpetually endure a state of controlled sadness. The audience is able to laugh along with them, but overall the townspeople are too shy to show the extent of their suffering.
Danvers and his puns, Willa (Alice Duffy), the once-famous actress and her puppet, the dim-witted Randy, Hoops Daddy and the smooth talking jazz DJ all provide comic relief to the play's desolate honesty.
In a talkback following the production, Savick called the play inadvertently autobiographical and the characters "tragic and reserved." "Milwaukee" provides audiences with a unique look into the emotional atmosphere of the once-brilliant small towns of America.
