'Radiant, loving and zestfully humorous'
MAUREEN DOLAN/Staff writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 9 months AGO
<p>Kat Heath, as Mags Church, performs alongside other cast members during a rehearsal of the Theater Troupe’s production of “Painting Churches” Monday at the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center in Post Falls.</p>
<p>Gardner Church, played by Ron Ford, shows emotion toward wife Fanny, portrayed by Gail Cory-Betz, during a rehearsal.</p>
A New York Times reviewer described "Painting Churches" as "beautifully written...A theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer and depth of Renoir portraits."
The play, a finalist for the Pulitzer for Drama in 1984, will be performed at the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center, 405 N. William St., Post Falls, from March 6-16. Show times are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Ticket prices are $20/adults, $15/students, seniors, 55-plus and military. For tickets call (208) 457-8950 or online: www.thejacklincenter.org.
Written by Tina Howe, "Painting Churches" is the story of Fanny and Gardener Church, an older couple preparing to move from their townhouse in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, and their daughter, Mags, an artist who lives in New York. The parents are packing to move to a Cape Cod beach home.
"A radiant, loving and zestfully humorous play ... distinctly Chekhovian. Howe captures the same edgy surface of false hilarity, the same unutterable sadness beneath it, and the indomitable valor beneath both," wrote a Times reviewer.
Gardener is an aging poet slowly losing his mental abilities. Fanny, who comes from an old, traditional, upper class Boston family, is struggling with the change. She loves her husband but resents the loss of their cultured life. Mags, their child, paints a portrait of her aging parents, and views them with an artist's eye rather than a daughter's.
"The view is not always a pretty one. Her gentle father, once a giant in his field, is now diminished, shuffling and forgetful. Mom is becoming slightly undone, her eccentricities more pronounced under the dual pressures of thinning income and mounting care requirements for her husband," observed Washington Post reviewer Michael Toscano.
The JACC performance is directed by Heath Bingman, local who has worked on productions for Lake City Playhouse, North Idaho College and Liberty Lake Community Theatre.
Ron Ford plays Gardener Church; Gail Cory-Betz plays Fanny; and Kat Heath appears in the role of Margaret "Mags" Church.
ARTICLES BY MAUREEN DOLAN/STAFF WRITER
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