Interplayers Opens With Political ‘Camping’

Theater

The Interplayers Ensemble opens its new season this weekend with a new comedy-drama fresh from an acclaimed off-Broadway run.

The intriguingly titled “Camping With Henry and Tom” by Mark St. Germain premiered in New York in February 1995. By April it was the winner of numerous awards, including the 1995 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play.

Bob and Joan Welch, co-founders of the Interplayers Ensemble, discovered this play and snatched up the rights immediately. According to director Joan Welch, the play’s “political overtones synchronize perfectly with this election season.”

Political overtones in a camping story? Absolutely. This play is about the 1921 real-life camping trip of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and President Warren G. Harding.

These three titans, who each helped shape the 20th century world, are reduced to the role of campers in this plot. They sit around a campfire and talk about everything from golf to family to politics.

Away from the eyes and ears of the public, they allow their private selves to come through. Harding’s personal life, his ethics and lack of same are all subjects for discussion.

According to St. Germain, many lines are adapted from the actual words of the three. Although plenty of literary license is taken, he said the basic characterizations are true to life: “Harding is a man who never wanted to be president, Henry Ford is a man who did, and, after many annual expeditions, this was Thomas Edison’s last camping trip with Henry Ford.”

“The historical inspiration for Mark St. Germain’s ‘Camping With Henry and Tom’ is rich with seriously satiric potential,” wrote Vincent Canby in his review for the New York Times. “It’s so rich, in fact, that it’s difficult to understand why, to my knowledge, no one before has explored it with the freedom of fiction.”

Canby did not believe that St. Germain captured all of the potential. In fact, Canby essentially panned the play’s writing as “wooly and unimaginative, with the best ideas left unexplored.”

Obviously, though, this play was better received by most other critics (thus the awards) and by audiences. And even Canby admits that the interplay between the three is fascinating. The Interplayers production features associate director Michael Weaver as Harding, David Heath as Ford and John Oswald, making his Interplayers debut, as Edison.

Interplayers has started a new policy this season in which the opening night performances, formerly on Fridays, have been switched to Saturdays. The first Friday performance is now labeled a “preview,” and it features reduced price tickets. For this show, the preview is tomorrow.

The regular run then begins on Saturday and continues Tuesdays through Saturdays through Oct. 12. Friday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shows are at 7:30 p.m. Matinees, at 2 p.m., are scheduled for Sept. 21, 25 and 28.

Call 455-PLAY for ticket reservations. Season tickets for the entire seven-play season are still available at that same number.

Interplayers is Spokane’s resident professional theater, located at 174 S. Howard in downtown Spokane.

‘Tom and Jerry’

A new comedy by Rick Cleveland, about two hit men, will be performed at the Spokane Falls Community College Playhouse Friday and Saturday.

The show features Spokane actors Patrick Treadway, Patrick Heald and Ron Varela. This trio originally offered the show as the season-opener at the ACT Theater in the Valley, but the ACT is now defunct. So the show will debut at SFCC in two free performances, both at 8 p.m., with a donation suggested.

The show will move to the Valley Repertory Theatre on Oct. 5.

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