Riding The Popular Wave Of ‘Mama Drama’ The Spokane Civic Theater Finishes Second At … The Big Show

Sports metaphors usually do not apply to the arts. Score is not kept. However, the Spokane Civic Theatre’s experience last weekend can be described in the most basic of locker-room jargon:

The Civic team made it to the Big Show.

The entire squad gave it 110 percent.

The tournament MVP award was shared by all five players.

At the end, the team beat out eight of nine contestants, yet finished second when the umpires made, in the opinion of a few Monday morning quarterbacks, a questionable judgment call.

Oh, well. It’s not whether you win or lose. It’s how you play the play.

We decided to follow the cast and crew of the Spokane Civic Theatre’s “Mama Drama” through all four days of what truly was the Big Show, at least when it comes to community (amateur) theater. It was the national competition of the American Association of Community Theatre, June 17-22 in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The rules of the competition are these: 10 plays, from 10 regions of the country, qualify for the event. Three adjudicators (as well as an audience of 500 or more) watch all 10 productions over four days. When it’s all over, the adjudicators pick a No. 1, a No. 2 and a No. 3.

“Mama Drama,” about the different ways in which five women deal with motherhood, is an abbreviated (one hour) version of a full-length play produced at the Civic’s Studio Theatre in January. It had breezed through the state and regional contests.

Fund-raisers had been held to help cover the costs of going to the nationals, and the entire cast and crew, totaling 11 people, had airline tickets to Grand Rapids. A week before the flight, they were already flying high.

Meanwhile, director Marilyn Langbehn had her feet firmly on the ground. She has been to the nationals before, and had in fact won it for the Civic in 1989 with “Getting Out.” She knew the pressure.

“Right now, I don’t think they have any idea of what this will be like,” said Langbehn, who is a combination of creative guru, authority figure and mother figure for “Mama Drama.” “They have no idea how tense it can be.”

Now, two hours before curtain in a rehearsal room in Grand Rapids, they are all discovering exactly how tense it can be. The 750-seat theater is filling up. In addition to the usual pressure of performance, they are feeling the pressure of competition, and the pressure of knowing that three people will soon be quite publicly dissecting their every move. Three adjudicators will march on stage right after the curtain to deliver post-play critiques, something which is done after every play.

“You run the risk of public adulation or public humiliation,” says Langbehn.

Meanwhile, all five cast members are dealing with the pressure in their own ways:

Susan Smith, a veteran actress and a KREM-TV producer, is getting a neck massage.

Beverley Bumpas, an actress in her first Civic production and a board member of the Onyx Theater Troupe in Spokane, is saying comically to Langbehn, “Mommy, can I get something to drink?”

Lorna Hamilton, an actress, choreographer and college dance and PE instructor, is gliding into the corners of the room performing slow, meditative dance moves.

Melody Deatherage, Spokane actress and executive assistant at KXLY, is laughingly recounting a dream she had the night before. (Disaster! There was a weird Greek chorus! The show was disqualified! She forgot her shoes!)

Tami Grady, a former student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and a graphics designer for North by Northwest Productions, is studying her lines for the thousandth time.

The conversation turns to an intense discussion of the arcane rules of the contest. Much agitated debate takes place about things like the “ready line” (the place they must stand at the beginning of the performance). Where is it? When do they have to get there?

“I think we’re sweatin’ the small stuff here,” says stage manager Sandy Hosking.

She’s right. That’s because it’s easier to sweat the small stuff than the big stuff, such as characterization, emotion and comic timing. On the other hand, in competition, they almost have to sweat the small stuff.

“This festival thing is 50 percent about performance and 50 percent about rules,” grouses set and light designer Peter Hardie.

The rules can be summed up like this: Each play is allowed 10 minutes to set up, one hour for the performance, and 10 minutes to take down. Go over those time limits, or violate any of the other associated rules, and a production can be disqualified.

Because of this, Hardie has modified the set for easy assembly. The set-up, rehearsed again and again, is down to four minutes. The set has been trucked to Grand Rapids via Roadway Express, which donated the service.

About this time, one of the festival coordinators walks in and says the curtain time will be delayed at least an hour. The previous show hasn’t even started yet. It’s as if, to use another sports metaphor, the team is about to kick the game-winning field goal when suddenly the referees call a timeout. The pressure ratchets up a notch.

Hamilton walks up to Hardie and says, “I’m scared!”

Hardie envelops her in his arms and counsels, “Deep breathing. A little yoga.”

Smith, meanwhile, voices the one thought that is helping all of them get through this: “All I know is, by midnight this will all be over.”

Makeup is applied. Cards are played. Eyes are closed in silent meditation.

When the five-minute call is made, Langbehn gathers everyone in a circle. They hold hands.

“We are here because we are one of the 10 best shows in the U.S.,” says Langbehn. “This is where we show them why we are here. I love you all.”

With that, she sends the actresses into the wings. Meanwhile, she peels off and heads for the balcony, picking practically the most distant seat in the theater.

The stage setup goes without a hitch. Everyone stands comfortably on the ready line. The lights go down, and the performance begins.

Leah (Bumpas’ character) begins the play with an explanation of how she learned the facts of life: Her mother told her that “the man plants a seed in a woman.”

“So I lay in bed at night,” Bumpas continues, “and focused on the various garden tools a man might use.”

The audience erupts in laughter. Soon, it becomes clear that the laughs are longer and more frequent than the cast has ever experienced.

“Yes!” whispers Langbehn to herself, high in the balcony.

The play rolls along beautifully, big laugh followed by big laugh. In the serious moments, the theater is absolutely hushed. All five performers have big moments, all of which come off successfully.

At the final blackout, the audience gives the cast a huge hand. Relief and euphoria are evident as the stage is struck and the cast slips off into the wings. Hugs - of the long, eyes-closed variety - are shared all around.

“I’ve never felt that kind of response,” breathes Deatherage, holding her hand up to her face to symbolize exactly how close, how connected, she felt to that audience.

And then the entire cast and crew files into the front row to another round of applause. But then the euphoria turns to apprehension. The adjudicators come marching in.

The first one, Sir Mortimer Clark (a New York theater professor who was once knighted by Princess Caroline of Monaco), dispels the apprehension by fairly gushing, “What a talented group of people! What beautiful staging! The lines were so well-read. … I really think it was great. I could be wrong, but I know I’m not.”

Then comes Annette Procunier, a Canadian director and probably the most feared and respected of the adjudicators (one group claimed to have actually hummed the Darth Vader theme when she came out). She says she thought some of the characters were a bit stereotyped and that the actresses were “working too hard” on the serious parts.

But for her, this is mild criticism. Then she says, “This is an extremely strong group of actresses, extremely skilled in their trade. … The production is extremely well-developed and extremely well-handled and well-cast.”

That’s a lot of “extremes” from an adjudicator not given to extremes.

Finally comes Brid McBride, a theater critic from Dundalk, Ireland, who pronounces it, “Ensemble acting at its best. … these were five actresses who trusted each other and who listened to each other.”

Just before midnight, as Susan Smith had predicted, it is all over. The “Mama Drama” cast sits there for a moment, as if stunned by all the praise. Then people rush toward them - well-wishers, acquaintances, actors from other theaters - and shower them with praise.

Finally, the cast is able to let the emotions loose.

“I’m feeling … on top of the world!” says Bumpas.

“It’s one of the 10 best things in my life so far,” says Hamilton, tears in eyes. “It really is. I’m relieved it’s over, but I’m also a little depressed. It’s over, and I won’t be living with these guys now. Our little family is parting ways.”

But not for another three days. “Mama Drama’s” performance was on the first day of the festival. Now comes the waiting.

There are three more days of performances, capped on Saturday night by the announcement of the winners.

Almost everybody from the cast and crew attends all of the other shows, mostly to see some good theater, but also, admittedly, to check out the competition. The unspoken question after every play is, “Were they better than us?”

For most of the plays, the answer is clearly no. There are some heavy-duty theaters in attendance - from cities such as Washington, D.C., Memphis and Minneapolis. There are some heavy-duty titles being performed: “Jeffrey,” by Paul Rudnick; “The Duck Variations,” by David Mamet; “Pterodactyls,” by Nicky Silver.

But none of these earn the audience response of “Mama Drama.” Only two other shows seem to get that kind of reaction: “Smoke on the Mountain,” a gospel musical-comedy by the Mobile (Ala.) Theatre Guild, and “Cotton Patch Gospel,” a Southern retelling of the Gospels with music by the late Harry Chapin, performed by the LaCrosse (Wis.) Community Theatre.

“Cotton Patch Gospel” receives a thunderous standing ovation, the only one of the festival. This is clearly “Mama Drama’s” most serious rival.

Or is it? This is theater, not baseball. The scores are not posted on a scoreboard.

“My husband, an ex-football player, said to me before we left, ‘Go back and bring back the trophy!”’ said Tami Grady. “I said, ‘You don’t understand; this is art. It’s not like that.”’

Meanwhile, the “Mama Drama” people try to relax. They take a sunset excursion to Lake Michigan, 40 miles away, in rental cars. They attend theater workshops and try not to obsess over the final results.

The top few plays are certain to get an invitation to an international festival, but the Civic already has decided to decline. The expense is simply too great.

Besides, the novelty has worn off somewhat after Langbehn’s production of “Getting Out” went to Monaco in 1989 for the World Theatre Festival.

So it doesn’t really matter where they finish, except … except for pride, except for personal affirmation, except as further proof that the Spokane Civic Theatre is indeed of the highest national quality in community theater.

Which is why, on the night of the huge Awards Gala, nobody feels much like nibbling on the hors d’oeuvres. All are dressed up, and all are as nervous as cats.

The preliminaries seem to take forever. Finally, the emcee begins to announce some special awards for acting, for music, for directing and for set design. The tension at the “Mama Drama” table is finally broken when the announcement comes: “For Outstanding Ensemble Performance: ‘Mama Drama’!”

This is indeed an honor, because it means that the adjudicators recognized them as the strongest cast overall.

But the big question is still not answered: Who’s No. 1? Finally, the emcee gets down to it. In third place, “Cotton Patch Gospel.”

What does this mean? Does this mean that. …

The thought is barely formed before the second-place winner is announced: “Mama Drama.”

Everyone applauds wildly, and Langbehn walks to the podium and accepts the award.

First place: “Smoke on the Mountain.”

In the ensuing bedlam, Langbehn is hugged by everyone in the cast and crew - long, shuddering hugs. A steady stream of people come to the Spokane Civic Theatre table to say, “Congratulations,” and also to say, “If I were voting, I would have picked you first.”

Yes, there is some disappointment at a second-place finish. But the overriding emotion seems to be satisfaction at a job well done.

“They all knew they did their best work that day,” says Langbehn, back home in Spokane.

Make no mistake. This is not sports.

The real reward in theater is something intangible, something Deatherage attempted to symbolize when she held her hand close to her face that night.

It’s the connection between artist and audience, and no judge can confer it.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (3 color)