News-Letter

Media Credit: Daniel Litwin In Spoon River, Amy Morgan and Harry Laverty play a deceased couple that failed to feel the love when they were alive.

Sitting in the Merrick Barn while waiting for Johns Hopkins University Theatre (JHUT)'s production of Spoon River Anthology, one may have felt a certain sense of déjà vu. Similar to the most recent production of Under Milk Wood, the chairs were placed in a staggered fashion on the stage. The resemblance continued when the actors finally made their way on stage after a 20-minute sing-a-long with guitarist Ian Roush (Peabody Conservatory).

Other than simple superficial similarities, such as the use of the same denim skirts for the female cast members, there were even more similarities in the actors themselves. The majority of the cast starred in Under Milk Wood as well. This, however, is not particularly noteworthy as it is not unusual for Hopkins's students to reappear in multiple theater productions over the course of a school year.

However, it should be recognized that several of the actors seemed to inhabit the same types of characters that were portrayed in Under Milk Wood. Each play featured a close look at the people in a town and as such, each cast member portrayed multiple characters. As Spoon River progressed, there was a marked change in this typecasting among the actors. But in the beginning, it almost seemed as if I was watching slightly different version of Under Milk Wood.

These similarities aside, Spoon River was yet another of JHUT's fantastic productions. Through a fusion of music and storytelling, the play told the stories of individuals linked by the common bond of all being buried in the same cemetery.

With the exception of a few tombstones scattered on the stage, this plot didn't make the play unnecessarily macabre. Oftentimes, a character would reveal how he or she died, but even with that, the general tone was not depressing.

Instead, the more obvious tone was a patriotic one. References to Abraham Lincoln infused the play with a sense of nationalism. This can be traced back to the origins of the Spoon River Anthology which was originally a collection of free-verse poems published in 1915 by Edgar Lee Masters. Masters focused on the lives and deaths of these previous inhabitants of Spoon River in order to focus on the heritage of our nation.

Continued...

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