Entertainment

October 30, 2009

A mystery is lifted in ‘Redwood Curtain’

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
Mary Therese Biebel on Facebook   |   @TLTLMaryTBiebel on Twitter

Young Geri is in a forest of redwoods, searching among the Vietnam veterans who live there for the American father she’s never known.

When she encounters a former soldier named Lyman, he goes after her wallet, and the two scuffle on the stump of a felled tree.

He overpowers her easily, perhaps because she doesn’t really have that black belt she told him she earned.

“That’s part of her character. She lies all the time,” said Mary Kate Burke, who is directing “Redwood Curtain” for the University of Scranton.

A bigger part of Geri’s character is the fight for her identity, her struggle to connect to her roots. Who, after all, is her father?

One of the few clues available to the teen, who was adopted from Vietnam as a small child, is a hint that her father had one blue eye and one brown eye.

Talk about coincidences. Geri has one gray eye and one black eye – and Lyman happens to have two-toned eyes as well.

Could he be her long-lost dad?

You’ll find the answer if you attend “Redwood Curtain” this weekend or next.

The play boasts “three meaty roles” for its three characters and is performed against a backdrop of “trees,” both felled and upright, fashioned from recycled material.

Producer Rich Larsen made them “out of recycled mailing containers and stuff,” Burke said.

The style of the play is magic realism, the director said, so don’t be surprised to see characters magically transported from one location to another now and then.

If you go

What: “Redwood Curtain”

Who: University of Scranton Players

When: Through Nov. 8 with shows at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: McDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts, University of Scranton

More info: 941-4318

Tweet	Follow @TLnews