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26 | March 15, 2018 | The Homer Horizon LIFE & ARTS
homerhorizon.com
Curtain Call Theatre brings ‘Enchanted April’ to life
Homer Glen resident
assists in creating
parts of production
T.J. Kremer III
Contributing Editor
Springtime is all about
rebirth and discovery. All
around, nature transforms
from the cold and gloomy
winter into the warm and vibrant
spring.
So, it’s only appropriate
that during the first two
weekends in March, Curtain
Call Theatre presented
its rendition of “Enchanted
April” to the stage, a play
that’s focused on transformation
of the human heart
and spirit.
“It’s a story of self-discovery
and coming to terms
with, if you want to say baggage
and demons and ghosts
in your life,” said the play’s
Director Mark Frost.
Based on the 1922 novel,
“The Enchanted April,” by
Elizabeth von Arnim, the
play follows the lives of four
women who decide to shrug
off dreary post-WWI London
in favor of a holiday in
Genoa, Italy.
Two of the women, Rose
Arnott and Lotty Wilton,
who are acquainted through
sight only at the same church
but are both struggling with
issues in their marriages,
read an advertisement for a
trip to Italy; however, they
can’t afford the trip on their
own, so they get two more
women, the widow Mrs.
Graves and young socialite
Caroline Bramble, to help
share the expenses.
“Everyone is trying to escape
dreary London for this
beautiful enchantment that
you will find at San Salvatore,
[which] is the name of
the castle where they go on
holiday,” Frost said. “And,
so, it’s a story of those interrelationships
with each other,
Katherine Oles, of Homer Glen, was sound engineer for Curtain Call Theatre’s recent rendition of “Enchanted April.” In her
role, she helped add in audio twists to the settings of 1920s London and Italy. T.J. Kremer III/22nd Century Media
but then how they use those
to figure out some things for
themselves, and each one of
them finds some transformation.
And so I think that’s
timeless because all of us,
I think, have at times have
things in our lives that don’t
go the way we exactly plan
them to be and we’re looking
to transform ourselves,
from time to time.”
Making her return as
sound engineer was Katherine
Oles, of Homer Glen.
Oles was also the sound engineer
for “39 Steps.”
The visual differences between
1920s London and Italy
were probably obvious to
audience members, and the
audio twists add to the overall
theme of transformation.
“We have rain for England,
and then there’s no rain
for Italy, Oles said. “There’s
some church bells for Italy,
but no rain.”
Oles said there are a
couple of sound effects that
she thought the audience
would appreciate: A train announcement
in the middle of
the production, and a monologue
near the end.
“I think the train announcement
is going to be interesting
and the same with the
monologue,” Oles said.
Lynn Meller, of Tinley
Park, who played Rose, said
she connected with her character
as a straight-and-narrow
sort who has some disdain for
others not like her, but, by the
end, learns to accept her own
need for change.
“We all go through changes
as we get older, as we find
our place in life and what
we are meant to be doing, or
what we think we are meant
to be doing, and that’s kind
of what’s going on in this
show,” Meller said. “We go
on this trip to try and get away
from people when we realize
that wasn’t the entire point of
what we should’ve been doing:
We should’ve been trying
to find out who we are as
individuals, and then we can
get back together with all of
our friends and family and
start anew in a way.”
Dan McGrath also is from
Tinley Park and made his
return to Curtain Call Theatre
after a hiatus of a couple
years, played Mellersh Wilton,
the husband of Lotty
Wilton, who is an acquaintance
of Rose. McGrath said
his character, at first, represents
a profound resistance
to change.
“He’s very prim and
proper,” McGrath said. “He
tends to think that the world
revolves around him, especially
with regard to everything
in his immediacy, that
he can have any kind of control
and he wants to control
it, including his wife.”
Judie Brugler, of Frankfort,
played Costanza, the
Italian housekeeper. Brigler
said her character is in the
middle of all these transformations
and unusual situations,
and she doesn’t know
quite what to make of it all;
however, even Costanza gets
caught in the transformative
web by the end.
One challenge for Brugler
was the fact that none of her
lines are in English.
“All my lines are in Italian,”
Brugler said.
But, with the help of some
friends from northern Italy,
Brugler was able to prepare
for the role.
“It was wonderful to sit
down and have a glass of
wine with them, and they
would tell me about their
travels in Italy and what the
people were like, and their
thinking and their philosophies,
and that helped me a
lot,” she said.
Joshua Reid, of Mokena,
played Antony Wilding, a
young artist who was raised
British and fought in WWI.
Wilding’s parents and grandparents
owned the castle in
his youth but died while he
was in the war, leaving the
castle to Wilding.
“Enchanted April” was
Reid’s first time on stage as
an actor, but a love of art in
all its forms drew him to try
out for a role.
“This is my first production
I’m ever in, so I’m glad
I took the plunge and decided
to do it,” Reid said. “But,
this one in particular, I think
it’s fascinating that it’s set in
1922, which is, like, a hundred
years ago now. So to be
playing a character that lived
a century ago is, one, a challenge,
but also very rewarding
at the same time. It kind
of exposes you to a different
way of life that you really
wouldn’t have the chance to
explore outside the theater, I
guess. It was a challenge that
I thought would be a fun one
to take on. And I got to do a
British accent, as well.”
June Graffy, of New
Lenox, who co-produced the
production and also serves
as assistant executive director
of Curtain Call’s Board
of Directors, handles the
behind-the-scenes activities
needed to make a production
run smoothly.
She said even though the
story is nearly 100 years old,
the transformative theme
still resonates with audiences
today.
“I think it brings people
back to a point where … it
gives a perspective of what
life was like, and, really, it’s
not that much different than
to now: people wondering
are they on the right path,
are they with the right person,
do they need some time
alone. Same things as now
only in a different time setting,”
Graffy said.
By the end of the play,
all the characters are transformed
in some way; some
through actively searching
for answers, and others simply
by stumbling across a set
of circumstances that they
happen to have found themselves
in.
Reid said he hopes audiences
will walk away from
the show feeling that they
should never give up hope.
“If your life isn’t necessarily
going the way you want it
to, that it’s not outside of our
power to affect some sort of
change to make it better.”