HOLLIE

Revenge of the Illustrator

By Hollie Gibbs

Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil

By Hollie Gibbs

Fans had to give the devil his due Saturday night as the mischievous fiend converted many souls

throughout a stellar performance of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. From his opening song, “That’s

Me” through his comedic one-liners, The Shape (played by Jake La Botz) led a willing audience on a

delightful dance with the devil as a cast of 15 performed at the Akron Civic Theater to a large (although

not sold out) crowd.

Akron was an early stop on a tour of 20 cities for the 2 ½ hour performance. It opened October 10 in

Bloomington, IN, and ends November 6 in Grand Rapids, MI. A collaboration of horror guru Stephen King

and rocker John Mellencamp, their storytelling artistry (be it novel or lyrical) were evident as the play

(resembling an old fashioned radio broadcast) could be enjoyed with eyes shut.

With The Shape, the audience felt the comfort of an old friend, albeit Randall Flagg, come to visit. It

was also amusing that when paired with Mellencamp, the author, who often pens his terror tales about

writers, gave the writer character (Frank) a musician brother (Drake).

Mellencamp’s rural blues tunes fit the production well. (Think more along the lines of his recent work

rather than his 80s hits.) The songs lent insight into the characters, but at times slowed the pace of the

show a bit too much.

The play opened as a single spotlight shone down through hazy air to an old fashioned radio microphone.

Once all the characters took the stage, they remained there throughout the play (save the intermission),

stepping into the foreground or sitting in the background as the scene required. Jesse Lenat as the Zydeco

Cowboy played the role of good ole country radio host /narrator with down-home perfection. However,

the format itself was a bit confusing and the first half of Act I was all over the map.

Set at a Mississippi cabin on Lake Belle Reve, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County is a Cane and Able tale

where Joe, the younger brother of two rival siblings, is doomed to relive the fateful memory of their

apparent murder/ suicide as his own two grown sons race toward repeating their uncles’ sins. The stories

were so similar (one set in 1967, the other in 2007) that watching it felt like an exercise in redundancy.

We eventually learn that Joe has a secret to confess.

In case the audience missed the obvious Cane and Able parallels, the biblical duo are actually referenced

on stage (as is the Tastee Freez, which, as the chain does not exist in Mississippi, is undoubtedly a

reference to Mellencamp’s hit “Jack and Diane”).

Ghost Brothers features more corpses and ghosts than most plays, yet remains unfrightening. It is more

about allowing secrets to consume one’s life and learning to forgive oneself than anything spooky. There

is no real emotional connection to the characters, though, and the audience is not drawn to care what

happens to any of them.

The audience is left to wonder why the cabin’s caretaker, Dan, is even in the play as his role is

unnecessary, without a back story, and dripping with unanswered questions. However, once he belted out

the southern gothic gospel revival Act I finale, “Tear This Cabin Down,” it was clear that the show needed

Eric Moore regardless of his character’s lack of real connection to the storyline. It was by far the best

musical number of the night.

While Bruce Greenwood (Joe)’s voice and performance were pleasant surprises, Peter Albrink (Jack)’s

voice was as flat as his acting. Kylie Brown (Anna) gave a killer performance both in the foreground and

background with her singing and acting, though.

The live four-piece band (members of Mellencamp’s own band) was dead-on performing the 20 songs,

under T-Bone Burnett’s musical direction. The sound at the Akron theater was flawless, and they alone

(Andy York, Dane Clark, Troye Kinnett, and Jon E. Gee) were worth the price of the ticket.

In the end, it was Joe’s story, and Greenwood did not disappoint. The play dragged on for too long

without any real direction or suspense, though, and by the time the big secret was revealed, nobody

cared enough to gasp.

The play tended to bash the audience over the head with revelations that didn’t require spelling out. The

ghosts didn’t need to reveal they’d been dead the whole time when you were told in the first ½ hour

that one of them spends all his time drinking in Purgatory. It was also clear that the brothers did not get

along well before unnecessary and highly awkward homophobic slurs were uttered. Then there was the

repeated “Tell the Truth” lecture that became tiresome.

There were oddities that added to the overall confusion, as well. Why have the three shooting judges

on the stage at all as the play gained nothing from their presence? What was the significance of the

grandfather clock, and why did its location move every time it was “in” a scene? Why was Dan running an

afterlife café in Purgatory?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, why did a malevolent mastermind like King take a scary story and

reduce it to an overly sermonized life lesson? The Indiana urban legend on which the play is based goes

something like this: Two brothers and a girl were drinking at a cabin when the boys began to argue. In

a moment of regrettable anger, one of the brothers hit the other with a fire poker. He and the girl then

sped down a gravel road to get help in town when they lost control of the car, plummeting into a lake.

After authorities pulled the drowned couple out of the water, they returned to the cabin to find the older

brother out front with his face chewed off. (Assumedly, he had crawled out for help, and an animal found

him there.) Their ghosts haunt the property (now owned by Mellencamp) to this very day.

In the end, the “true” story behind this one is more interesting than the play it inspired. However, any

Stephen King story is worth a shot (although some are not worth a second one). I would watch this

one again, though, for the several standout performances and the characters of The Shape and Zydeco

Cowboy perched on each side of the stage like a good and evil angel on each shoulder.