Oliver! Inspires Northeast Alabama

Oliver!, put on by the theatre department at Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC), maintains such a feisty intensity, enthusiasm and celebration of life that it must be transformative for all the 90 cast and crew which include a large number of participants beyond the student body, as well as for the audience.

Powell, in Northeast Alabama, is such a tiny, rural community it doesn't even have a post office, so shares the address of "Rainsville," the closest small town. The general region is one of the lowest in economics and level of education the population has achieved in the nation, but the center of culture is the growing Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC) turns out students with consistently high ratings on standardized tests and licensing exams. Their theatre department shows plays regularly at the Tom Bevill Lyceum.

I live in San Francisco, so haven't had the chance to see their recent plays, but I was lucky enough to have front row seats to their opening night, April 17th, 2008, for the musical Oliver!by Lionel Bart and Vernon Harris, based on Charles Dickens' classic book, Oliver Twist. The play was at least as well done as any I've ever seen in my long history of attending performances around the country, many being avant-garde, innovative, major productions, and all of them much more expensive than this one. The Northeast Alabama Community College Oliver! would be a fantastic event no matter where it occurred. And coming from this sparsely populated region, which has successfully maintained its family values, avoiding expansion and overgrowth, the creeping overcrowding that has hit most of the places we once treasured for their open spaces in our youth, the musical is a triumph.

It is freeing and enlivening to the spirit of those in the audience. I was thrilled to see the level of star quality Northeast Alabama has gathered together from rural towns like Henegar, Sylvania, Fort Payne, Rainsville, Pisqah, Mentone, Scottsboro, Fyffe, and Albertville. The performers are able to not only act, but sing beautifully, and all in a flawless London accent. The whole crew did a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere, the lighting being perfect, with surprising effects, and the set design, especially the brilliantly painted opening scene of London that we are able to happily stare at until Oliver! begins. It left me exhilarated to see such talent with so much life force, inspiring me to feel anything is possible against all odds. The mood of the show, extraordinarily energetic, makes that feeling contagious.

Appropriately, Oliver! is about the emancipation of the human spirit from oppression. Society is depicted as a fierce and often humorous battle between the sexes and the classes. In the process of Oliver!, we see the traditional roles overturned, one after another, with verve and style, to the chagrin of those used to being in charge. Though the rebellions may lead to dire effects, those effects can be accepted in the scheme of things because they are the right thing for courageous people to do, and the overall community benefits. The shake up of the traditionally imposed order of things isn't easily tied up in a neat packet in this classic musical, but questions and unresolved issues are left, making it realistic and not sugar coated. Miraculous synchronicities, which do happen so often in life, are allowed to exist as well, and the range of the highs and lows gives it a lot of substance.

The director, Mark A. Webb, got his masters at the delightful creative hub of Alabama, the University of Montevallo, and has vast experience under his belt. He makes a rare appearance on stage by acting in Oliver! as the fawning, conniving, obsessed, and lovable Fagin, who has a gang of pickpockets in his charge.

Lee Krause as the violent protege of Fagin, Bill Sykes, takes command of the stage whenever he comes on, making the very air seem more arid, acidic, electric.

The young people who play the pickpockets, and the abused ragamuffins in the orphanage where Oliver hails from, are able to create individual personae that are larger than life but believable, lovable, rousing, and invigorating to watch. Seeing their talent and verve of the actor's promising lives before them, was exciting.

Every actor involved in the whole production was excellent, and the audience was happy to hear Susan Downey, erstwhile Peter Pan, sing her soliloquies. A huge number of people in the community contributed to make these productions possible.

The role in Oliver! that has always been the most star-making is the strongest one, that of the insouscient, cocky, strutting, sexily fashionable, Artful Dodger, striking exquisitely counterculture poses designed to charm. This self satisfied, lovable boy has been a role that made many young stars famous, such as Davey Jones, and Jack Wild, and Phil Collins, and has been played Dodger has to be that strong a character in order to convince the honest Oliver to join the pickpockets, has to be so disarming he can make a life of crime seem provocative and satisfying. He has to really believe that to be the case as well, to remain a positive character in spite of his dubious role in Oliver's life.

Dodger is played by eighteen year old Autumn Brown, of Pisgah, who is joined onstage by her very talented and engaging younger sister, Summer Brown in her first role. To pull off a demanding role like Dodger with the extraordinary star quality that comes through Autumn is a major accomplishment that should be recognized far beyond the Northeast Alabama region, but doing this as a female is even more impressive. I feel her Artful Dodger is as good as the movie version, which is saying a lot, as Wild was nominated for and Academy Award. If Autumn decides to pursue a career in acting, she will undoubtedly find great success.

Oliver is played by Elizabeth Evans, a sixth grader from Fort Payne, again, a challenging role for a female. While the other actors stick to the interpretations of their roles from the movie version of Oliver!, Elizabeth brings a new feel to her character. Rather than the trembling, wide eyes wonder of of the awe inspiring, beautiful Mark Lester, who portrayed Oliver as having intense sensitive feelings expressed obviously throughout the musical, Elizabeth plays Oliver as introverted, holding in his feelings after a lifetime of being regulated and unable to honor and show them freely. Elizabeth's Oliver seems dulled by his mistreatment, interestingly relaxed and regimented at the same time. His neutrality makes him believably impressionable enough to go along with all the twists and turns he does fall for, such as the life of a pickpocket. It also provides more of a contrast when he breaks the rules and asks for more out of life, standing up for himself and drawing on his strength in impulsive ways. Waiting to see his true nature come through the more dampened down effects of his programming in the orphanage provides the tension in the play that builds and builds, making it more a more dramatic climax of relief when at the end his iconoclastic playfulness shines through as we see him finally in his element, the only environment in which he would have been able to be himself.