Dear Sara Jane
Contemporary American Theater Festival Produces New Lodato Play
Sara Jane–all girl, all the time–waits alone at home for her soldier husband to return from war. She’s a little loopy to begin with, and bourbon brings on more loopiness. Gradually she reveals peculiar information about herself and her family, including her husband, her sister, and her mother. Sara Jane is funny, bizarre, and sick, a dependent personality who, in attempting to make sense of her situation, only confuses herself more.
As they watch and listen, the audience must sort out her mélange of fact and fantasy. Is there one Sara Jane or two? Is Mom as bad as Sara Jane portrays her, or worse? Is hubby actually dangerous, or does he just like rough sex? A fascinating dynamic builds between the audience and the character. Sometimes Sara Jane knows things the audience doesn’t; other times it’s the reverse.
Dear Sara Jane may be a one-woman show, but according to Potomac Stages, it is definitely not a one-character show. Actress Joey Parsons “takes on the personas of twin sisters, one attempting rather unsuccessfully to cope with the fate of her husband in the war in Iraq while the other, from whom she was separated surgically in infancy, clearly has had even less success coping with the world at large.”
Victor Lodato: The Playwright
Victor Lodato is a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of the Weissberger Award for his play Motherhouse. Other plays include The Bread Of Winter, Wildlife, Margo and Zelda, and Slay The Dragon. Other honors include a Helen Merrill Award, the John Golden Prize, and the Julie Harris Playwriting Award, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Princess Grace Foundation, The Robert Chesley Foundation, The Camargo Foundation (France), and The Bogliasco Foundation (Italy). His play 3F, 4F received its world premiere at the Magic Theatre, as did his play The Eviction.
Winner of a Roger L. Stevens Award from The Kennedy Center fund for new American plays, The Eviction was subsequently produced by Theatre Na Zabradli in Prague, where it remains part of the company’s permanent repertory. Other works by Lodato have been produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Summer Play Festival/NYC, Quartieri dell’Arte Festival (Viterbo, Italy), and Teatro Colosseo (Rome).
Lodato’s plays have received workshops and readings at Manhattan Theatre Club, American Conservatory Theatre, The National Theatre/London, The Guthrie Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Primary Stages, The Play Company, and The Playwrights’ Center. He has developed work at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and received commissions from South Coast Repertory and the Magic Theatre.
His work has been published in North American Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Northwest Review, and New American Short Plays, edited by Craig Lucas. Lodato is a member of New Dramatists and The Dramatists Guild of America.
Victor Lodato had two pieces produced this year at the Theatre Alliance at the H Street Playhouse in Washington, DC. Dear Sara Jane was originally published in The Backstage Book of New American Short Plays 2004 by Back Stage Books.
CATF: The Production
One of five plays offered in 2009 by the Contemporary Arts Theater Festival, Dear Sara Jane was performed at Shepherd University’s new Center for Contemporary Art in Shepherdstown, WV. The set was a sunroom decorated with white pleated curtains, a white floor, white furniture, a white piano, and a white overhead canopy. It’s a light and pretty counter to the twisted psyches who live within it. As the play unfolds, the mood changes, and dark lighting and ear-splitting sounds made the room seem fierce and threatening. According to AllArtsREview4U, “... director Ed Herendeen gives amazing life to this script with frightening sound effects of war and violent thunderstorms.”
The set and costumes were designed by Margaret A. McKowen, also the Festival’s associate producing director. Other production members included Patrick Wallace (lights), Christina Smith (sound), and Bryce Britton (stage manager). Joey Parsons, a young actress new to the Potomac region, played Sara Jane.
Dear Sara Jane runs 1 hour and 20 minutes with no intermission.
CATF's Dear Sara Jane Program Cover
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Joey Parsons as Dear Sara Jane
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