As I write, my words cannot capture the enormity of the task of keeping the audience engaged in Bus Stop on the particular night I attended. The cast and crew had to deal with record-breaking heat, which hadn't broken by the time the production began. Open windows on a hot night in Warren, RI along with a theater on the busiest corner of town, mean that lots of ambient noise can distract an audience during the performance. In his introduction, Artistic Director Ed Shea gave the audience guidance on how to deal with it. It reminded me of yoga instructions: It will happen. Acknowledge it and then let it go.
The original Broadway production of Bus Stop opened on March 2, 1955. Elaine Stritch, Phyllis Love and Kim Stanley played the three female leads. It is hard to imagine those three women in one play. The original production is part of Broadway lore and spawned the film version which starred Marilyn Monroe in the role of Cherie. With this impressive pedigree, the bar for 2nd Story Theatre's production is high. The play takes place about 30 miles from Kansas City, MO, just over the Kansas state line. It is a cold night in March about 1 a.m. and there is a snow storm raging outside the door of Grace's diner. The midnight bus pulls in, late, and with it, the narrative of Bus Stop. Grace (Joanne Fayan) and her high school aged, part-time waitress Elma (Maryellen Brito) and the local sheriff, Will (Joe Henderson) welcome Cherie (Laura Sorenson), a self-proclaimed chanteuse who works in a third-rate night club, Dr. Lyman (F. William Oakes), a drunken professor with a penchant for inappropriately young women, Bo (Kyle Maddock) a cowboy who is making, what seems to be, his first trip off the ranch, Virgil (Vince Petronio) who is Bo's level-headed mentor and Carl (Walter Cotter), the bus driver. The next few hours will change at least a few of their lives.Videos