'Lifelines' gets a belated debut, directed by the playwright

CIO * ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT

THE ANN ARBOR NEWS • SUNDAY, JUNE 28,1987

'Lifelines' gets a belated debut, directed by the playwright

By CHRISTOPHER POTTER

NEWS ARTS WRITER

For writer/actress Carol Sheldon, Thursday evening’s premiere of the play “Lifelines” at Performance Network, is a bittersweet case of better late than never.

Picture the wrenching scenario of four years back: It’s July 1983, and Ann Arborite Sheldon’s just-completed “Lifelines,” a poignant tale of two social misfits who glean new insight to themselves through each other, Is set for a full-scale production by Writers’ Theater in New York City. Sadly, showbiz politics cruelly intervene: A dispute triggered by the show’s producer over choice of the director results in the original director walking out as his potential replacement signs a contract to direct a show in London. The result for Sheldon: no show, kaput, canceled. Bye-bye, Broadway.

“I was really devastated,” says Sheldon, one of Ann Arbor’s most visible theatrical writers and performers. She admits that the experience temporarily soured her on the whole notion of being a playwright and that she spent time “licking wounds.” “I had taken a two-year leave from teaching (at the Ann Arbor Public Schools) to study playwrighting in New York. I think I was spoiled because everything I’d written up to that point had been produced one way or another.”

Afterward, Sheldon, whose local stage works include historical musicals “Timber” and “Ye Bloody Rebels,” plus dramatic works like “Sand Castles” and “The Last Taboo,” refrained from any swift attempts to resurrect “Lifelines” for a belated premiere. “I had some opportunities, but I really didn’t want to do the play unless we could do it right.”

“Right” included an eventual decision to take up the show’s directorial reigns herself for Performance Network’s production. “I don’t share the view that writers shouldn’t direct their own work,” Sheldon declares. “I think the question of artistic control is a delicate one, and there are certainly reasons for a writer not to direct' - you get too close to your creation sometimes and it’s hard to let go.”

Conversely, “I’ve seen what can happen, how what I’ve said is so changed by the time it gets through the hands of the director and the actors — I just felt I know the (two) characters in the play so well that I’d like to try it myself.” “Lifelines” twin outcasts include Rudy (played by Todd Seage), a teen escapee from an adolescent mental hospital who determines to hide out in a deserted summer cabin in November. To his consternation, the owner’s lonely teenage daughter Vinnie (Alica Surmont) is already living there, forcing a confrontation that mutates from overt hostility to grudging respect to guarded love.

“It’s violent at first,” says Sheldon, adding that “Lifeline’s” oft-explicit language precludes the play’s suitability for children. “Rudy is very volatile, but also very tender. Neither of them has ever had a relationship with the opposite sex. Rudy makes some clumsy attempts to establish one, but he gets angry easily, suddenly becoming very sweet again.

“Vinnie has to sort all of this out - what’s safe and what isn’t. She starts out as kind of a wimp and ends up a courageous lady. As each peels away the other’s layers of defense, they discover a lot about themselves as well.”

For that matter, Sheldon admits she discovered more than a little about Rudy and Vinnie during the course of “Lifelines’” intense (“seven days a week, four hours a night”) rehearsals. “It’s been exciting for me to finally watch these characters come to life. They’ve been real to me, but since I wrote it some time ago, it’s exciting to see them take flesh.

“I have some ideas that are fixed about what Rudy and Vinnie should be like. But on the other hand, I'm blessed with two good actors who have brought a great deal of their own to the parts. It’s been wonderful to watch them work and evolve. I’ve gotten to know this Rudy and Vinnie quite differently.”

The Performance Network, 608 W. Washington, will present 'Lifelines,'Thursday through Sunday and July 9-12 at 8 p.m. Opening night's audience is invited to a post-show reception for Carol Sheldon. Tickets are $6 for Thursday and Sunday shows, $7 for Friday and Saturday shows, $2 off for students. For information, call 663-0681.

'I don't share the view that writers shouldn't direct their own work.'

— Carol Sheldon, 'Lifelines' author

A scene from 'Lifelines' starring Eliza Surmont and Todd Seage.