The Alameda High School Drama Department is blessed with having two outstanding drama directors, much like the 49ers were with quarterbacks back in the ’80s and ’90s. So while Artistic Director Anneka Fagundes (Joe Montana) is on leave, Richard Robert Bunker (Steve Young) came off the bench to direct their fall play, Ghostlight. It was, in a word, remarkable. It is a meta mystery heartfelt high school ghost story. It relies heavily on sound effects supplied by phenomenal Foley artists Harper Taylor and Aedan Cole. Taylor also sings before the show and the start of Act 2 and sets a gorgeous melodious tone that is then nudged aside for this wacky wonderful play. (In the future, someone please put her on stage and just let her sing for as long as she wants.)
The plot: A kid named Garbiella (the terrific Ayla Zarehbin) transfers to a fancy new school, hears voices, annoys her Spanish teacher (the scary good Elle Detlefs), makes friends with a character I really can’t tell too much about (played by the amazing Cierra Williams), then proceeds to interact with other kids, some of whom may or may not be real, and her dad (the wonderful Lark Jordan), until the mystery that I also cannot talk about touchingly unravels with lots of hugging in the end. The playwright, Stephen Gregg, has written a postmodern play, or maybe it’s cubism, or calculus, or something zany and complicated that has no name but has this- the power to draw us into the story and care so much about these characters.
The staging of the play deserves its own paragraph, involving what Thornton Wilder (Our Town) described as “theatrical realism,” the absence of elaborate sets and props and a reliance on the audience to kick in with their imagination. There are stairs and boxes and an imagined dog, an elevator, and a dessert called affinity that seems to be a modern version of Turkish delight from The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s an interactive experience with audience members being given lines to recite along with a warning that if we botch our delivery, the whole play fails. We did not and it did not.
What makes all of this work—to go back to the 49ers analogy—is that Zarehbin and Williams are the Jerry Rice and John Taylor of this group (google all the athletes, learn some history). The former is essentially in every scene, runs and climbs all over the stage, while the latter comes and goes with boundless charisma and energy. They are each fully realized, charming, energetic, and authentic in their nearly matching school uniforms.
I’m going to close my review of this play that you really must see by quoting the last line—I promise it does not give anything away. The character played by Williams, the one I really cannot talk about, says something that will make more sense once you see the show. Musing about a high school theater, the one in the play and the one we’re in watching the play, she says, “It’s my favorite place in the world.” Yeah, for me too, I thought while wiping away tears.
Remaining performances of Ghostlight are November 13 and 14 at 7 p.m. at Frederick L. Chacon Little Theatre, 2200 Central Avenue. Purchase tickets online at GoFan.
Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gene-Kahane.
