'Empty Page, Empty Stage' is Full-on Great

About 50 years ago, media philosopher Marshall Mcluhan said that public transportation would never catch on in the Uniterd States because cars are the only places people have to be alone and think.

Thank God for that.

In her car, driving back and forth to school, is where Valerie Von Rosenvinge, the drama teacher at Hopkinton High School and the artistic director for the Hopkinton High Drama Ensemble, wrote the dialogue and music for Empty Page, Empty Stage.

The structure followed a spur-of-the-moment idea she offered in Scotland when asked what her play was about.

Von Rosenvinge said she was glad to be one of the last drama teachers to speak, so she had time to think of what to say. 

The biggest problem with the play is that it wasn't performed at the corner of routes 85 and 135, right smack in the middle of downtown, so that people would have to stop and pay attention.

With any endeavor, whether it's theater, business or golf, the advocates inevitably end up preaching to the choir.

People who are interested in theater made the trek to the high school auditorium to see Empty Page, Empty Stage. 

But this beautiful play, which says so much about the transformative power of literature - and theater - would be an eye-opener for people who may think the 21st Century has passed theater by, or doesn't have something for them, or isn't as much fun as, for instance, golf.

On a set marked off to the size of the stage at the Fringe Festival, on folding seats and a few boxes the company will take to Scotland in August, a world of contemporary and literary characters answers directly the question Why does art matter?

Elementally, the play weaves dance, drama, humor and music.

The humor is natural, seeping out at hard moments as it does in life.

The drama is in the jungle-like struggle of high school, one that the author and students see more clearly than adults' selective memories.

The song is perfect, as are the cast's voices. It's a powerful ending to intractable problems the plot poses. 

And the dance. It leads with a visual thrill of black-clad characters silhouetted on a blue background. Dramatic, riveting and easy to recreate on a stage thousands of miles away, which the ensemble will have to do.

Then the dance flows, like the yoga asana it partially mimes, with interruptions of quick steps, and dancers weaving but never crashing across the stage.

What is this?

It is the audience's car ride, our time to be alone and think - about the play, rather than wherever we hurried from beforehand.

Really, an excellently acted, produced and written work. As The Narrator Mehr Kaur says near the story's beginning, there are winners and losers and pressures to succeed within a defined context.

As George S. Patton, like Mcluhan, a 20th Century philospher said, pressure makes diamonds.

Look for more Empty Page, Empty Stage photos Monday!