 The fourth show in our 80th season is a fascinating play, Humble Boy, by Charlotte Jones. Winner of the Critic’s Circle Award for Best New Play in 2001, it cleverly weaves death, gardening, and quantam mechanics into a wonderful tapestry that includes moments of broad comedy along with more subtle, poignant touches.
The story is about emotionally damaged astrophysicist Felix Humble, who must deal with the sudden death of his beekeeper father, come to terms with his overbearing mother, and face reconciliation with his childhood love. Flora Humble is his fashionable but self-conscious mother; George Pye is the family friend who cannot wait to take his place in Flora’s life; Rosie Pye is Felix’s spurned love interest who is now a nurse and mother to a 7-year-old daughter; Mercy Lott is the dotty character who provides much of the play’s comic relief and some of its wisdom; and Jim, the gentle gardener who minds his business and sticks to plants. One reviewer described the play as “...rich, original, intelligent, funny, and touching, bursting with ideas and characters that you come to care about deeply.”
VLT's Humble Boy is one of the Community Partner Presenters of EARTH MATTERS ON STAGE, the national Ecodrama Festival and Symposium happening at University of Oregon May 21-31. www.uoregon.edu/~ecodrama |
