Playwright Susan Sobeloff recently had an email conversation about B8 Theatre’s World Premiere play, Welcome to Little Fork, Rene Lundstrom, with the playwright Harold Smith, Director and B8 Artistic Director JanLee Marshall, and Daphne Dorman, who performs the title role of Rene Lundstrom.

Welcome to Little Fork, Rene Lundstrom

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Welcome to Little Fork... is a play about returning home transformed, profound choices of self-identity, facing bigotry, and ultimately about love.  I just saw the play last night and I’m pleased to share our conversation about how the production came together. 


First, Congratulations to all of you for bringing a world premiere play to the stage and for the first full production at B8's new space.  

JanLee Marshall, B8 Theatre is being revived after a two-year hiatus with a new space (a transformed former bank) and a new name. How did you choose this play as your inaugural production?


JanLee Marshall(Director and B8 Theatre Company Artistic Director): I directed a stage reading of the play a few years ago and when I was considering what to do this script simply wouldn't leave my mind.  In a world that is ever changing I like the idea of looking back in order to see where we are or where we might be going when it comes to our acceptance of ourselves and especially of one another.  Producing Welcome to Little Fork, Rene Lundstom sets the tone for where we are heading - we embrace change, we are inclusive, we work hard and are good people, we want to be a place where community is built across communities.


What initially drew each of you to this project? 


Harold Smith (playwright): This play started out being something completely different. I had this character returning to town after several years to extract some form of revenge on those who had bullied, harassed and tortured him during his younger days. But, as I thought back on my life there, moving from town to town with my family in our very small trailer house, it seemed to me that there wasn’t much bullying and harassment. My dad was an oil field worker, so we weren’t exactly greeted warmly in some of those farm towns, but most of the bullying was directed at me and other “oil field” kids, and not so much at other “locals.”  

So, I decided to change directions and have the person returning to town be unrecognizable and selected a change which was very rare in those days, gender change. Everything seemed to fall in place after that.


JanLee: I am drawn to this play because it wasn't what I had expected when I first began reading and because it is filled with characters that really do still exist in our world.  I love plays that might appear to be one thing and when performed become so much more.  I like surprises and we get a couple of those in Little Fork. I'm drawn to the expressions of love in this play and seeing which people and their actions draw you closer and which ones turn you away.


Daphne Dorman (actor): I only recently returned to the craft of acting after a 14-year hiatus, so I'm still establishing connections and getting to know theater companies. Patricia Milton, a talented local writer I've worked with, tagged me on Facebook with a link to the auditions. I asked around and JanLee was highly praised for her abilities as an actress and a director. 


Harold's plays usually have a deep specificity of time and place, often small town Texas in the Fifties.  Can you each share a few details about the time, town, and people of "Little Fork" that introduce and orient us to the world of the play?


JanLee: One of the aspects of Little Fork that struck me upon first reading was that small towns like Little Fork still exist. I spent much of my childhood in a small town in Indiana that certainly shares some likenesses to Little Fork.  What is both wonderful and sad about Little Fork is that the reactions of people in the play in the 50's are reactions that some people still have today - and they aren't all in small towns.  I'm hoping a visit to Little Fork will help us learn more about who and where we are today.


Harold: Let me say that the people of those hardscrabble towns were decent, hardworking people who were very kind to their “own”, but took time to trust outsiders and let them into their circles. Most of them worked long hours on their farms or ranches or at whatever jobs they had, and didn’t have much time for anything else. Except for church, of course. In my memory, it seemed that they attended as much for social interaction as they did for any spiritual reasons.

Most families were supported by a single wage-earner, usually the father, while the mother worked in the home. However, many women had jobs outside the home, and a few, like our Valerie, were business women and sometimes very independent. Our Val is just such an independent woman, barely tolerating her husband, Doug, who her mother had warned her about. She’s warm, serious, and a credit to her community.  I hope this gives a picture of what these small towns were like in the 50s.


How have the play and the characters revealed themselves while you worked on the play?


Daphne: Stories about coming out doesn't always have happy endings. All too often, the experience is at worst, tragic and at best, troubling. This story is an exception to that rule, but the peril must still exist. We live in a rather "woke" bubble so it's been fascinating to watch the actors who portray the folk of Little Fork find that danger. It's required them to make space for uncomfortable ideas and take great risks.


Can we get a behind the scenes look at the rehearsal process?  How have the play and the characters revealed themselves while you worked on the play?  Any unexpected moments or great "we've got it" moments to share?


JanLee: The rehearsal process has certainly been a whirlwind.  All the actors working on this project are very generous and fun to work with.  Daphne has brought herself to this project in an incredibly brave and generous manor.  Her willingness to share with us has allowed the entire cast to dig deeper and work harder to tell the truth of this piece.  It has also been very interesting watching the character of Val evolve, it isn't easy to be a woman ahead of her time in 1958 yet still be the woman in town setting the example of hair and fashion for everyone else.  Finding all the many aspects of Val and allowing the past to bubble forth while she claims who she is today while still being willing to evolve is no easy task.


Daphne: "Rene doesn't have all the tools and resources that Daphne does." The moment JanLee gave me this note, everything changed. There are parallels between me and the character of Rene, but she is me five years ago. It hasn't been an easy process to travel back to a point in my life I worked so hard to get away from, but it's been a powerful journey. Rene possesses a vulnerability which has been abused in my own life, so returning to that place has been difficult, but also cathartic.