As much as I wish we did, we don’t have daily commuter trains from Cookeville to Nashville or Knoxville. But whenever I visit places with trains, whether Dublin or D.C., whether New York or Chicago, I always want to ride the trains to get around. I have lost count of how many pictures I have made with my sweetie and me, sitting on the train on one of these adventures.
So when I discovered that the Backstage Series at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center was producing an intimate dramedy that takes place on a train, I knew that I was ready to get on board. As with other recent shows, the entire building has been transformed with an immersive vibe, this time of a train station. That my first trip on these tracks took place on Valentine’s weekend, all the better.
Traveling itself, in this stage show by Jerry Mayer, is one of many metaphors, in a production dripping with metaphors. The title itself is 2 Across, which refers to the two protagonists sitting across from each other. But it also refers to the New York Times crossword puzzle that they both brought with them.
The crossword puzzle is everything to this everyman and everywoman, Josh and Janet. In an inclusive and expansive move, our local version of this two-person show has two alternating casts, depending on which night you attend.
For my version, I got to see one of CPAC’s loveliest and most loyal leaders in Kimberly Frick-Welker paired with Brian May, a retired air force colonel and local lacrosse coach. Their delightfully thorny and thorough dynamic makes all their interactions entirely believable and disarming, even the script occasionally drifts into cheesy and corny terrain. Upon leaving the show with a warm fuzzy feeling all over, I was looking at the calendar to see if I could make a show featuring the other cast of Jennifer Williams and Doc Copp.
The pesky crossword puzzle is like its own character, shoutout to Will Shorts. The puzzle will break the ice, stoke the conversation and its titillating tensions, and catapult the characters into a conflict that unfolds into its own resolution. The laughter along the way lightens a show about heavy human topics and the inner hunger of a human heart to win at a game called life, a game suffused with love.
The successes and failures of a middle-aged middle-class American are often measured in the universal experiences of career, of marriage, and of family. Our protagonists present unique struggles in all those categories, and as they make progress on that day’s newspaper puzzle, the puzzle of their lives seems to fall apart and come together, in real time.
The duration of the tender production is meant to reflect the real time, within the world of the show: the exact passage of minutes for an early morning commute from the airport to a destination at the same stop. The fantastic set design and direction by Holly Mills really conveys this feature to the fullest effect. The entire CPAC team has considered every aspect of production in bringing such a superb theatrical experience to our community.
On a recent east coast trip that I took that involved several short train trips, the transit authorities were in the process of phasing out the paper tickets that tourists buy at the machine. Soon, everyone just taps their phone or debit card to board. But because we couldn’t figure out that some trains were already in the new digital normal, and we were already in possession of paid-for versions of the almost-extinct paper tickets, we ended up getting a free ride courtesy of a sympathetic transit employee. That feeling of freedom, and of living on the analog side of the digital era, returned while watching this show.
The plot and the premise of 2 Across take us back to the early 2000s. Everything about this train ride is analog and ties us back to the pre-digital times of the last century. Attending an in-person show that takes place inside a rapid transit train, where the main characters debate whether a pen or pencil is best for a puzzle completed on newsprint, all these factors are transformative to recall a time before smart phones where smart humans wrestle with their own shortcomings on the most important journey of all, the one that arrives at the stop where we find love and contentment.
For more info -
cpactn.com
(931) 528-1313
cookevilleperformingartscenter@cookeville-tn.gov
-A local poet, teacher, DJ, and activist, Andrew Smith has been Cookeville’s theater critic for almost 20 years
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