Step into the mountains again with 'Fair and Tender Ladies' at Wetumpka Depot
Welcome to the mountains of Virginia, seen page-by-page and year-by-year through the eyes of Ivy Rowe.
We’re talking about “Fair and Tender Ladies,” Virginia native Lee Smith’s 1988 novel that was crafted into a musical stage production at Montgomery’s Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 1998.
Starting Thursday, “Fair and Tender Ladies” is back on stage in the River Region, this time at the Wetumpka Depot for a run through Oct. 8.
“I hit the jackpot,” said Depot director Kim Mason. “It’s been such a pleasurable experience so far, and I can’t wait for audiences to see it.”
In Smith’s novel, Rowe keeps in touch with the outside world through a series of letters spanning more than 60 years (1912 through the mid-1970s), which draws readers deep into her home deep in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia.
"I was privileged to see this production at ASF years ago and have been looking for the right time to bring it to our stage," said Depot artistic director Kristy Meanor.
The iconic role of Rowe is being performed by Adrian Bush, a veteran of ASF productions like “Sherlock Holmes,” “Ruby,” and “Macbeth.” Greta Lambert, who played Rowe for ASF’s productions, praised Bush as a talented actor.
“It’s the role of a lifetime. It really is,” Lambert said.
Bush will be joined by castmates Leanna Wallace and Sarah Housley, who have multiple roles.
“They’re just going to be wonderful. I know they’re all fantastic actors,” Lambert said. “I can’t wait to see how this play inspires them.”
The five musicians on stage also step in as characters.
“The script is actually written for the musicians to be like voices in the shadow, voices in (Rowe’s) memory,” Mason said. “In our minds we see this person, and the musician provides their voice.”
Karren Pell, part of the play’s original team of songwriters, has a couple of personal connections to this new production. Her husband, Tim Henderson, is one of the musicians for the Depot.
“He’s playing mandolin, fiddle and guitar, and even has a couple of spoken lines,” said Pell, who has worked closely with the Depot musicians for this show, and gave them stories on how the songs were created. Pell said she feels a little guilty because she “worked the snot out of them.”
Pell is also friends with the “Fair and Tender Ladies” novel author.
“(Smith) was so happy when I called and told her that it was going up again,” Pell said. “She loves Ivy. Ivy is one of her favorite heroines.”
Pell praised the cast’s vocals. “Those three ladies, they are really something,” she said. “Their blend is special.”
Mason said she kept the stage setting sparse, with some moving, multi-purpose furniture.
“The trunk that (Rowe) uses and brings a lot of things out of is used for her desk, and a place to sit,” Mason said.
Performances at the Depot, 300 South Main St., Wetumpka, are at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. There's also a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee on Oct. 2. Tickets are $15 and available online at wetumpkadepot.com or at the door.
When “Fair and Tender Ladies” starts Thursday, it won’t be alone. That’s opening night for four other area theater productions: Pike Road Theatre Company’s “Nunsense,” Prattville’s Way Off Broadway Theatre’s “The Outsider,” Millbrook Community Players’ “Clue,” and the world premiere of the Nora’s Playhouse production of “Ashes & Ink” at The Sanctuary in Montgomery.
“I don’t know why that happens,’ Mason said. “The scheduling is just insane. It happens every year, but this year is particularly rough.”
On Friday, Pell and songwriting partner Tommy Goldsmith will have a half-hour pre-show concert in Wetumpka Depot's lobby.
“That’s going to be fun, and then we’re going to go in and watch the show,” Pell said.
After Sunday's performance, Lambert will talk about how she developed Rowe as a character for ASF's world premier.
ASF and beyond: Creating a stage world for ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’
Smith’s novel was adapted to stage by Eric Schmiedl, and given music by Pell, Goldsmith, and Tom House. Pell said this was their second commission, the first being William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying.” The music for that one came together well, but they couldn’t get the rights to produce it.
“We liked that process so much that we were kind of looking for something else,” Pell said.
Soon, “Fair and Tender Ladies” came looking for her. Nancy Anderson, a friend and literature professor at Auburn Montgomery, gave her the novel. Anderson said she had a feeling about it. That feeling led to Pell, House and Goldsmith writing a series of songs, and then playing them for Smith at Pell’s apartment.
“We took (Smith’s) prose and added our own whatever we had to do to meter and rhyme it to make songs,” said Pell, who described working on the project as a deep and humbling honor.
After playing the songs for Smith, the author gave them permission to work on an official stage adaptation of “Fair and Tender Ladies.”
“The recipe of the music and the words together just creates something that touches you so deeply,” Mason said. “I can’t even explain it. I am drawn to tears.”
“Their music just reaches into your soul,” said Lambert, whose family is from the Appalachian mountains. “It was a great way to plug into myself, really.”
The play adaptation was submitted to ASF’s Southern Writers Project for development, where the overall script and songs were reviewed and tinkered with, and from there very quickly added to ASF’s 1998-99 season.
“It was career changing for all of us, and a big blessing,” Pell said.
Lambert remembers Schmiedl’s early script draft at SWP. “It was about a bunch of people being interviewed about a woman named Ivy Rowe,” she said. “We were all these different reporters. We finished reading the play, and we said, ‘Eric, where is Ivy Rowe? That’s who the play should be about.’”
Schmiedl came back the next day with a script that was very close to the one used in the actual production, Lambert said.
“When we got word that it was going up (on stage), I was so surprised and so happy,” said Pell, who said the play led her to move to Montgomery. “I called Tommy Goldsmith. His comment says it all. Tommy said, ‘We live on.’”
It would premiere in ASF’s octagon theater on Nov. 13, 1998.
“It is by far my favorite role that I have ever played in my whole life,” said Lambert, who said she liked being Rowe even more than roles in Shakespeare’s plays.
One memorable scene in had Lambert as Rowe standing up with her arms outstretched, staring off into the distance.
“That’s the moment when she leaves her husband and her children to go off with the honey man,” Lambert said. “They go off into the mountains, and she can see for miles and miles and miles, mountain after mountain. She’s taking in the world that is beyond her and part of her.”
Surprisingly, Lambert had never sang on stage until this role. “I’m not a singer,” she said.
Lambert said Pell helped her prepare by giving her singing lessons.
“She certainly turned it into a signature role,” Pell said. “She certainly made Ivy come alive.”
Directed by Susan Willis, “Fair and Tender Ladies” was so successful that it was taken on tour through the Southeast during the 1999-2000 season, and returned for a short run at ASF at the end of October 2000.
Lambert remembers the bus ride during the tour. The small cast (3 musicians and 3 actors) had it to themselves, so they had “gobs and gobs” of room. Some of that space got filled with items they picked up along the way.
“We would go to antique stores in every single town we were in,” Lambert said.
The tour also stopped where Smith was living in North Carolina.
“She came to the production, and that was a very magical night,” Lambert said.
It returned to ASF’s schedule for the 2006-’07 season. This time it was on the larger festival stage, though it would get pushed back from June to July 2007 to make room for “Menopause the Musical.”
“Everyone who saw ('Fair and Tender Ladies') still remembers it,” Mason said. “It was just something that I believe was so moving, so wonderful, and touched so many people.”
Lambert reprised her role as Rowe, as did the multiple-role actors Kim Ders (Maudy, Beulah and Geneva) and Debra Funkhouser (Silvaney, Joli, and Miss Torrington).
“I think it’s something that became a part of people,” Mason said. “When you see a show that you absolutely love, it stays with you. You want to revisit them. I think this is one of those shows.”
The full “Fair and Tender Ladies” production was revived twice in 2013: As a student production by the Wetumpka High School Theatre Guild (with Blair Caton as Rowe), and by the Red Door Theatre in Union Springs.
In 2009, the “Fair and Tender Ladies” novel was adapted again, this time into a one-woman play “Ivy Rowe” by the Brundidge Historical Society for the “We Piddle Around Theater.” It starred Barbara Bates Smith as Rowe. That production is still ongoing with the same actor, with a performance in June this year at the Virginia Highlands Festival.
Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel covers things to do in the River Region. Contact him at sheupel@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: 'Fair and Tender Ladies' play at Wetumpka Depot starts Thursday
