Scene leads director to pull plug on play

DUMMERSTON — The Vermont Theater Company has canceled this weekend's performances of "The Lift," after the director received a complaint over his casting of a teenager in a suggestive scene.

The scene in question takes place in complete darkness and contains no nudity.

In it, Louise Krieger, who portrays Helene, a wealthy, older woman, has a sexual encounter with the lead actor, Felix, who is portrayed by 18-year-old BUHS student Kario Pereira-Bailey.

Play director, and Vermont Theater Company board member Bob Kramsky, said he decided to pull the plug on Zeke Hecker's original musical after receiving the face-to-face criticism from someone who saw the play this past weekend.

"It was a hard choice," Kramsky said Tuesday. "I am very proud of the production and spent a good deal of time on it. It is a big disappointment."

Kramsky has been a theater teacher at BUHS for 34 years, and has worked with Pereira-Bailey as the gifted high school student developed into one of the town's most promising young actors.

Kramsky declined to give details on who made the complaint, or what challenges he or the theater company would have faced if this weekend's

performances were held.

But he acknowledged that he should have hired someone older than Pereira-Bailey in the role.

"It was probably a mistake for us to cast a teenager, albeit an 18-year-old, and it would have been wiser to have an actor who was 23 or 25," Kramsky said. "They were not saying the material should not be done. The major issue is that there is a teenager and we would have avoided the whole issue if someone older had played the part."

The original musical, which is based on a scene in Thomas Mann's novel, "The Confessions of Felix Krull," premiered last weekend at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center.

Kramsky made it clear that it was not the Grange board, or any of the sponsors, that complained but rather someone who had watched the production.

According to Kramsky, Hecker's original staging was much more racy and Kramsky decided to set the scene in total darkness, with Pereira-Bailey removing only his shirt, though he said it is obvious that the two characters were making love in the scene.

It is also not entirely clear how old Pereira-Bailey's character is, but he could be as young as 15.

"It is important that people realize that this is not someone in the community censoring a show because of content necessarily," Kramsky said. "If the show hadn't been canceled, it could have been very uncomfortable for the Vermont Theater Company and I thought the judicious thing to do would be to cancel the production."

Hecker, the playwright, was angry and disappointed when he first got the news.

"I assumed this was a self-appointed guardian of public morals, but after further talk with Kramsky, I realize he made the right decision," Hecker said. "From what he told me, it was clear that for the sake of everybody involved, he made the right decision to close the show."

During production, Hecker said the cast discussed the material and debated how far the sexual content could be pushed.

Hecker's history as a playwright and composer includes children's opera and he did not think "The Lift" extended beyond any lines of decency.

"It was totally unexpected. I had no inkling there was a problem," he said. "This came as a great blow. I did not consider the way in which we staged it to be offensive and I don't think the vast majority of the audience considered it offensive. My work is generally less edgy than anything you'll find on nightly network television."