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By Leslie Mizell, Freelance Contributor

Special to the News & Record

June 28, 2008

IT'S GOOD TO BE IN THE 'FAMILY BUSINESS'

GREENSBORO--Two short stories by North Carolina authors vividly come to life in "Family Business," the latest in the Touring Theatre of North Carolina's repertoire of original plays at the Broach Theatre.

Jill McCorkle's "Crash Diet" and Randall Kenan's "The Foundations of the Earth" both deal with big issues, but the two couldn't have been handled more differently by their writers.

In "Crash Diet," Sandra (Lee Strickland) deals with the sudden abandonment of her husband in typical fashion: she repeatedly drives past the house where he's living with the much younger Other Woman, maxes out his credit cards and sees a therapist.

Strickland, laying on a thick Southern accent, was delightful.  When her husband announces he's leaving, she gets worried--about her hair.

In "The Foundations of the Earht," you like Maggie McGowan Williams (Donna B. Bradby), too, but with much more reservations at first.  Although she reared her grandson Edward, the two have barely been in contact since he headed north for college.

She finds out after he is killed in an accident that he had been living in a gay relationship.

Shocked, Maggie tries to work through emotions ranging from repugnance to tenderness once she invites his partner for a visit.

Bradby went beyond the stereotypical old church lady, creating a portrait of a loving woman with deep beliefs and wry humor.

Although "Family Business" adapted and directed by Brenda Schleunes, provided two showcase roles, it gave the rest of the cast a chance to shine, as well.  Dan A.R. Kelly was equally convincing as Sandra's cheating husband and Edward's lover.

Woodrow Bumbry was both a friendly therapist and a fire-and-brimstone preacher.

And Cassandra Williams was Sandra's critical mother and a gossipy churchwoman.

Although the two stories were too different to gel as a seamless play, they're both well-acted and thought-provoking.

As a bonus, there was a short question-and-answer session following each performance.

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By Leslie Mizell

GoTriad

June 26, 2008

SOUTHERN STORIES WEAVE TOGETHER

GREENSBORO--Southern novels bulge from crowded shelves in bookstores, but that didn't help Brenda P. Schleunes when she wanted to adapt a couple of short stories as her latest project.

Schleunes, founder and Artistic Director of the Touring Theatre of North Carolina, was looking for short stories from N.C. writers, which narrowed the field considerably.

"I had adapted Jill McCorkle's 'Crash Diet' as a solo piece a dozen or more years ago as part of the show 'Pit Stop,'" Schleunes says, "and the North Carolina Arts Council suggested Randall Kenan's work.  I read his collection 'Let the Dead Bury Their Dead' and found a story that dealt with an African American family's response to homosexuality.  Since our troupe's focus is on community issues, I've wanted to deal with homosexuality for years, but until now, I never had the right vehicle to do it."

The two stories--McCorkle's title story from her collection "Crash Diet" and Kenan's "The Foundations of the Earth"--mesh in "Family Business," which opens tonight in the Broach Theatre.  McCorkle and Kenan will both be on hand.

"What makes two stories fit together," Schleunes says, "is that they both deal with transitions in the family structure.  They're about souls who are tormented as they adjust to a profound change in their concept of family, but both stories include a lot of humor."

McCorkle, a member of N.C. State's Creative Writing faculty, says "Crash Diet," is a popular audition piece.

"It's one of those stories that I started with no idea where it was going," she said in a phone call.  "It comes from two ideas: I marvel at the instant subdicisions that spring up out of nowhere.  And when I was young and poor, I used to go to department stores and fill a shopping cart with the things I wanted, then abandon it because I couldn't pay.  I drew on those imaginary shopping sprees for a tale of conspicuous consumption."

"Crash Diet" is a monologue by a divorcee who embarks on several schemes in an attempt to get over her ex-husband.

Kenan, who is on the English faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, says "The Foundations of the Earth"--which comes from a line in Job--"came out of a sense of the outside forces conspiring to change down east as we knew it in the early 1990s: deeply conservative, deeply religious, deeply bound by a lot of traditions."

Schleunes says it took a type of hubris to try to adapt the story, which is told without a linear timeline and features several dream sequences.  It's the story of a grandmother who has poured everything she has into rearing her grandson, and how she adjusts after learning not only that he has died, but that he was also in a gay relationship at the time.

"In truth, the last thing I thought of was an actual dramatic performance of the story," Kenan said via e-mail.  "It tickles me even to contemplate the idea."

Neither writer has seen a script for "Family Business" or attended any rehearsals.  "When you agree to this type of thing, you give it up," McCorkle says.  "It's someone else's creation in a different form."

But it would be impossible for Schleunes to take out the stories' "Southern-ness," even if she wanted to.  Lumberton's McCorkle, who has a strong accent, says she gives away her roots every time she opens her mouth.  Kenan was Brooklyn-born, but he grew up in Duplin County.

"(Southern writing) is a strong wonderful literary heritage that I'm proud to be connected to," McCorkle says.  "The only time it's a negative is if we're all lumped together like Southerners are the only ones who can understand Southern writing, or if it's stereotyped in a 'Hee Haw' way.  I prefer to think it's our specific place of growth that allows Southern writers to reach out in ways that are more universal instead of all us writers hiding in our Southern fortress."

Kenan agrees: "I can only think of myself as a Southerner.  Almost all my fiction has been set in the South, and even those not set here have Southerners as the main characters.  Being a Southern writer isn't a boundary or a limit, but a source of inspiration and well of truth.  The South is very real to me, and worth talking about."