Trying

South Carolina Repertory Company play brings young and old together

BY JACQUELYN LEWIS, The Island Packet
Published Friday, October 21, 2005

Memorizing lines, building sets and coordinating costumes are challenges any theater company faces when mounting a production.

But South Carolina Repertory Company had to overcome another set of obstacles even before it started rehearsals for the play "Trying," which opens Thursday at the company's theater on Beach City Road.

Hank Haskell, who runs South Carolina Repertory Company with his wife, Pat Haskell, said the theater group had to get special permission from playwright Joanna McClelland Glass to produce "Trying" on Hilton Head Island because the show is in such high demand, with 25 regional theater groups planning to present it this year. Not to mention that the Canadian script hadn't yet been published in the United States a few months ago, when the Haskells were auditioning actors for the show. With Glass' agent's permission, the Haskells had to download the entire 83-page script from the Internet.

Still, Haskell said, the effort it took to meet those challenges was worth it, because "Trying" is the perfect play to start off South Carolina Repertory Company's 2005-2006 season.

"This summer, we probably read 20 or 25 great plays, but we really stuck to our guns on this one," Haskell said of "Trying," which calls for two actors. "It will make you laugh; it will make you cry; you'll beg for more."

"Trying," which made its United States premiere in 2004 in Chicago, is set in the late 1960s. It tells the story of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's aging, irascible former attorney general Francis Biddle (J. Michael Craig), and the friendship he forges with his assistant, Sarah Schorr (Tracy Jo Jungbauer), despite the fact that she is 25 and Biddle is 81.

The play addresses issues of getting older, the generation gap and politics, through gentle comedy, said Tom Evans, who is directing the local production.

"It's a piece of history," said Evans, who has directed more than a dozen plays at South Carolina Repertory Company. "It has characters you can relate to because it's based on real people."

In fact, the character Schorr is based on playwright Glass herself, who spent a year as the real Biddle's assistant.

"We spent our months together 'trying' to negotiate and span our enormous differences of youth and age, of class and culture," Glass wrote of that year.

In the play, Biddle has to accept the fact that he's getting older and learn to accept Schorr's help, Evans said. As Biddle and Schorr find ways to relate to one another, they also forge a deep connection.

"They do fall in love," Evans said. "Not sexual love, but they become great friends. We see (Biddle) admit that he really needs (Schorr)."

Portraying the nuances of that relationship calls for very talented actors, Haskell said, so finding the right performers for the roles of Biddle and Schorr was imperative.

While actor Craig, of Greenville, S.C., only is in his 50s, both Haskell and Evans said they knew he would be the perfect performer to portray 81-year-old Biddle.

Haskell said Craig, who appeared as Mitch in South Carolina Repertory Company's 2004 production of "Four Beers" has a versatility that allows him to play almost any character.

And Craig, who has appeared in more than 150 plays across the country and in television commercials, said he's up for the challenge.

"You have to work from the outside in," he said.

Jungbauer, who is making her debut with South Carolina Repertory Company, said she was interested in playing Schorr because she was drawn to the play's message.

"There are some real universal truths in this," said Jungbauer, who lives in Alpharetta, Ga., and has apprenticed with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company and studied at The Shakespeare Institute in England. "I love the budding, growing relationship that develops (between Sarah and Biddle)."

Haskell said Hilton Head is an ideal place to stage "Trying," given that younger and older generations often find themselves forging the same kinds of friendships here.

"There are a lot of old people here, and there are a lot of young people," he said. "'Trying'" is something anyone can relate to."

For more information call 681-5194.

Correction: This article originally reported the wrong residence for actor J. Michael Craig. He lives in Greenville, S.C.

Contact Jacquelyn Lewis at 706-8125 or jlewis@islandpacket.com. To comment on this story, please go to www.islandpacket.com.