There ain’t no limit on bad luck.
If there was, I’da run out years ago.”
By Eric George Tauber
SOLANA BEACH, California — Adapted from ‘Old Man’ by William Faulkner, Way Down River takes us to the Parchman State Penal Farm, Mississippi, 1927. Aikins has returned nine weeks after he had been presumed drowned in a flood.
“Aikins, you like a Jonah straight out the belly of a whale.”
He had the perfect alibi and could have lived out his days a free man under an assumed name, but he chose to return.
The Gulf of Mexico is a veritable catcher’s mitt for hurricanes making floods of Biblical proportions are part of the ecosystem. In one of these floods, the Penal Farm had to be evacuated along with the neighboring towns. With all other resources overwhelmed, the prisoners were sent on rescue missions. The math is cold-bloodedly simple. If they fail and die in the attempted rescue, that’s one less prisoner to worry about.
Two prisoners, Aikin and Tommy were sent out in a small boat to rescue a man stranded on the roof of a cotton house and a woman clinging for dear life atop a telephone pole. In a panic, Tommy grabbed onto a tree branch, capsizing the boat. Aikins was presumed drowned.
Against all odds, in the torrential current, Aikins managed to right the boat and rescue Ellie, the woman atop the telephone pole. But there’s a catch: Ellie is eight months pregnant and getting ready to pop. And they’re still at the mercy of the river. Thrown together by circumstance, the two form an uneasy alliance. As the days pass, fear and survival turn into trust and tenderness.
As Aikins opens up, we find that he didn’t come from the troubled life of most convicts, just boredom, a boy’s thirst for adventure and a copy of The Great Train Robbery. But his first heist went south, costing him his freedom.
Richard Baird is a compelling storyteller, inhabiting each moment with intensity and conviction. We ride that river with him and come away thankful to be alive. Sara Fetgatter is captivating as Ellie. We can read her face and eyes like a book, yet there’s more to her than meets the eye.
Benjamin Cole is lively and animated as Tommy. Whatever he’s in for, there’s a likable boyish charm even in his prison stripes. Robert Grossman displays a wry wit as Ike, cracking wise and strumming the blues on his guitar. Geno Carr is a hoot as the Cajun. Skinning wild gators for a living, he recounts a ferocious tussle in pantomime.
Do we get what we deserve or is there some Almighty
Umpire up there drowning this one and saving that one?
‘Way Down River offers no theophanies. But if you like to get swept up in the raging current of a good story, come to the North Coast Repertory Theatre by May 8, 2016.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and state for those outside the U.S.)