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| Jens Rasmussen in The Glass Menagerie |
But when Festival Stage of Winston-Salem presents Tennessee Williams' classic play beginning Friday in Hanesbrands Theatre, another person will join the cast.
Randy Craven won't utter a line. But he will wear a costume and play a piano in the theater's performance area, underscoring much of the show with music that he has composed or improvised. His contribution follows in the footsteps of 19th-century composers who wrote incidental music for nonmusical works of theater by Shakespeare and others.
Writing and performing incidental music for plays with dialogue has become highly unusual, probably because it's an expense of time and money that few theater companies want to take on.
Yet Kristen Kundert-Gibbs, the director of "Menagerie," said she requested it soon after she was hired to direct the show.
"I think it will be exciting and different," she said.
"Menagerie," set in the South in 1937, portrays a struggling family whose members love each other despite their conflicting objectives. It revolves around the memories of Tom Wingfield (Jens Rasmussen). He is the son of the hovering and nagging Amanda Wingfield (Monica Bell) and the brother of the shy and fragile Laura Wingfield (Jacqueline M. Carey).
Jim O'Connor, one of Tom's warehouse co-workers, appears as Laura's "gentleman caller."
The unseen father looms in the background, having abandoned his wife and children years ago.
When Tom Wingfield is years older, he ruminates on memories of his family as he perches on a fire escape, which serves as Tom Wingfield's window into the larger world.
Craven, a local pianist, is listed as a composer in the credits. His involvement with the show started at the first read-through of the script, and Kundert-Gibbs said she has tweaked the music during rehearsals in much the same way as she tweaks an actor's portrayal.
The music sounds like tunes from early years of the 20th century.
"Kristen did not want any recognizable tunes that would distract the audience from the action onstage," Craven said by email. "So all music heard in the play per se will be composed or improvised by me, to sound like music that might have been heard during that time. There will be a number of ragtime pieces as well as typical dance music of the day."
Craven assigns distinct themes to each main character. He described Tom's theme as "a nostalgic ragtime waltz." Laura's theme "recalls the delicacy of a music box," and Amanda's theme is "in the style of a cakewalk," he said.
"Roughly half of the music heard in the play will be comprised of these themes, presented in ways that support and move the action onstage," Craven said. "There is also a lot of music that drifts into the Wingfield home from a neighboring dance hall, and again, this will be piano music that one might have heard in a dance hall of that day."
Bell said the music serves to "complete something" in the often-fragmented script.
"It's fun to play with (the music) and against it," she said.
Rasmussen said he and the music influence each other.
"It's like having another partner onstage," he said.
