VPA offers bewitching comedy

WASILLA — There’s something witchy happening in Wasilla this weekend.

Valley Performing Arts’ (VPA’s) production of the 1950s play, “Bell, Book and Candle,” opens tonight at 7 p.m., promising viewers a romantic comedy with all the magic witches, warlocks and pyrotechnics can offer.

Set in New York around Christmas, the play is appropriate for the coming Halloween holiday with its bewitching music and tricksy characters. “Nicky Holroyd,” played by frequent Homeless Actors of Mat-Su (HAMS) actor Mathew Firmin, is the most impish of the five-character cast and magical Holroyd family, he said.

“He has magic and he knows how to use it for his own gain,” Firmin said.

It is Nicky Holroyd that, though not the most gifted warlock, causes much of the trouble for his talented sister “Gillian,” played by leading lady Lexi Guild.

“She’s a witch that kinda more or less longs to be mortal,” Guild said.

That longing increases when notices the successful, attractive and otherwise normal tenant upstairs, “Shepherd Henderson,” played by Ron Dennison.

Dennison said he likes playing a character who is constantly in the dark and at the same time the center of the other characters’ attention. He hopes the audience enjoys watching “Shep” gain understanding of his situation.

Nicky’s and Gillian’s “Aunt Queenie,” played by Shellie Riggan, also has a mischievous spirit, and plays a not-so-subtle part in cultivating the relationship between Gillian and Shep.

“I try to help her along but I end up kind of overstepping,” Riggan said.

As one of the sort of outsiders looking in on the relationship — and an experienced VPA actor in real life — Riggan said she thinks the chemistry between Dennison and Guild is clear.

But the romance, Guild said, is the hard part.

Having previously performed in the comedy “Let’s Murder Marsha” and the musical “South Pacific,” Guild hadn’t had a starring role that required the depth of a romantic character like Gillian.

“Trying to pull those emotions forward … (and) imagine me sobbing onstage is actually quite terrifying,” she said.

At least one audience member, a Mat-Su College theater student, after the scene in a Tuesday night rehearsal said Guild almost had him going, though, and she admitted to liking other challenges of being Gillian.

“It’s nice to get out of my comfort zone and get a little angry,” she said.

Guild and Dennison, another actor with just three VPA shows under his belt, both lamented “a lot of lines” to memorize, but persuading the audience of their onstage love remains the biggest test of the show’s success, they said.

“I’d like to see if we can make a believable, sellable romance,” Guild said.

Director Todd Broste expressed similar excited uncertainty in preparing to make his directorial debut with “Bell, Book and Candle.”

After acting in four shows at VPA, Broste was told by fellow actors and board members it was his time “to step up.” With the small cast, “fairly simple set design,” and no scene changes, he said, he figured it was safe to say yes.

But there would be challenges.

“As directors, we have two hats,” Broste said. One is to be the director, work with the cast, and be “the driving force” behind the play, the other is to be the producer: find a set designer, builders, painters, and props people.

“I’ve been lucky,” he said, to get people like Suzanne Herman, a seasoned VPA set designer, as well as Dennison and Guild, who have developed a working chemistry onstage.

“It’s not an easy thing to do. I knew I would have to find actors that were comfortable with the challenge and willing to try it,” Broste said. “Ron and Lexi have done an amazing job of bringing that forth.”

But what would a romance be without some outside influence?

Barrett Barge, a newcomer to the VPA stage, plays “Sydney Retlidge,” the renowned — and totally mortal — author of a famous book on witchcraft.

“He’s kind of a crook and kind of a drunk,” Barge said. “He kind of has these false, grandiose ideas of who he is and he doesn’t realize it.”

Though oblivious to the true witches and warlocks around him, Retlidge’s presence in New York nevertheless threatens to expose the Holroyds and jeopardize Gillian’s relationship with Shep.

For “a good time,” “a laugh,” or a new take on the play that inspired the TV show “Bewitched,” the cast and crew of “Bell, Book and Candle” encourage Mat-Su residents to come enjoy the show.

“I think it’s really well done,” Dennison said.

For tickets, visit valleyperformingarts.org.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.