Maskers to kick off 14th season

BELFAST – The Belfast Maskers kick off their 14th season this weekend with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Theatergoers familiar with the company’s traditional proscenium stage are in for a big surprise, according to Artistic Director Tobin Malone. Over the past four months, the performance space was gutted and a thrust stage constructed in the former railroad station.

“We only lost a couple of seats in the transition,” said Malone earlier this week. “Now, the audience sits on three sides of the stage, but basically faces the waterfront. This has really made the space more intimate and changed the energy.”

The company received a $10,000 grant from the Davis Family Foundation to help fund the makeover. The renovations also have allowed the Maskers to maximize storage space used for lights, costumes and staging, according to Malone. In addition, the $13,000 of remodeling eliminated the need for actors to exit the building after leaving the stage.

While Malone conceded the Maskers could have presented their 2001 season on the old stage, the new one has added some excitement to the season and rejuvenated interest in the company.

In addition to the challenging opening production, this year’s season includes two plays by contemporary American playwrights, a classic from the Russian theater, a children’s production and an original musical that will be performed outside in July.

While Ken Kesey’s 1960s novel about life in a mental institution and the Academy Award-winning movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is familiar fare, Dale Wasserman’s play is less well known. Malone said that the story of R.P. McMurphy’s battle with nurse Ratched works well in the more intimate, redesigned performance space.

Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Crimes of the Heart” will be the Maskers’ second show of the season. It will be presented April 26 through May 13. Larraine Brown will direct this story of three sisters who gather in Hazelhurst, Miss., to celebrate the eldest’s birthday. Like much of Henley’s work, this play mines humor from the depths of a dysfunctional family.

Summer will see the world premiere of “The Boys from Swanville,” a musical conceived and directed by Malone. It will be performed the first two weeks of July on an outside stage that will be constructed on the Maskers’ large wooden deck. The audience will sit on bleachers facing the riverfront, and two after-dark performances will be offered on weekends.

Malone described “The Boys from Swanville” as a kind of rock opera, but using popular music familiar to the baby-boom generation. In the flier, the show is described as “celebration of the hardy native sons at the bedrock of midcoast Maine’s economic renaissance.”

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” will be reprieved at the heart of summer, while Christopher Durang’s “Baby with the Bathwater” will help close the summer season in Belfast. Durang is best known for “Sister May Ignatius Explains It All for You” and “The Marriage of Bette and Boo.”

“Baby with the Bathwater” is a play ripped from the headlines that tells the story of Daisy, whose parents were wrongly told that their boy was a girl when the child was born. After 11 years of dutifully wearing dresses, Daisy puts his foot down and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Robert Hitt will direct Anton Chekhov’s classic “Uncle Vanya” in October. “Anne of Green Gables,” an adaptation of the tale of the spunky orphan girl living on Prince Edward Island, will offer theatergoers an alternative to more traditional holiday fare.

All performances of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” will be held at 8 p.m., except the Sunday matinees, which begin at 2 p.m. For more information, call 338-9668 or visit the Belfast Maskers’ Web site at www. belfastmaskers.com.