Barroom one-act play a gamble that’s paying off

LUBEC – At one point during “The Long Voyage Home,” a seedy recruiter known as Nick peers out of a London bar to check the progress of some drunken sailors who are making their way from the docks.

The scene, in the Eugene O’Neill play written in the 1930s, came alive Saturday night as Scott Sortman, playing Nick, stuck his head out of Annabell’s Pub and squinted into the fog rolling down Water Street. In minutes, a raucous threesome stumbled into the bar singing and eliciting laughs of recognition from many of the approximately 60 patrons gathered at tables beyond the stage lights.

It was the third of eight presentations of “The Long Voyage Home,” a one-act play, about a sailor’s dream that runs aground on the avarice of others. The Magnificent Liars, a Washington County theater troupe whose members range from a lobster fisherman to a banker, performed the play.

Producer Anne Moody and her husband, Michael, who directs the play, form the nucleus of The Magnificent Liars, whose members are scattered from Eastport to Machias.

Last year, the group presented a play called “Art” in a Grange hall, a community center and two theaters.

O’Neill’s play is set in a bar and Moody said staging the production in bars throughout Washington County was an obvious choice, but not without difficulties.

“It was a gamble,” she said. “We just didn’t have a clue about how people would react – whether they’d see us intruding or resent having to shut down the pool table for an hour.”

Judging from Saturday night’s audience in Lubec, the play is just the thing to energize people who are emerging from a long, dark winter.

At Annabell’s, the set was created by lighting one end of bar and a table placed at the front of the pub, but Moody said the actors have to relearn the location of doors and stage exits at each location.

“Every place we go is totally different, except for the actors,” Moody said. “It’s like doing theater out-of-doors.”

The cast for “The Long Voyage Home” includes 12 actors, a lighting director, violinist and stage manager. Moody said the group has been rehearsing since just after Christmas – twice a week in January and three times a week in February.

“The cast is very spread out and everyone has a day job,” she said. “They are united in their love of theater.”

“The Long Voyage Home” also will be staged in Machias, Quoddy Village and Bar Harbor, with return engagements in Calais and Lubec. Tickets for the play are $7 at the door and, given the response, it is suggested that theatergoers phone the bars to reserve tickets. Drinks are available before and after the show, and those under the age of 21 must be accompanied by a parent. Show times and places are: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at the Second Chance Saloon in Quoddy Village; 8 p.m. Thursday, April 10, at A.J.’s Bar & Grill in Machias; 7 p.m. Saturday, April 12, at the Black Bear Pub in Calais; 9 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at Annabell’s in Lubec; and 7 p.m. Saturday, May 3, at The Thirsty Whale in Bar Harbor. For more information, call Moody at 726-3943.