How many ways can you slice up a story? A movie with a narrator, a play, or being read to by a reader who does the voices – Book-It Repertory Theatre somehow combines all three. I’ve been a Book-It fan for over 30 years; my first Book-It show was John Irving’s The Cider House Rules at Oddfellows Hall. Book-It’s own story was touch and go recently, but you could say it’s back by popular demand, with its latest offering, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle at Broadway Performance Hall.
I’m a picky reader, but I’ve found that even when I’m not a fan of the volumes Book-It chooses as its play base, I can still enjoy a Book-It performance at about the same level as I might enjoy a decent TV drama. Sawtelle, the story of a troubled family and their dogs that follows a Hamlet-esque theme, is not a book I would choose to read, but its Book-It treatment contains some lovely descriptive passages, a creatively minimal set, and some heartfelt and well-paced acting.
If you’re new to Book-It, you’ll have to get used to the characters doing their own narration – even when the character is a dog! These kinds of additions allow juicy descriptions to be included in the script that would otherwise be unlikely to be in a film or traditional play. Sawtelle added an additional challenge to the Book-It format in that its eponymous star was mute, and used his own form of sign language. Here’s the tricky part: when there’s a lot of physical action, it can be a challenge to be doing the narration even while people are fighting. For the most part, Book-It manages to handle this kind of thing pretty gracefully, but this play – remember the Hamlet reference — was especially rife with violence toward the end, so the narration felt distracting.
Since the original book wasn’t my cup of tea, I wasn’t sure if I was more curious about why Book-It chose it for a play, or why David Wroblewski wrote it. Either way, the moral seemed to be, “dogs are great, families are hard,” which doesn’t feel like news.
Of the many Book-It plays I’ve seen, I’ve enjoyed the Jane Austens the best. Although I’ve also read very little Austen, her simple settings, less intense actions, and witty sidebar descriptions seem like the perfect fit for the Book-It scheme.
In terms of “Sawtelle,” I couldn’t help but wonder what a deaf person (who could lip-read) would think of the play. What would they think of Edgar Sawtelle’s “sign language?” Would they find secret messages in there?
