Theatre--Review (Evangeline Players)

It’s always amazing when we are searching desperately for something, how we often find other things for which we weren’t looking, but which often warm our heart.  I recently was looking for a certificate but instead found a framed picture of Lafayette Community Theatre’s last play, The Diaries of Adam and Eve, in which I played Adam.  In 1991, I had first joined LCT in their production of Our Town and found the company delightful, but it always danced on a financial precipice that finally collapsed in 1998.  It was a bittersweet experience watching LCT lose its theatre space, and I’ve seen enough theatre companies open and close to recognize that it’s not only disheartening but extremely bittersweet. I, for one, don’t wish to see any more local theatre companies fold.


How heartening to see that the Evangeline Players in St. Martinville are alive and well with their recent production of The Bishop’s Wife, adapted for the stage by Dave McGrath. After a tempestuous season with questionable play selections, I feared for the company in which I had been involved for over ten plays in the last nine years, but director Walter Brown allayed my concerns. The Bishop’s Wife is an infectious little tale that works in spite of its jagged design by Dave McGrath, who obviously took the 1947 movie and translated it scene for scene for the stage. Despite the numerous scene changes, the Evangeline Players and Walter Brown have managed a small miracle.

The tale itself is rather old-fashioned and comes from the same era as It’s a Wonderful Life. In The Bishop’s Wife, an angel Dudley (Steven “Smitty” Smith, Jr.) has been sent to solve the problems of Bishop Henry Brougham (Dylon L. Boudreaux) and his wife Julia Brougham (Adel Catherine Comeaux). In the Bishop’s desire to build a new cathedral, he not only neglects his wife and daughter Debby (Mary Gomez), but he also compromises his principles at the demands of a wealthy, petty widow Mrs. Agnes Hamilton (Carmen deMahy Nicholson). Through the interventions of Dudley, all is set right by the play’s end, as usually happened in such Hollywood movies.

The casting is somewhat uneven, but the leads acquit themselves nicely. Both Smitty Smith and Adel Comeaux make welcome returns to the Evangeline stage in roles that suit them. Though her scenes are few, Carmen Nicholson makes the most of her plumy role as the rich widow Mrs. Hamilton, especially in one heart-wrenching scene where she reveals the true love of her life. Even more delightful was Milton Resweber, who enriches Professor Wutheridge with a warmth reminiscent of Monty Woolley. But I’d be most interested to see the future work of Dylon L. Boudreaux, who at seventeen brought a maturity level to his work not usually seen in someone so young. Though he has much to learn—his frustration seemed a tad forced at times and his timing needs further development—he has the potential to be a talented actor in local theatre.

Though thirteen years have passed since LCT shuttered its doors, I can still recall my final lines as Adam in Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve. While standing above a grave, I placed a single rose at Eve’s tombstone, and said, “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.” Well, the Evangeline Players created a small slice of heaven on the stage, proving that the rumors of its death are largely exaggerated.
---Vincent P. Barras