Michael Disher, the director of Center Stage at the Southampton Arts Center, has been directing holiday shows for some 15 years, among them live radio plays of such classics as “Miracle on 34th Street,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “A Christmas Carol.”
A year ago he turned away from those familiar holiday titles and the radio play format. Instead he remembered the Truman Capote story “A Christmas Memory,” began to reread it, and told The Star “this could be something very different, specific to the area because he did live here, and something I would enjoy because I’ve never done it before.”
Last year’s staged readings of Capote’s “One Christmas” and “A Christmas Memory” were so well received that Mr. Disher will bring them back to the arts center Friday through Sunday, at 2 and 7 p.m.
The plays are produced through special arrangements with and permission granted by the Truman Capote Literary Trust. That permission was granted last year only after Mr. Disher agreed to certain guidelines, “the most adamant of which was, you will not alter, cut, delete, rewrite, bastardize in any way, shape, or form, one word of these stories,” he said.
Mr. Disher said it was one of the most difficult and one of the most fulfilling projects he had ever undertaken, “because basically I had to take short stories’ prose and turn them into theatrical pieces without altering a word. To make it stageworthy is the responsibility of the director. In my opinion, there is nothing more boring than a few people reading scripts. I wanted something a little more special than the equivalent of sitting and listening to an audio book.”
Capote captures the magic and wonder of the holidays as he tells the stories of his life before his ascent to literary fame. Set during the Great Depression in the early 1930s, he illuminates life in rural Alabama, and his relationship with his eccentric cousin Sook. Together, during two Christmases, the pair learn lessons of love, loss, and the power of enduring friendship.
“Both of these pieces have a tendency to really humble me,” said Mr. Disher. “Maybe because I’ve gotten older, I’m becoming far more reflective in my autumnal years. I just appreciate simpler times and simpler things so much more than I ever did. I have a feeling life has become far too complicated. And it really doesn’t need to be as long as we take stock and do not take for granted simple pleasures and simple joys.”
“A Christmas Memory,” published in Mademoiselle magazine in 1956, is about the relationship between Buddy, the 7-year-old narrator, and Sook, who teaches him about kindness, sharing, and a deep and abiding love.
In “One Christmas,” which was published by Random House in 1983, young Buddy leaves the warmth and joys of Alabama for a holiday in New Orleans with his largely absent father, and learns painful truths about his father, Santa Claus, and love lost and found.
Because the stories are set in the Depression, there will be costumes and furniture from that period, as well as rear-screen projections of images from those years. In addition, while the actors will have the scripts in their hands, they have memorized much of the text.
The cast includes Daniel Becker, Susan Cincotta, Tom Gregory, Vincenzo James Harty, JoAnna Mincarelli, Jack Seabury, Franco Pistritto, and Elizabeth Wyld. Tickets are $25, $20 for members of the arts center.
