Tent Meeting: Go for the music, stay for the story

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Tent Meeting, a musical play, opened in Rosebud Theatre’s Opera House, June 24. The play is set in a small Alberta town where Dolly and George are struggling through a summer of drought.
Their marriage is drying up along with the crops. While Dolly religiously practices piano for upcoming tent meetings, her husband stays outside in the yard, pretending to do farm work but usually railing at God instead.
I didn’t see the show opening night, but a friend who saw it said, “Those guys sound like a million bucks.”
When I hear that kind of praise, I’m wary of being disappointed, because hardly anything is as good as that. But the music of Tent Meeting – played by Seana Lee Wood at the piano, and sung in four-part harmony by Jonathan Bruce, Declan O’Reilly, Blair Young and Rosebud’s own David Snider – sounded even better than I’d hoped.
I held myself back – just barely – from singing along, and had to satisfy myself with swaying in my seat. People near me patted their knees, and somewhere else in the theatre, someone tapped their feet.
My companion said the music reminded her of the tent meetings she and her cousins went to with their grandmother when they were children.
Long before the end of the show, I was thinking of others who also love that kind of music, and was planning to come back with them in tow.
I could come to Tent Meeting just for the music but George and Dolly’s story also had an impact on me.
I haven’t experienced a fractured marriage, as George and Dolly have, but I understand what it is to be in a strained relationship, longing for some way to reach the other person with love and hope. I wanted to reach out to Dolly and George with that, too, for them to forgive each other and let love seep back into their marriage. But their relationship is so tied up in knots, it looks like reconciliation is impossible.
Their story is heart-rending, but the performance is hilarious. I was delighted by the western Canadian references throughout the play and, judging by their laughter, the rest of the audience felt the same. I loved watching the pool hall owner get the naive young preacher in trouble, and hearing the same well-meaning preacher wander all over the world in his long-winded prayers – yet somehow get right to the point. My companion and I loved the director’s clever use of props – the actors making their own pool hall sound effects, and using pool cues as coat racks, walking stick and rifles. And my favorite ridiculous moment was watching Jonathan Bruce’s character Sam try to scratch an itch that he just couldn’t reach.
I could go back to Tent Meeting just for the music or just for the story. Either one would be worth it.
Tent Meeting will be performed Wednesdays to Sundays until Aug. 28 in Rosebud’s Opera House. Tickets, which include a meal, are available at rosebudtheatre.com or 1-800-267-7553.