A lively ‘Sleepy Hollow’

  • <br>For the Enterprise
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 10:06am

The Driftwood Players get in the spirit of the season with its Alternative Stages production of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” now through Oct. 30 at the Wade James Theatre in Edmonds.

Washington Irving originally conceived “Sleepy Hollow” in 1819. The story, set in the 1780’s, recounts the trials of newly arrived school teacher Ichabod Crane to this fateful town. Kathryn Schulz Miller’s one-act adaptation, as dramatized by The Driftwood Players, holds true to the story in a condensed manner that children and parents alike can enjoy.

Mary Davis’ minimalist set design gives the audience the opportunity to use their imaginations to conceive tables, bridges, horses, and taverns as the cast moves the few set pieces – a bench, blocks, rolling trees and themselves. The most seamless action of the play comes with the chorus performing the combined function of narrator, picking up lines from one another as if in a single voice.

Principles Ichabod Crane (Zack Sestak) and Brom Bones (Kevin Vander Ploeg) initially seemed to lack connection with one another as actors, but very quickly delivered their lines to one another with the derision, anxiety, and sarcasm that befits these two adversaries.

Enter Katrina Van Tassel (Laura Kessler), who shifts direction and her favor depending on which suitor she is manipulating at any given moment. Kessler performs this dual subterfuge admirably using delicate glance, touch, and eye movement.

“Sleepy Hollow” is presented with tongue-in-cheek humor and a sufficient amount of slapstick. Sestak and Ploeg are noted for an uncanny flair for throwing themselves, and each other at times, across the stage and over the furniture without any damage to themselves or the set.

This is the final weekend of the production’s run and tickets are going quickly.

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