A Newbie Reviews AFT Favorite

I cannot say how, despite about two decades of bi-annual trips to Door County, I had managed to escape an experience which so many consider absolutely essential to every visit here. Yet neither can I say that, prior to this summer, I ever minded much. After I had returned from several walks in Peninsula State Park, American Folklore Theatre always inspired more apprehension than attraction in me. But this year an ad for the AFT classic Guys on Ice, along with the guarantees of my grandparents, reeled me in, and pretty soon this little theater in the woods had won me over – hook, line, and sinker.

What first hooked me in was simply the atmosphere of the place. Upon our arrival, as we crossed the grassy lot amid a chorus of slamming car doors and joined the merging streams of playgoers at the far end, my dad struck up a conversation with a family of AFT pros. When we confessed that this was our first time, they kindly gave us some advice and encouragement before we parted ways at the ticket booths. On route to the theater gate, we passed by stands selling candy and popcorn. Christmas crooners played over the speakers, warming us up for the winter-set show, and a friendly usher pointed out a prime spot, where we hunkered down. All around us, good old Midwestern geniality filled the air—folks chattered and bantered, exchanged introductions and shared jokes. Everyone there seemed thoroughly prepared for a delightful evening.

Next, the humor and pace of the production continued to pull me along the line. Even though the cast for most of the musical consisted of only two men, the show never lost its momentum. It was sprinkled with a copious supply of fish tales, fishing jokes, and fishy figures of speech, not to mention the dozen or so songs that graced the stage with their catchy tunes and clever lyrics. These included “Ode to the Snowmobile Suit,” which features an interlude of choreographed zippering, as well as “De Ice Fishing King” and “Fish is the Miracle Food,” involving impersonations of Elvis Presley and Jesus respectively. The third and final character, Ernie the Moocher, provided his audience with more than a few laughs, and his fellow ice-fishers with those bits of news from shore which drive on the plot. All this, and the fact that the play was just an hour and a half long, kept me engaged and enjoying myself throughout the whole show.

I have since discovered that these are typical virtues of AFT productions. All their plays are less than two hours in length and run without intermissions, and all of them, no matter how serious, have funny moments. Jeff Herbst, artistic director at the theater and Lloyd in Guys on Ice tells me, “It is unbelievably a good thing in this world to be able to make people laugh. . .I think people are enriched by laughter, especially by their own.” According to Herbst, comedies, whether slapstick or witty, “fulfill a real fundamental need in people, to find that release of their better self, who can sort of rise above whatever tragic circumstances they might find themselves in.”

Finally, after the atmosphere of the theater and the production’s pace and humor, for me it was the story’s heart which sunk the deal. Without ever sacrificing its buoyant spirit or turning corny, Guys on Ice manages to incorporate the all-important human themes of love and death. It also astutely portrays the companionship between those men on the ice, past and present. Near the beginning, Lloyd sings about how when he was a boy, his father and uncles “never said a word” to him “any other where,” but out there in the shanty, “dey had tings to share,” and now, he clearly has a true friend in Marvin. Herbst appreciates offering some substance beneath the silliness: “We’ve always wanted to do stuff that can be both funny and touching, if at all possible,” he explains. “If you can get in both in, then I think you’re really doing your job well.”

Ultimately, the play succeeds because the men up there on stage, while they have times of caricature, reveal themselves by the play’s end to be real people, in fact, our very neighbors. I overheard several comments from audience members, both during and after the performance, who recognized themselves or their loved ones in Marvin and Lloyd.

While we headed en masse back to our vehicles, I heard a few other responses: one mother inquired of her two young sons, “Well, did you finally find a musical you like?” “YES!” was their resounding answer. My father too, also originally deterred by the genre, expressed enthusiastic approval afterwards. All of which just goes to prove that, as Marvin declares in the very first song, “All you need is the right kind of bait” – and this theater in the woods has undoubtedly got it.