By Geno McGahee
On November 6th in Vernon, Connecticut, I was able to sit front row for the production of PAPERMAKER, by Monica Wood and Directed by Gabbi Mendelsohn. Immediately, this was a different experience for me as the audience shared the floor with the cast and it hit harder because of that.
The play takes place in the 1980s when strikes were happening and business was going overseas with some regularity. Henry John McCoy (Mark O’Donnell) owns several paper mills and presented a new contract to his union employees that they were not agreeable to. The workers go on strike and there is a lot of bad blood in town.
On top of not being able to work at the mill, Ernie Donahue (Phil Godeck) must contend with his sick wife, Marie (Ingrid M. Smith) and son, Jake (Colby Trembley), who is also out of work due to the strike. Ernie has decided to build an ark for no particular reason and there is a lot of tension in the family.
Henry also has his family battle. His daughter, Emily (Moriah Perret), has almost no relationship with her businessman dad and she wants to change that with a road trip and weekend away. The conversations between Henry and Emily are very amusing at times.
Through a strange series of events, Henry and Emily end up stranded at the Donahue home and this was the best part of the show. The way that O’Donnell and Godeck worked off each other was really good stuff. Godeck runs the gambit of emotions in this production and O’Donnell did a great job of being a sarcastic businessman that finally shows his soft side.
PAPERMAKER was a very good show with plenty of laughs and sentimental moments and it was able to show both sides of the argument and the motives of the characters. A lot of focus is the dissection of assumptions and shows how much a conversation between adversaries can open eyes.
I take my hats off to Godeck and O’Donnell. They are such great performers and were able to really bring it home. The rest of the cast were very good as well and they collectively worked together smoothly. I really enjoyed this show.
