‘Pretty Fire’ to celebrate Black History Month

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — DeLois “Cookie” House has the difficult job of performing the first decade of a young girl’s life in the space of about 90 minutes.

This weekend, on a stage occupied by a single bench, House will perform “Pretty Fire,” a five-vignette solo act written by Charlayne Woodard.

Together with Big Sky Productions, Sullivan County Community College will celebrate Black History Month with performances of the one-woman show on Saturday, February 26 at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, February 27 at 3:00 p.m. in the college’s Seelig Theater.

Woodard’s “Pretty Fire” offers a meaningful account of the author’s childhood, beginning with her premature birth into a family living in Albany, NY in the early 1960s. The script is full of personalities, including the young girl’s sisters, parents and grandparents, but it is through the single character of Charlayne that the audience meets each person.

“I love the way the author wrote it so one person can be all of these people,” said Carol Montana during a rehearsal at the college last week. Montana, director of the production, is the artistic director of Big Sky Productions.

“It squeezed my hand and said, ‘what a story’,” she said about “Pretty Fire.”

The title of the play comes from one of the many arresting moments in the story, when Charlayne sees the flames of a burning “Jesus Christ Cross” reflected in her uncle’s sunglasses during a visit with her family in Georgia.

The main character’s loss of innocence is presented at several points in Woodard’s account of an African American girl’s childhood, and most of the scenes challenge the actor to accomplish variations in voice, expression and movement in order to perform multiple characters in dialogue.

With Woodard’s lyrical, lifting words, House weaves stories of two young sisters and three generations of family love, struggle and triumph. House, a special education teacher at Sullivan County BOCES, accomplishes the frequent shifts from one character to another with such ease that the audience might feel like there is actually more than one person on stage.

The New York Times described “Pretty Fire” as “exhilarating and unflaggingly entertaining… One of the most positive pictures of black-American experience I’ve ever seen on stage.”

House has performed in several shows for Big Sky Productions, including “Jake’s Women,” “An American Daughter” and “Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First Hundred Years.”

Montana’s many directing credits include “On Golden Pond,” “Chapter Two,” “Jake’s Women,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Having Our Say,” “Arsenic and Old Lace,” “Hate Mail,” and most recently, “The Sunshine Boys.”

Peter Burger served as the production’s stage manager.

Tickets for “Pretty Fire” cost $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students. Group rates are available.

For more information call 845/985-7783.