Reviewer: Kristine Gotham
Venue: Bay City Players
I have a challenge for you. I want you to talk for one hour without stopping. I want you to talk with emotion and inflection. I want you to have a conversation with someone who isn’t there. I want you to tell me a story. And most of all, I want you to do all of this while standing on a stage in front of an audience, under stage lights, and I don’t want you to lose your place at all. Could you do it? Brianne Dolney-Jacobs can and does as the star of the newest production, Amelia Lives, at Bay City Players.
The play takes us through the life of aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, from her childhood, through her life, until the time of her disappearance among the clouds in July 1937, while on a flight to circumnavigate the earth. Dolney-Jacobs deftly portrays the one and only character in this one woman show. She exhibits the frustration Earhart must have felt as she worked determinedly toward her goal of not only becoming a pilot but being a solo female aviator on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, her determination to continue flying even when her life led her more toward appearances on the ground, and her elation at finally taking to the sky to begin her greatest flight attempt, circumnavigating the globe at the Equator. Through Dolney-Jacobs’ phenomenal acting, we learn how Amelia’s early life shaped her. She didn’t have the most stable home life so she learned to do things for herself, to stand up for herself and her dreams. If anything was going to happen it was up to her to make it happen. Throughout her life, Amelia not only focused on her dreams but also cared for her family, especially her mother and sister. She didn’t let the uncertainty that surrounded life with her father, and the tumultuous marriage of her parents to lead her off track. Dolney-Jacobs breaks the fourth wall to allow Amelia to speak directly to the audience to explain her choice to marry and to expand on what her marriage was like, not a traditional one but more of a business arrangement, allowing Amelia and her husband to each pursue their own dreams while supporting the other in theirs.
Dolney-Jacobs moves freely around the minimally adorned stage, taking the audience on a journey of Amelia’s life, from the peak of her childhood roof to the dorm room of a bright eyed college student challenging the lack of teaching from her professor, from a hospital room during the war where she volunteered as a nurse’s aide, to the cockpit in her role as the captain of a flight across the Atlantic, but not the pilot, and finally to the cockpit of her own plane as she begins and ends her final flight. There are not a lot of props on the stage, but each prop helps to develop the scene and leads the audience to understand what is happening in each scene.
The back drop of the play looks like the windows at the front of the cockpit. The audience can see the clouds drift by as the story moves through time. There are times when the clouds are very important to the scene and others when they are there simply as decoration. Dolney-Jacobs’ costume is perfect for the portrayal of Earhart and for the time period, mid-calf boots, pants bloused over the boots, a white blouse, a white scarf around her neck and a brown bomber jacket. Her hair is also of the period, worn in a low bun. The lighting and sound were perfect and never missed a beat.
Dolney-Jacobs is a strong actress and a perfect choice for this part. She stands tall on the stage, projecting both the confidence and the defiance of Earhart, who desired to be the first even until the very end.
Amelia Lives continues at Bay City Players, Saturday, January 11 and Sunday, January 12. Tickets can be purchased at the Box Office.