Review: Potent First Stage HOLES Transforms Destinies through Friendship

Dig, dig, dig--Digging five foot deep holes, five feet wide, in a barren desert is what the teenage boys at Camp Green Lake, Texas, do every day from sunrise to sunset. Louis Sachar's award-winning, beloved novel of two boys who learn to be friends in a detention camp comes to life at First Stage's entertaining, potent production Holes in the Todd Wehr Theater through February 14. Directed by Jeff Frank, on Rick Rasmussen's desolate stage territory, a place where rain has not touched the ground for over 100 years, Lyndsey Kuhlmann's orange detention suits provide the only color while Mary MacDonald Kerr's slick Warden suits often shine with rhinestones, a spark of the dark side at what will be a haunting site for several camp members.

Sachar's play centers around two characters--Stanley and Zero--who have found themselves in a detention camp for youth where both feel "cursed" by their destiny in their young lives. As Zero says when out in the desert hiding under an old row boat for safety, " If you live your life in a hole, the only way you have to go is up."

Through the stellar casts seen in this production, both adult and two young performer casts, the actors elevate this compelling story sky-high. On opening night, the Rattlesnake cast performs with Kaden Rhodes creating Stanley, and Collin Woldt standing alongside his reluctant friend in the role of Zero. The two actors forge an empathetic and realistic friendship when removed from their families, unsure of what the future holds for each of them. The Camp Green Lake gang also includes Magnet (Sam Nuñez), X-Ray (Aziz Draper), Armpit (Michael Black) and Zig (Jacob Badovski), teens who add their personal talents to Sachar's mystery complemented with touches of myth that moves through three generations. The adult cast, Malkia Stampley, Kerr, Todd Denning, Bree Beelow, and Sherrick Robinson, carry those myths that resonate through the two boy's past and completes the generational story.

Holes addresses powerful issues-and how friendship and loyalty can dramatically change the course of events in one moment and then resonates over a lifetime. Sachar's story reverberates over audiences with surefire significance because now more than ever, the ability to believe in and change the course of life--either personally or in community--poses a great challenge in the 21st century. Each audience member realizes their power to be a Stanley or Zero, despite the past, to forge a new future, a new way of of living.

In this entertaining and relevant play, rich with thought provoking material for discussion by adults and young people, a small boy of six filled with elation when leaving the theater summed up an important part of the story in one sentence: "His name wasn't Zero, his name was Hector."

Yes, Zero was given his nickname, like all the boys at Camp Green Lake who had nicknames, because the guys in the camp considered him "dumb." He was trying to protect himself while remaining silent, and also embarrassed from the opportunities he had been denied, so people assumed the worst. Yet Stanley reached out to Zero, looked inside the person Zero was, and considered the best in his new friend, Stanley changed Zero's outlook and offered a part of himself to his friend. When Stanley decided to help his friend, he dug deep into his own personal character, and discovered he, too, could be a hero and change his destiny.

That is the power First Stage's Holes so poignantly provides for audiences---an evening's chance to examine the present and then change the future for the better. An engaging perspective presented through the magic of theater challenges audiences to recognize the "holes" in their own lives, and reach out to change first themselves, fill their holes with another view of who they wish to become. And then perhaps, through the power of friendship wherever found in the days ahead, to ultimately transform the destinies of those surrounding them.

First Stage presents Louis summed up's Holes in the Todd Wehr Theater at the Marcus Center Performing Arts Center through February 14 and recommended for audience members over the age of nine. A Camp Green Lake canteen ($10.00) can be purchased in the theater lobby at performances to support First Stage scholarships. For further information, special events, or tickets, please call: 414.273.7208 or www.firststage.org.

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