Photo by Alec Wild
GRSF veteran actor Jonathan Gillard Daly portrays his grandfather in the musical The Daly News. |
Saturday was one of those days when everything falls into place, when things happen that you don’t even know you were wishing for until they do. I had two tickets to Jonathan Gillard Daly’s musical, “The Daly News,” and my longtime friend Alexis was in town -- my closest theater buff friend ever. Perfect.
She had no idea what to expect. In fact, all she knew was that the show was part of the Great River Shakespeare Festival (GRSF), and confessed to me later that there were a few minutes of confusion as the curtains opened. This is not how A Comedy of Errors begins, she thought.
I, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea of what we were in store for. I’d interviewed Daly weeks before, and written a piece about the play and the meaning it held for the Daly family. It’s the first time GRSF has strayed from the works of Shakespeare, but the perfect show with which to travel down that unbeaten path.
“The Daly News” is based on a thick manuscript of letters and updates and news compiled by Jonathan’s grandfather Martin between 1943 and 1947, his way of putting together all of the letters and correspondence between three sons and a son-in-law serving in the military from posts around the world.
Jonathan has taken that compilation and transformed it into a musical, a show full of humor and angst, of generations and of the way that the war both divided and separated us, but also made us stronger and closer after all.
The music is absolutely brilliant, from the most tender a capella ballads to boisterous, stomp-your-feet and dance in your chair salutes. Alexis, who is also my most musical friend, occasionally would poke at my arm and grin as we both kept time with our rubber soles and bounced in our theater seats.
And while the music of the play filled the theater to the rooftop, there are only three performers in the show -- Daly, Jeff Schaetzke and Jack Forbes Wilson. Wilson and Schaetzke take turns on the piano, often times trading off mid-song with a transition so smooth you’d think they were attached at the hip. Each plays a slew of characters, with Daly taking on the role of grandfather Martin, working away at the newsletter and refusing to let go of the hope that sustained the whole family.
Each takes a turn at grandma — somehow the same flowered little off-white apron, once fitted around their necks, was a transforming movement that let you know that the lady holding down the fort really meant business. And each take on a role of one of the four boys off to war, from the youngest who first pines for and then is sent off on assignment, to Jonathan’s father Robert, who waits a world away as his two-year-old daughter grows without him.
But in each of the many diverse characters, there is a spirit that is unique to that period in our nation’s history. World War II, the great war, was a war when those at home sacrificed and struggled to give all they could for the young men fighting across the globe, huddled around radios waiting for the latest news, the latest bits of hope they could hold onto. It was a time when a generation gave everything it had for this country, whether at home or overseas, without complaint. And, I think, although I’m a few generations removed from that era, it was a war that held a kind of mystery for the younger generations.
Preserved on the pages of Martin’s newsletter, and now lighting the stage at this year’s Great River Shakespeare Festival, is an intimate look into those moments that often weren’t discussed after the soldiers came home. It shows the fear, the bravery, the hope and comedy and sadness of a family trying its hardest to stay connected and together as uncertainty was the only thing certain. Even, as Martin admits, when he begins to feel as though what he’s praying for — the safe return of his four boys — is too much to ask for, they hold on. And as I looked around the darkened theater, I noticed that other people in the audience were holding on to one another, too, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, heck, Alexis and I. It’s the kind of story, and stunning performances, that remind you that, in the face of the very worst, we’ve all got something to hang onto, something worth not letting go.
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