The Midnight Train Crossing

Gossamer is based on a children's novel written by Lois Lowery. I haven't read it. The main idea of the story is that it centers around the "dream givers" little creatures that seemed sort of fairy-like to me, that bestow good dreams on sleeping people. The Dream-Givers collect "fragments" by touching objects and collecting memories from the objects. Then they blow these fragments of memories and feelings into the ears of sleeping people.

The story centers around a young Dream-Giver, known as Littlest, played by Casey Tutton. She is apprenticed to another Dream-Giver named Thin Elderly, played by Mark Metcalf, who has been in everything. They are assigned to a house that belongs to an older Woman (Flora Coker) and her dog Toby (Mia Imperl). The woman has no given name in the story.

A boy named John (John Brotherhood) comes to stay with her. He is a child from a broken home, put into protective custody to get him away from his abusive father. His mother, played Courtney Jones, is working on trying to get her life back together.

Oh yes, and there are the bad guys of the show, the Sinisteeds, they travel in hordes and infect people with nightmares. They attack people who are vulnerable, in this case, John.

The show got off to kind of a slow start. There was a lot of talking as they jammed a lot of plot exposition into a few minutes to explain all about the Dream-Givers and such. It moved kind of slowly. But after Littlest started actively working, and after John arrived to stay with the Woman, the action picked up.

There were a few things in the story that they talked about a lot that didn't seem all that relevant to the story. Thin Elderly is careful to tell Littlest that she must only lightly touch the objects to collect the memories. One must never "delve" that is, touch too deeply, otherwise, one could become… I forgot the word… but the idea is, absorbing too many fragments of darkness and sadness could make a Dream-Giver turn evil. Just like someone named Rotund, that they mention a few times. He never turns up in the story, and the idea of touching too deeply never really turns up, except to contrast the fact that Littlest has a very light touch.

The set was kind of interesting, as soon as I walked into the theatre I was like "Oh?..." for there were about six holes cut into the stage, with fabric hanging down around them, like moss or something. That's where the Dream-Givers slept. So, when they were having their meetings and conferences, most of them were standing in those holes.

The rest of the set consisted of a chair and a table - the living room of the old woman's house - and a bed on a platform, John's bedroom.

The costumes for the Dream-Givers were interesting, all white and flowy and sparkly. The girls had silvery dresses, and the guys had silvery pants, but everyone wore a sort of gauzy hood and a long cape of the same see-through white material. We were sitting in the front, so as Thin Eldest paced around the stage, his cape fluttered out behind him and caught onto my foot more than once. There were a few dream sequences in the show, and the characters in the dream wore masquerade style masks.

In addition to the set and the costumes, I have to talk about the puppets. I mentioned that there was a dog, which was a puppet, but more about that later. Puppets were also used in the scenes where the Dream-Givers were in the same room as the sleeping humans. Dream-Givers are very tiny, and so the actors playing Littlest and Thin Eldest, operated smaller puppet versions of themselves. It was all very well done. Even though you could clearly see the puppeteers the whole time, it was easy to ignore them.

I'm not sure if the Sinisteeds fall under puppets or costumes, but either way, they were pretty darn scary. Initially, it was sort of funny because whenever anyone would mention them, there was a sinister snarling sound in the background. But there wasn't much funny about them, in fact, they were very scary. They came through the back "wall" behind the bed. (Divided curtains). First, it would glow red, then there would be snarling and heavy breathing heard, and then, a large horse-like head emerged, and breathed smoke all over the head of the sleepers. I was a little freaked out by them, so I can just imagine the smaller children in the audience.

The highlights in the cast were definitely the children. Casey Tutton in particular really impressed me. As the title character - more or less - she had a very big part. In addition to learning her task as a dream giver, she wanted to know everything about the world. She had quite good comedic timing in some of the sillier questions that she asked.

I was also very impressed by Mia Imperl, the puppeteer that controlled Toby the dog. First Stage often uses puppets and so, Mia Imperl was dressed in back, operating the dog, which was sort of a marionette type puppet. She did a really good job, the dog walking around and moving his head looked quite realistic.

On the adult side of the cast, the stand out was Richard Halverson, who played Most Ancient. He was the leader of the Dream-Givers, and the oldest. And he was so very funny. He would start to talk about one thing and then end up getting distracted by something else. For example, one of the Laws of the Dream-Givers is that they are never to touch a living thing, and Littlest touches Toby, in an attempt to get more good feelings to give to John. They tell Most Ancient about this, and he gets distracted by remembering that he has always liked dogs. There should be Dream-Giver dogs. There was this one time that he saw a basset hound and…

Another adult member of the cast that I was impressed with was Courtney Jones, playing the mother of John. Through her costume changes, it showed the progression of her character. It wasn't actually said in the play, but I'm assuming that she didn't have a job, and now that she divorced she needed one. She was never in the same scene as anyone else. All of her scenes consisted of her talking on her cell-phone, either to John or the unseen social worker. First, she was barefoot, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. "I'm going to look for a job," she says. Next scene, jeans, sandals and a nicer blouse. "I've been going to interviews" she says. Final scene: she's wearing heels and a business dress suit, all excited about her secretary job at an elementary school - the same school her son goes to. Most of the reason I was impressed with her was because she was acting solo.

The ending is bitter sweet. Littlest and Thin Elderly defeat the nightmares and John's life seems to be turning around for the better. And then, Littlest is assigned to a different house. She is growing up, and she is no longer the littlest. Now, she is to be called Gossamer.