'Long Drink' is a rich, solid piece of theater

By BARBARA ROSE SHULER

Writing, producing and acting in a one-person show about your own life takes guts. It requires sufficient talent as a writer to create a script scintillating enough to support the performer who must hold the attention of the audience for more than an hour.

Such a creative process also demands rigorous honesty about ones strengths, weakness and purpose in undertaking such a venture.

Jill Jackson, in her autobiographical opus "A Long Drink of Silence" at Cherry Hall in Cannel, meets these requirements with tenacious know-how. She invites theatergoers to partake of her lif€ for an evening as it opens from a scrappy childhood in Nashville to the adventures of an eventful adulthood.

She neither boasts no, withholds in this treatment of hei life. Her purpose seems to be to share honestly and intimately who she is, how she got that way and what she has learned along the way in terms of life, love and understanding.

As local theater audiences know, Jackson's performance style has always been unabashedly "Here! am!" There is nothing tentative about this actress-comedienne-singer-writer. Over the years, she has created an unusual variety of roles, performed in most of the major theaters of the region and established herself as a delightful personality.

Somehow, whether she is playing a quirky space alien, a simple housewife, a crusty cowgirl singing the blues or a snake handler, Jackson communicates an enormous amount of heart in her performing. She's big with it in "A Long Drink of Silence," we find out how she got that way.

The show itself has a work-in-progress quality about it, which one can say is part of its chann, since Jackson offers he' life as a work in progress in the script.

"A Long Drink of Silence" is fundamentally solid as a theater piece, rich with anecdotes, humor, lots of singing, truth telling and poignant moments, vintage Jackson material.

As often happens with new shows, it runs a bit long and could do with some tightening and trimming. In the second half, even though the content is compelling, the storyline becomes slightly unwieldy.

We meet Jackson as a rambunctious youngster coming to terms with the reality that she's not cut out to be a nun or a picket-fence Tennessee housewife.

We learn that she has been acting, singing and writing most of her life. When hopes of fame and the glory lights of the entertainment biz draw her to New York, we watch her confront new realities that eventually spin her off to a commune with a guru, where she struggles to understand the nature of enlightenment Then, she lakes to the open road as a singer and comes to the Monterey Peninsula where she finds a home, contentment and appreciative audiences.

Mixed into these larger themes, she tells stories about her family, her friends, and critters she has loved, including a snake named Evie. She doesn't spare us the hard times, the death and tragedy she experienced, nor does she hold back the laughter and singing that constantly move through her. Jackson offers up her life, her heart and her courage in "A Long Drink of Silence."

Marlie Avant directed the show, and though, in a collaboration like this it's hard to know who is responsible for what elements, the production has a finesse about it that is recognizably Avant.

Avant also created the set; which conveys a Southwestern mood, complete with a hay bail as a couch and native art on the walls. Clever use of a set of square blocks and sliding images upstage enhanced the staging.

The set itself, however, didn't integrate completely into Jackson's story, which is so personal, one wants to know the significance of all the visual details such as why this or that painting or photograph appears on the wall.

"A Long Drink of Silence" is a must for Jill Jackson fans and a recommendation for the rest of you.You will likely enjoy getting to know this unusual woman, if you haven't already. GO!

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