Bus Stop, at the KC Rep, is a heart-wrenching road trip back home

Life imitated art on opening night of Bus Stop at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, as theatergoers exited after the play to find the parking lot transformed into a wintry landscape straight out of one of Tim Burton’s nightmares. Snow flew, winds blew, and for many of them (myself included), the long drive back home was harrowing, with almost no visibility on the highways.

Ironically, Bus Stop takes place in a mid-1950s rural roadside diner just outside of Kansas City (the actual location of the establishment which inspired Kansas-born playwright William Inge is said to be Tonganoxie) in a blizzard so blinding that the roads have been closed to travelers. Four passengers on an interstate bus are stranded in the diner, enduring a forced all-night stay, and playing out defining moments of their lives. Before the curtain comes down for the last time, all of them reveal their true characters to the “locals” and to the audience.

One of the best characters in the play is scenic designer Andromache Chalfant’s amazingly evocative set. The ambience of the slightly seedy and down-on-its-luck dining area is so convincing that you want to walk right up to the stage, clamber aboard, and order a piece of pie and a cup of joe. You don’t need a Time Machine to go back to this kind of place; many classic diners in the Midwest still look exactly like that, a bit worn-around-the-edges, but filled with atmosphere. Despite the drab surroundings—or maybe, because of them—you get the sense that anything can happen.

And plenty does happen during this play. The interactions between the characters are so highly-charged at times that they don’t ring true. Yet the theme of loneliness pervades the performances from the very first line, making Bus Stop a fascinating mood piece. Each character, in his or her own way, is living a life of quiet desperation, and is longing for something unattainable.

Grace, the diner owner (admirably played by Cheryl Weaver) wishes for love, but will settle for a one-night stand with the likeable, folksy bus driver, Carl (David Fritz). Their hanky-panky (seen briefly by the audience, as upper curtains open to reveal Grace’s apartment on the second floor atop the diner) lends some levity to the often dark subject matter. It makes sense that Grace is making a dent in the desolate isolation that seems to haunt all the characters in Bus Stop.

Dr. Lyman, the alcoholic ex-professor (played in a gratifyingly creepy way by Mark Robbins) journeys relentlessly about the country, while indulging in his passion for young girls. He lurches about the stage, as if he’s not entirely comfortable, even in his own body, and seems to need a constant stream of liquor to dull the pain of being himself. He becomes fixated on the young, idealistic waitress, Elma (Blair Baker is positively luminous in this role) and her innocence leads her to misinterpret his advances.

Adria Vitlar portrays Cherie, the character played by Marilyn Monroe in the 1956 movie version of Bus Stop. Vitlar is totally believable as an uneducated-hillbilly-turned-nightclub-singer, who has been around the block a few times, and has absolutely no aspirations in life except for getting by. Bo (Jedadiah Schultz) is a bucking young bronco of a cowboy who is grimly determined to rope her in, and haul her to his Montana ranch to be his unwilling bride. To her credit, Cherie stands up for herself against his brutish behavior. (Bo is as headstrong and apparently as brainless as a young steer.)

To round out the cast (Director Steven Cosson superbly blended outstanding local talent with New York artists), Sheriff Will (charged with breaking up any fights that might erupt while the strangers are in town) is played by Jim Gall, and Gary Neal Johnson shines in a quiet, understated way as Virgil, young Bo’s loyal and, ultimately self-sacrificing companion and protector. Although Virgil hardly ever says anything, even his silences convey tremendous amounts of meaning.

The alienation experienced by these characters (and undoubtedly felt by Inge himself, as a closeted homosexual in the conservative 1950s American Midwest) comes to a piercing conclusion in the end as we see Virgil, all alone on a miserably cold Kansas night, smoking a cigarette outside the diner window, basically locked out of everything. Grace has not even bothered to learn his name (as she was busily cavorting upstairs with Carl during much of the action downstairs) and repeatedly calls him “Mister” as she determinedly shuts him out.

And what place in the world is lonelier than a bus stop? Especially one where, for most of these characters, the bus will never come.

The Bus Stops Here.
Bus Stop runs through April 3 at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s Spencer Theatre on the UMKC Campus. Call 816-235-2700 or go to www.kcrep.org for tickets to a Kansas City Getaway that will bring you right back where you started from.