The final stop in the 2025 American Masters Drama Series finds warmth and redemption in William Inge’s snowbound story
By Lucie K. Scheuer for Ashland.news
As the last stop on its tour of an American Master’s Drama series for 2025, Camelot Theatre is presenting a very short run of William Inge’s poignant, often humorous play, “Bus Stop.”
Of the three American classics it has produced this year, including Arthur Miller’s “The Price” and Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie,” this absorbing production stands out for its heart and humanity. We’ve seen characters like this before, the ones who long for connection and desire intimacy. The ones who go too far to find it. They exist in bars, in universities, in hospitals, in churches and in cities. Along the lonely byways and highways in the Midwest and across the country.
This is a story about a bunch of temporarily stranded bus passengers outside of Kansas City, who must spend the night in a bus station café due to a snowstorm. If we listen carefully, these weary travelers have something to tell us about youth, aging and boundaries. We all get stuck in the bus station of life from time to time. That place that can reek of desolation and emptiness. Where longing can be sitting across from despair. Where desire can give way to misunderstanding. A place to leave for parts unknown. And this is definitely the cast who can take you there.
Eva Dugré plays Cherie, a young nightclub singer who has been heavily coerced by a young cowboy, with whom she has had a one-night stand, to travel back to his ranch with him in Montana and get married. She feels trapped, frightened, angry, and emotionally conflicted. Dupré plays her with just the right amount of attraction to the cowboy, and simultaneous repulsion.
Aidan Jenkins plays the love-struck, sexually-awakened, overly exuberant young cowboy, Bo Decker, who is determined to take Cherie with him one way or another. This night in a café will either temper his desires, so he can learn what it is like to be a real man, or wind him up in jail. Bo Decker is an over-the-top character, and Jenkins plays him so well.
Dr. Lyman is a most complicated, tragic character. He is a loathsome, somewhat controversial man. A down-and-out, aging professor with a checkered past, struggling with alcoholism and an inappropriate fondness for young girls. In the café, he sets his sights on a teenage waitress. But as the hours wear on, even he is given a chance for redemption.
Larry Gesling offers you glimpses into Dr. Lyman’s despair. His self-hatred, his failed marriages, his disappointment. The vampirish manner in which he has tried to cleave to his own youth by desiring young girls. Gesling recognizes the importance of this sidelined character.
The big surprise of the evening is Clayton Hoff as Virgil Blessing, Bo Decker’s devoted ranch hand. Hoff is humble, self-effacing and may elicit some tears as he makes a self-sacrificing decision that is gracious in its depth, courageous in its meaning.
Director Zaq Wentworth really understands these characters. Wentworth delivers them to us with care and consideration, so that we can explore their lives with some compassion and understanding. After all, “Bus Stop,” was written in a different time. It was the mid-’50s, before the 1960s wave of feminism awakened more awareness of women’s rights, when abuse of women was prevalent but much less likely to be talked about, much less prosecuted.
There are also high-quality performances turned in by Georgia Black as Elma Duckworth the young waitress; Joey Nicole Walsch as Grace, the diner’s owner; Erny Rosales as Carl the bus driver, and Mozart Pierson as Will Masters the Sheriff.
The costumes by Andrew Beyer, lighting by Bernt Strom, sound by Zack Biegel, and props by Cody Lynn round out a wholly satisfying production.
This is an adult play about crossroads. You would do well to find yourself there for a couple of hours.
Ashland resident Lucie K. Scheuer is a former copy editor and staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, where her work included features, reviews and a column on films in production. Email her at LucieScheuer19@gmail.com.
Nov. 5: Corrected to not erroneously say 1960s feminism was the first such movement.
