Valley moon risin’

It has been centuries since the violent crashing of giant land masses sent up some of our country’s oldest mountains. Native Americans used the natural grasslands for summer camps and, much later, enterprising businessmen set up sawmills in the stony hollows, hacking through most of the virgin forest along the Blue Ridge. People without the means or the desire to live in flatland cities and towns came to populate the hollows and bottom land, living much as mountaineers do everywhere.

Human stories are fairly recent in the long history of the ancient mountains above.

“Shenandoah Moon,” an original play staged by the Waynesboro Players and directed by Sandi Belcher, tells some of those stories.

The play, written by Waynesboro authors Duane Hahn, Barbara Spilman Lawson and Elizabeth Massie, will be presented April 16-18 at 8 p.m.; and April 19 at 2 p.m. at Waynesboro High School’s Spilman Auditorium. June Hall and Becky Price are the producers.

Even nearly 80 years later, it’s hard to get a perspective on the events that triggered the drama.

Essentially, people living in the lands that became the Shenandoah National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive were forced to leave their homes. Some were glad at the chance to be resettled; some were resentful and crept back up to honor gravesites and harvest ginseng; some were so heartbroken they never recovered, grieving for a way of life that’s now disappeared.

Early in “Shenandoah Moon” President Franklin Roosevelt and Senator Harry Byrd debate the wisdom of removing people from their homes. Both agreed the park would ultimately help the people of Virginia. The construction of the park and Skyline Drive employed hundreds of local and national workers and brought tourist dollars into rural Virginia. Officials had been told by reporters and by resort entrepreneur George Pollock, who built Skyland, that the mountain people were emaciated, illiterate and desperate for change. Pollock, a kind of mountaintop P.T. Barnum, characterized the inhabitants of communities like Jarman’s Gap as being barely able to communicate. Others said they were crude and vulgar.

“Shenandoah Moon” proves them wrong.

“We were clear on that at the very beginning,” said director Sandi Belcher. “We didn’t want any of the actors falling back on stereotypes of mountain people, or portraying them as though they were not as complicated and intelligent as anyone else.”

Belcher said the play represents people from all income and education levels, and also examines both sides of the way the park came to be.
That was part of the intention, says Beth Massie, one of the playwrights.

“Hopefully, we learn from the past, how to improve on the things we messed up and how to retain or return to the things we did right. In “Shenandoah Moon,” we explore the coming of a valuable natural Virginia resource — the Shenandoah National Park — but we also examine what it took to secure this resource.”
Belcher was the playwrights’ choice for director. She’s a veteran actor and director, and has worked with the Waynesboro Players and the Oak Grove summer theater. She said she loved seeing this play come to life for the first time.

“I was so honored when they asked me to be the director,” she said. “This has been one of the greatest experiences for me.”

It’s not the first time Belcher has brought an original work to its first staging: she worked with Richard Adams on “Woody,” an original musical about Woodrow Wilson. Adams also wrote the music for “Shenandoah Moon,” and it’s an intrinsic part of the production rather than relegated to the background.

Belcher said the playwrights helped guide the production as it unfolded.

“They were able to make a few changes in rehearsal that helped a lot,” she said. “They trusted my judgment and we worked well together.”

Massie also found the process exhilarating: “It’s been great fun to watch rehearsals and hear the words that were only on paper come to life through the voices and actions of the actors. The humor, drama, poignancy and love we, as playwrights, infused into the script are showing through as we’d hoped.”
Massie said she found herself laughing out loud at some parts and wiping away tears at others.

“Of course, Barb [Spilman Lawson], Duane [Hahn] and I have made script tweaks as rehearsals have progressed to improve the play to make it the best it can be.”

The inherent dilemma in the situation is still enough to break a heart. In the play, Pollock, who stood to gain millions by the completion of the park, courts flatlanders by using vaudeville-style entertainment like Wild West shows and western wear beauty contests as though the story of the Appalachians was interchangeable with the story of the American West. Juxtaposed with the entertainment of bored Washingtonian socialites is the real life of Jarman’s Gap: people raise their families, fall in love, struggle with the seasons, have fun, treasure their local characters, love their homeland for its acceptance and familiarity, and worry about leaving.

The playwrights introduce another interesting facet: the unemployed men from northern factory towns who work on the construction camps as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps. They believe what they’re doing will improve the lives of the impoverished people they see. For some of them, it’s a glimpse of a land as foreign and strange as another country. Brought up in smoke, bustle and crowded tenements, the mountains seem almost exotic. Working alongside young local men, they become part of the community and part of the plot, including a love interest for the young heroine. There are other sympathetic outsiders – people who want to help preserve the mountain culture and offer help to the most destitute families.

The playwrights avoid a simplistic ending. “Shenandoah Moon” is as complex as the real history. There are no real villains – even Pollock has some redeeming qualities – and there are no clear-cut solutions to the struggle.

“The Skyline Drive, the Park and the mountains are very much a part of who we in the Valley are,” says Massie. “We’re interconnected and this interconnectedness should bring us pride as well as a sense of responsibility to ourselves, our neighbors and the land with which we’ve been blessed.”
The drama of these beautiful lands continues in real life with contemporary inhabitants as the actors, so it might be fair to say that the next script is being written now and should honor what went before.
The box office opens an hour before each production of “Shenandoah Moon.” Tickets may be ordered at http://www.waynesboroplayers.org/tickets.html, which will be held at the box office. Tickets are $8 for children and $15 for adults.