Players take trip to 'Twilight Zone'

Annual parodies return to Lafayette with new take on classic TV

By Julie Baxter, Enterprise Staff Writer
October 12, 2005

The golden age of television is getting out of the box and on to the stage.

The Lafayette Community Players are bringing a boob tube blast from the past back to life with "Twilight Zone and Beyond ... A Twilight Zone Parody."

The fifth annual spin on the Rod Serling classic will feature three episodes of the groundbreaking 1960s TV show, along with a vintage, live commercial for Mrs. Olson's favorite java.

The pitch for mountain-grown Folgers coffee is a new addition to the "Twilight Zone" tradition. The commercial features a couple torn asunder by the wife's coffee-making skills and her husband's delight at her brew after a visit with Mrs. O.

Sounds like a pretty standard pitch, but nothing about the Players' "Twilight Zone" production is typical, and the shill for the grounds is no exception.

The commercial will feature two special guests — KUSA 9News entertainment reporter Kirk Montgomery on opening night, Oct. 21, and Lafayette Mayor Chris Berry on Oct. 22. The two will take turns in the role of the vexed husband who doesn't understand why his sweetie can't get his cup of joe just so.

And each will be doing more than getting his name in lights.

Half of the proceeds from the night Montgomery performs will go to the American Cancer Society. Half of the take from Berry's show will go to Clinica Campesina Family Health Services, a Lafayette nonprofit organization that serves more than 17,000 low-income and medically underserved families and individuals.

It is Berry's theatrical debut, but he jokes politics have given him plenty of practice. But even so, he said the experience so far has been educational and inspiring.

"I'm rather humbled by the expertise and commitment these folks have to the arts and the theater," said the mayor, who is in his second year of office after serving as deputy mayor for two years.

Humbled or not, Berry is still having some fun with his role, not to mention the good feeling he's getting from doing something to help his community.

He tried on his costume for the first time at a recent rehearsal and said he got a kick out of the dated look.

"I felt like I was in a time machine," he said.

That trip through time is part of the appeal of the show, but it goes deeper than nostalgia, Madge Montgomery, Lafayette Community Players artistic director, said in a statement about the performances.

It also goes deeper than science fiction and the supernatural.

Though the "Twilight Zone" TV seems to be all about the unexplained or just plain eerie, it's far more than that, Montgomery said.

"The 'Twilight Zone' was groundbreaking because it dealt with the frightening concept of alienation in modern society in bold and imaginative ways," she said.

"This theme of humans separated from each other yet struggling to transcend these boundaries is played out differently in these three episodes. But there's a common thread: Without a bond of community, we are destined to succumb to fear and isolation."

The three episodes on tap for the upcoming four-weekend run of the "Twilight Zone" are:

• "A World of Difference" — Arthur Curtis thinks he's an average businessman living a normal life. Or is he an actor playing a businessman on a movie set?
• "Kick the Can" — Has the old man at Sunnydale Rest Home discovered the secret to regaining youth?
• "Shadow Play" — Trapped in a recurring nightmare, a man tries to persuade those sentencing him to death that the scenario is not real. Will they listen?

Chockfull of the trademark surreal touches that made the "Twilight Zone" a hit TV show, the skits explore the fragility of reality. And if you look deep enough, they have parallels to modern-day life, Montgomery said.

The connection between a 1960s TV show and a small-town community theater reflects the greatest struggle of our age, she said, both the "Twilight Zone" and LCP, in their small way, attempt to combat the growing sense of isolation in the modern world.

"Our salvation lies in our commitment to each other," she said.

http://broomfieldenterprise.com