In 'Captains Courageous,' characters sail from page to stage

Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series following the process of participating in a Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative show through the lens of “Captains Courageous,” which will be a New Hampshire premiere when staged Oct. 20-22.

LACONIA — There are phases every theatrical production passes through, and each phase has its own goals. The phase the cast of “Captains Courageous” is in right now calls for them to get to know their characters, understand how those characters relate to the others in the story, and to learn their lines as perfectly as possible before costumes, microphones and set design are added to the mix.

Oh, and then there’s the music, which is complicated and largely unknown to the actors, as this particular title, unlike the musicals typically selected by Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative, is obscure and rarely performed.

“Captains Courageous” is a stage adaptation of a tale by Rudyard Kipling. The story deals in relationships between men as they labor together on board a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. It’s also a tale of technological tension, as the characters are doing their work aboard a sail-powered boat, while their competition is increasingly turning to diesel-engined vessels.

It’s an unusual task director Bryan Halperin has given his cast, so he offered an unusual opportunity to engage with the material. Earlier this month, the cast went to Gloucester, where they got a chance to see such a fishing sailboat first-hand, and learn more about the kind of lives their characters might have led.

Asher Clark, who lives in Tilton, is playing Harris. He said he was impressed by the nature of the work in which his character engages.

“It was some of the hardest work you could do,” Clark said. He learned in Gloucester that each crew member would be responsible for baiting fishing lines half a mile long, containing some 550 hooks, and would then row a dory away from the sailboat in order to place the line, pull in his catch, then return to clean and store the fish. They would do that every day for journeys that lasted for weeks.

“Then you sleep and do it all again tomorrow,” Clark said.

Connor Butt’s character, Dan, is in a slightly different position. He’s playing the son of the ship’s captain. “I feel I have a very different relationship. I’m a teenager, I’m not there to make a living. I’m just there with my dad.”

Butt, who lives in Webster, majored in theater in college, and auditioned for “Captains” to get more stage time to develop his acting skills. “I am looking to get performance experience in any way I can,” he said.

Alex Hunton, who has a bit more experience, is playing Walters on the stage as well as serving as the show’s musical director. He said the cast is full of “nervous energy” as they all try to understand their own characters, as well as learn a challenging score. For weeks, the actors have been working alone with their scripts, and now they’re starting to transfer their characters from the page to the stage.

“This is the first time it feels like a performance, and any time we enter a performance environment, we are expected to show that we understand stuff,” Hunton said. “Even if it’s just the director and choreographer [in the audience], it’s a performance and it’s good to have those nerves.”

Hunton said the music is doubly challenging, both due to the difficulty of the notes and the fact there aren’t any good resources available for actors to look to for guidance. In place of online videos of other performances, Hunton and a pianist have been making recordings of each song, so the actors can know what the music is supposed to sound like.

“It’s been bearing fruit, because they’re sounding great,” Hunton said.

By next week, the “Captains” cast will be running the whole show, front to back, without scripts in their hands, said Halperin. He added one thing going for them right now is the camaraderie, an important element in community theater.

“They enjoy working together to create something excellent,” Halperin said.

“Right now, we’re building confidence and mastery of the material,” he continued. It’s important to do that now, when they are working with an empty Colonial Theatre stage, without some of the technical trappings of performance such as lights, microphones and costumes. “I always say, I like to get to tech week and we have mastery over everything we can have mastery over, because once we get to tech week, there's a lot of things outside of our control.”

It was a gamble for Halperin and his wife Johanna, Powerhouse’s leadership team, to pick “Captains,” because it calls for an all-male cast, and each character has to be played by a strong singer. He has been rewarded with the cast, and he’s hoping the local audience will have a similar appetite for a novel show.

“It’s not something you see every day,” Halperin said. “Our goal would be to urge people to give it a chance. There is a reason we put it in our schedule. We think people will love it if they come to see it.”

“Captains Courageous” will be onstage at the Colonial Theatre Friday through Sunday, Oct. 20-22.