In
Chalk it up to the internet, perhaps, or to the challenges facing the world. But amid the incivility are places of refuge, where disagreements remain fluid, attitudes don’t harden and people are friendly, even if they aren’t friends.
Actor Jo Servi, who plays three of the 20 characters in Barber Shop Chronicles, a production of England’s National Theatre and several smaller companies that comes to the Hopkins Center in Hanover this weekend, said the play is set in just such a place. The neighborhood barber shops of the title are situated in London and in four capital cities of African nations that the United Kingdom once ruled.
“Everyone feels comfortable, in this safe space, to say what he thinks,” Servi said on Monday, over coffee at the Top of the Hop. “It’s the kind of discourse we’re reluctant to have now in this time of social media, where everybody’s just yelling at each other. In the barber shop, there is never only one side of the argument, whatever that argument is. There is discourse. There is debate.
“You are never given a conclusion.”
What Nigerian-born playwright Inua Ellems gives the audience is a moveable feast of outlooks, on subjects ranging from loyalty, both toward intimate partners and favorite football teams (soccer to us Yanks), to the legacies of revolutionary leaders Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
“I saw an earlier production of it, in 2014, when it was set just in London,” Servi said. “One of the things that struck me right away was the nature of the conversation. It was the first time I had seen my life represented on stage.
“And it was hilarious.”
It was also eye-opening for Servi, who, when asked his age, would only say that he’s been calling himself “12 years old since about 1999.” He began his career as a performer as a session singer and toured with British pop star Kate Bush. Unlike most of the cast, he grew up in the heart of England, in the mostly-white town of Aylesbury.
“I’m a bit more country than the other guys,” he said. “My mum was the first person from Ghana in the town. I’ve been lucky, on this tour, that there have been a lot of Q-and-As after the performances. That’s where we’ve gotten to learn about each other.”
In both the post-performance discussions and more informal ones with audience members, Servi is seeing why the play struck such a resonant chord in his home country as well as in North America.
“It’s not like (London’s) West End, where you go out the stage door and just leave,” Servi said. “People stop and chat. After one of the shows in L.A., I had a couple come up to me, one from Lebanon (the country) and one from the Dominican Republic,” he recalled. “They saw their own experiences as members of a diaspora represented in a play.”
The opportunity to explore the experiences of three characters — two Nigerians and a Zimbabwean — on the North American tour, which started in September, presented a challenge to Servi. His previous appearances with multiple roles were in the Birmingham Repertory Company’s adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia tale The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and of A Life of Galileo, in which “I was the Pope and a ballad singer,” he said.
“I’m fortunate that this is an ensemble piece,” Servi said. “It’s not all on me. Everybody gets their moment in the sun.”
And everybody gets in his two cents — two pence? — worth.
“The mission is to open people’s eyes to a bigger picture,” Servi said. “There’s a lot of open questions within the play. … In a piece as important as this, which opens so many conversations, it doesn’t feel like a chore. It’s a humongous responsibility. We’re storytellers. It’s an important human trait. You’re sharing information. That’s essentially the purpose of all art, whether it’s a play or a dance or music. It’s deeper than the piece itself.”
The Hopkins Center stages
Best Bets
Northern Stage’s sixth annual New Works Now festival unveils three full-length plays-in-development and two 10-minute plays in White River Junction, starting Friday evening at the Main Street Museum with New York City-based actor-writer Todd Cerveris performing Deaccession, as part of the festival’s Thirsty Theater miniseries. The 10-minute, semi-autobiographical comedy, inspired by Cerveris’ offstage exploration of White River Junction between performances of Northern Stage’s adaptation of Oslo, follows a man visiting a local museum with a gripe against the museum’s curator, only to become entranced by the collection. Performances are set for 5 and 5:30.
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, at Northern Stage’s Barrette Center for the Arts, the company stages a reading of Jessica Andrewartha’s Choices People Make, which revolves around the complications that ensue when two researchers assemble an android named Athena.
On Saturday afternoon at 2 at the Barrette Center, Northern Stage puts on a staged reading of Obie Award-winning playwright Kate Benson’s Where Are We Going? The road-trip dramedy follows seven members of an acting company on a tour of the rural South, where they encounter revelations, frustrations and respite.
Another 10-minute play, Norwich resident Elisabeth Gordon’s Can You Hear Me Now?, will be performed at 6:30 Saturday night at Thyme Restaurant, where dinner reservations are required. The slice-of-life comedy examines the local dynamics and neighborhood relationships in a small Vermont town through its listserv.
The festival concludes at the Barrette Center on Sunday night at 7:30, with a staged reading of recent Dartmouth graduate Celeste Jennings’ Citrus. Northern Stage describes the play as “an original choreopoem that follows the emotional journeys of tribulation, struggle and resilience among black women from 1840 to the present day in the United States.”
While admission is free to the performances, Northen Stage advises reserving seats by calling the box office at 802-296-7000.
■Chilean-French rapper-turned folk singer Ana Tijoux and the all-woman “post-mariachi” band Flor de Toloache perform at Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover on Friday night at 8. For tickets ($17 to $25) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
■The Upper Valley Music Center’s Juneberry Community Chorus sings about the solar system, the moon and the stars at 4 on Sunday afternoon at Lebanon Opera House. Accompanying the chorus will be solo singers Rebekah Schweitzer and Betsy Alexander, cellist Ben Culp and the music center’s cello choir. Admission is by donation at the door. To learn more, visit uvmusic.org or call 603-448-1642.
Looking Ahead
In preparation for its series of spring concerts, the North Country Chorus is rehearsing on Tuesday nights at 7:15, in the band room of St. Johnsbury Academy’s Morse Center for the Arts. The ensemble is preparing to sing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Faure’s Requiem over the first weekend in May, including May 4 in Wells River. To register for rehearsals and to learn more, visit northcountrychorus.org, email Alan Rowe at arowe@stjacademy.org or call 802-748-5027.
■Colorado-based musicians Adam Agee and Jon Sousa will perform Celtic music from Europe and North America on Jan. 26, at the Seven Stars Arts Center in Sharon. Admission to the 7 p.m. concert is $15 at the door. To learn more, visit adamandjon.com.
Theater/Performance Art
Thetford Academy stages its 22nd annual 10-Minute Play Festival tonight and Friday night at 7, at the school’s Martha Jane Rich Theater. Eight plays written and performed by students are scheduled. Admission is $5 at the door.
Music
Singer-songwriter Susan Werner plays the Flying Goose Brew Pub and Grille tonight at 8. Reservations are required. For tickets ($25) and more information, visit flyinggoose.com or call 603-526-6899.
■ Windborne performs American and European folk music at the Sunapee Community CoffeeHouse on Friday night at 7. Admission is by donation.
■The folk quintet Fifth Business performs music of the United States and the British Isles on Saturday night at 7, during the monthly Corinth Coffeehouse at Corinth Town Hall on Cookeville Road. Admission is by donation to the East Corinth Congregational Church’s emergency fund for residents struggling with heating bills.
■The Valley Chords invite aspiring Sweet Adeline-style barbershop singers to their open house on Wednesday night at 6:30, at the Bugbee Center in White River Junction. To learn more, visit meetup.com/White-River-Junction-A-Cappella-Meetup.
Bar and Club Circuit
Saxophonist Mike Parker and singer-guitarist Alison “AliT” Turner perform at Peyton Place restaurant in Orford, tonight from 6 to 9. Acoustic rocker Joel Cage appears next Thursday night at 6.
■Guitarist Ted Mortimer kicks off a busy weekend by playing sideman to singer-songwriter Jason Cann at Harpoon Brewery in Windsor tonight at 8. Then he joins the Party Crashers at Windsor Station on Friday night at 9:30, leads The Repeat Offenders into the base lodge of the Suicide Six ski area in South Pomfret on Saturday afternoon at 3:30, and tackles a solo gig at Hanover’s Salt hill Pub on Saturday night at 8:30.
■Still Hill pulls into Windsor Station tonight at 7 to play a set of bluegrass, and the RoadTrash Band appears on Saturday night at 9:30.
■Sensible Shoes sets the rockin’ rhythm for dancing at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night at 8.
■The Conniption Fits play The Skinny Pancake in Hanover on Friday night at 9.
■The weekend lineup at Salt hill Pub in downtown Lebanon features singer-songwriter Amanda McCarthy on Friday night at 9, and the Jordan Tirrel-Wysocki Irish duo takes the microphone on Saturday night at 9.
■GrooveSum frontman Joe Mitchell plays Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Friday night at 9.
■Flew-Z frontman Alec Currier plays Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon on Friday night at 9, and About Gladys singer-guitarist Rich Thomas performs the Happy Hour set starting at 4 on Saturday.
■Singer-songwriter Mike Preston performs at Salt hill Pub in Newport on Saturday night at 8.
■Sonny Saul plays jazz at the On the River Inn in Woodstock on Saturday and Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 9.
■The Wheelers rock The Engine Room in White River Junction on Saturday night at 9.
Open Mics
Woodstock musician Jim Yeager hosts open mics tonight at 7 at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret, and on Wednesday night at 8 at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
■String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
■Joe Stallsmith leads his weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass on Monday night at 6 at Salt hill Pub in Hanover.
■Fiddler Jakob Breitbach leads an acoustic jam session of bluegrass, Americana and old-timey music on Tuesday nights at 7 at The Filling Station Bar and Grill in White River Junction.
■Tom Masterson hosts an open mic at Colatina Exit in Bradford, Vt., on Tuesday nights at 8.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304. Entertainment news also can be sent to highlights@vnews.com.