Lesley K. Pearson spent her time last Saturday engrossed in the written word, and it wasn’t for pleasure.
The director of “Honk!,” the current Vanguard Productions musical at Point Loma’s Westminster Theatre, was suddenly thrust into the netherworld of double duty “” her leading lady had a big-time case of laryngitis, and it fell to her to pick up the slack. Not the first or the last time such a scenario would play out on or offstage, but that’s of small comfort when curtain is only about five hours away.
“Now if I could only remember where I asked her to be on everything,” Pearson laughed. “I can’t remember my own blocking.”
But that’s OK. At its best, community theater is just that “” a community effort, calling up everybody’s reserves for a common interest. If Pearson didn’t go on last weekend, somebody else from that cast of 43 would have. That’s how Vanguard got to be the institution it is “” and somehow, this particular time of year seems to strengthen the bond.
“The shows we do in the summer,” Pearson explained, “are almost always musicals, so that we can incorporate families. The littlest one in ‘Honk!’ is 4; the oldest one is way past 4. The 4-year-old has probably been onstage more often than some of the midrange-aged kids. And many of the actors have professional gigs on the outside, or they’re professional singers. We have the whole gamut. It’s insane.”
In the truest sense of the word, it’s also a serious legacy. Vanguard has been operating its 120-seat venue out of Westminster Presbyterian Church for 40 years, which makes it one of San Diego’s oldest continuously running community theaters. And it’s always willing to exceed its limits in the interest of discovering them.
Its itinerary has included Peter Shaffer’s “The Royal Hunt of the Sun,” an epic drama centered on Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of Peru’s Inca Indians. Pizarro’s legendary cruelty frames the roily topic of church-state separation “” one that Vanguard eagerly embraced.
“We like the big, odd pieces that not everybody does,” Pearson said. “We’re always looking for the chance to illuminate the human spirit.”
“Honk!,” which opened July 14, is the latest such installment. The book and lyrics, written by Britain’s Anthony Drewe, are based on “The Ugly Duckling,” Hans Christian Andersen’s seminal fairytale about the clumsy chick who never let his suffering get the better of him and thus matures into the most beautiful swan of them all.
“Honk!” takes the yarn into the realm of situational comedy as Ugly, the lead character, is pursed by a hungry cat, befriended by a glad-handing bullfrog and frozen in his tracks during a blizzard.
“Everybody knows the story of the ugly duckling,” Pearson said, “but they don’t know the musical ‘Honk!.’ That’s a thrill, because we get to tell the story in a different way and have them see the story unravel with fresh eyes.”
George Stiles teamed with Drewe to write the music. Their play opened in London in 1993 and has won three best musical awards, including the 2000 Olivier, for which it bested “The Lion King.”
“George and I,” Drewe recently wrote, “conceived ‘Honk!’ as a family entertainment that would be fun for all ages “” as much about people as it is about ducks. We did not envisage feathers and beaks, just a few color schemes and mannerisms that would indicate who the characters are. The main message that we wanted the audience to go away with was that being different is OK “” it is something to be welcomed, embraced and celebrated rather than feared, misunderstood or persecuted.”
The Vanguard production takes the hint. The costumes merely suggest the characters’ functions. The universal lessons, after all, are what’s important.
“Honk!” runs through July 30 at the Westminster Theatre, 3598 Talbot St., in Point Loma. Tickets are $10 to $15 and available at (619) 224-6263.