HARDWICK – A perfect young couple deeply in love holds a perfect wedding: what could possibly go amiss? Evidently they had never read Robert Burns poem about “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.” Or, more importantly, ever heard of Murphy’s Law, “If something can go wrong, it will.”. The Civic Theater Project’s production entitled “The Wedding Tale” demonstrated the relevance of such observations last Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings at the American Legion in Hardwick and took on a hilarious journey of mishaps complete with a generous multi-course dinner.
Skillfully directed by Rose Freidman, the large cast of some thirty actors and actresses was supported by a dozen or more people involved in writing the script, making the costumes, sets and props, cooking and serving the food and donating in-kind gifts and funds to make this genuine community theater such a success with live sold-out performances.
As the wedding guests arrived and were seated on the bride or groom’s side of the hall, right away there was a warning that the hopes for a perfect wedding were in trouble, as the groom’s best man had not arrived. First to come in were the parents of the bride, Diane Trowel (Catherine Eden) and Doug Trowel (Jesse Cooper) and parents of the groom, Caroline “Cricket” von Mayflower (Annie Houston) and Tertius “Tripp” von Mayflower (Nic Nicolet) as well as other relatives and friends of the couple.
The von Mayflowers were an old family from Connecticut, well-heeled. They had been coming up to their summer home on Caspian Lake in Greensboro for generations. They commented on how quaint and authentic Vermont was, where people weren’t concerned with the trivial, like mowing the lawn or painting their houses. Then these bridesmaids came down the aisle (Helen Sher, Maria Amador and Jo Landers), one staring at her cell phone, followed by the bride. Taylor Trowel (Ulla Collins Axelson) and the groom, Aspen von Mayflower (Elias Robertson). The bride’s veil stretched ludicrously at least thirty feet behind her.
Music \Director Caitlin DeLuca accompanied the procession excellently on the piano with J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and several other pieces of wedding music by Wagner and Mendelssohn.
Doug Trowel spoke enthusiastically to Aspen about potential local job opportunities in his property maintenance business, such as draining pipes in vacation places in the fall, plowing driveways in the winter and towing cars in the Hardwick area, although Aspen seemed more directed to be an entrepreneur in artisanal finances.
The priest for this occasion was Father Tom Slotska-Murphy (Tom Murphy), who began the wedding ceremony by telling the lovely story of how Aspen met Taylor when he was having dinner at the Highland Lodge, where she was a waitress.
Then everyone joined in singing “Amazing Grace,” printed in the wedding program. The first verses were almost correct but the following three sections became increasingly bizarre and irreverently humorous.
As if that wasn’t enough to make people wonder what was going on, one of the bridesmaids and Taylor’s oldest, best friends (Helen Sher) gave a reading from Chronicles, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 9 of the Old Testament which was a seemingly endless list of begottens and begotters starting with Noah, managing to combine boredom with ridiculousness.
Taylor and Aspen then read their vows to each other, which expressed their sincere love for one another with what one of the players (Roseanne Hickey) described as a “Surrealistic Valentines”, Taylor then talking about her growing dog grooming enterprise and Aspen promising to learn how to use a leaf blower. They both saw their deep love as “unwordable,” which may or may-not be a word. Since the groom’s best man had still not arrived, a substitute was found among those gathered, to perform the ring part of the wedding, and the priest pronounced the couple man and wife, they making the traditional kiss.
Well, so far some minor bumps in the road, but then a major pothole! As preparations for the first course of the dinner were being made, Master of Ceremonies MItch Creshtible (Justin Lander) and D.J. David Jarpleworth (Kent Osborne) got some music going for dancing, but this was interrupted by a devastating confession from Father Tom Slotska-Murphy that he had not been ordained since 2020, because he was defrocked for running a betting game about how long marriages he had performed would last. The call was then made to ask if anyone attending the wedding could act as a priest to legalize this marriage, and a man named Sam volunteered. He went through the steps once more, as quickly as possible, skipping the longer parts, giving his blessings to Taylor and Aspen would be merging their souls and their bank accounts, and everything appeared to be back on track. But not for long. We don’t want to reveal the rest of this convoluted plot for those who will come next weekend, which includes such characters as a true believer in alien visitors (Tobin Anderson) and a wedding cake-demolishing grandmother (Barbara Leber).
Other members of the cast were Heather Lamphear, Ted Fullard, Phil Mercier, Bryan Delaney, Opie Upson, Will Miller, Julian Jimenez, Lauren Antler, Vince Razionale, Charlie Lander, and last but not least, intrepid photographer Scogin Zimmerman-Mayo, with special thanks to Chef Ashton Allen and servers Mariana Considine, Savia Hedrick, Audry Holston, Rob Montgomery and Leslie Ross.
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
