Good evening. The subject of our talk today is love, pain and suffering.
So too are the opening lines of William Nicholson’s ruminative “Shadowlands,” the bittersweet, late-life love story of Irish author C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Gresham.
Lewis, who sold more than 100 million “Narnia” children’s books, was also perhaps the 20th century’s most famous Christian convert. “The moment” wasn’t exactly the stuff of legend or lightning – he simply had an epiphany while riding a double-decker bus in 1929. Lewis went on to become a great Christian apologist, which soon will be evident to anyone who takes in the forthcoming “Narnia” blockbuster.
“Shadowlands,” now playing at the Bas Bleu Theatre, opens with suave actor Jonathan Farwell mimicking Lewis’ popular series of cerebral talks. “Suffering is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world,” he tells us assuredly. It is a gift to help us understand that our real life begins in the next one. As an insulated, academic bachelor, the man speaks from intellect rather than experience.
But by the start of the second act, Lewis is considerably less sure of himself. Now well into his twilight years, he has experienced real love for the first time. And he’s about to lose that love to bone cancer.
[Read the rest of the review at the DenverPost.com]
“Shadowlands”
DRAMA
Bas Bleu Theatre, 401 Pine St., Fort Collins
Written by William Nicholson
Directed by Jonathan Farwell and Wendy Ishii
Starring Jonathan Farwell, Deb Note Farwell
THROUGH JAN. 7
7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. most Sundays
2 hours, 40 minutes
$10-$19
970-498-8949; basbleu.org
