Lisa Helmi Johanson

There's a palpably tragic tension between Edgar and Mira, which the play's quartet of writers--Sherry Stregack Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David M. Lutken--naturally let develop, trusting the actors (and, in Lutken's case, himself) to convey it in fraught silences. But "The Porch on Windy Hill" is no joyless drama; it also includes lots of glorious, soul-stirring sound, which buffers the characters' pain through a heady musical mélange that links everyone on the stage, even when they seem worlds apart. A classical violinist, Mira's talent originated from the long-ago example of her grandfather's expert banjo and guitar pickin', while her beautiful singing voice, similar to Edgar's, is much more candid than her speaking one. No mellifluous slouch himself, Beckett joins Mira and Edgar in a series of stringed reveries that run the gamut from Haydn to bluegrass and, as music often does, take up the emotional slack when regular words don't come easily. [more]