`GHOSTS STILL SPEAK' CREATS WORLDS OF TRUTH (PLAY REVIEW)

"Ghosts Still Speak" does what good theater always does: create its own world so that the chosen truths may reveal themselves.

The play, which opens at 8 tonight at Southeast's Rose Theatre, conjures that world initially through Technical Director Dennis Seyer's extraordinary set, a microcosm of tectonic plates gone askew. In different guises, this mass of land will be perambulated by a geologist, students and an array of phantasms summoned up to find meaning in the earthquakes that shattered the New Madrid area in 1811 and 1812 and that are expected to return.

Playwright-director Dr. Sharon Bebout, who based her play on the book "The Earthquake America Forgot," has taken the earthquakes as a metaphor for the disharmony that existed across the land when they struck. And perhaps, in the conflicts between two of her main characters, the cynical student Karen (Kathryn Waterhout) and the idealistic Pam (Bonnie Thornhill), finds cause for concern in the present.

"Ghosts Still Speak" travels between the present and the human tragedies what occurred in New Madrid nearly 200 years ago by employing a character called Spirit (Megwyn Sanders), who can summon up history in much the same way as Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Past.

As lighting flashes from the ground and rumbles come and go, the true stories of people who survived the quakes and those who didn't are woven into a kind of mass dream that includes the audience. The play adeptly conveys the end-of-the-world state of shock every one of them must have been in.

Bebout has chosen actors and actresses who are relatively new to the University Players and has allowed some real talent to arise.

Jeffrey Jackson anchors the play solidly as the geologist Dr. Field, who utters some of the play's most telling lines. "One cultural truth lies buried beneath that which replaced it," he says, observing the cemetery white settlers built atop Indian mounds.

Another gem is Peru El-Amin's turn as Cal, the slave who stirringly recalls how the earthquakes ironically brought some justice for a fellow slave.

"When slaves talk, nobody listens," Cal observes. "When God talks everybody listens."

Don Marler, the lone performer with much University Theatre experience, provides comic relief as Mathias Speed, the riverboat captain exasperated by telling Karen his harrowing tale.

Waterhout and Thornhill are good as antagonists and will only get better as they sink their teeth into the play's two-week run.

Sanders is ethereal as Spirit. Sara Imboden's portrayal of Methoataske, mother of the warrior chief Tecumseh, is affecting, as is Gemma McManus's performance as the abandoned teen-ager Betsy Masters.

Tim Medlock imparts earnestness to the prophet Tenskwtawa and Ben, the pioneer whose young son has disappeared. Liz Evens is defiant as his grieving wife Martha, and Jeremy Dillon appears briefly as the son.

Sharon Anderson's costumes stand out, especially the stunning, multi-layered gown worn by Spirit.

Also appearing in the play are Eric Nolfo and Angela Perry as students, and Kim Westrich as a villager. Westrich is the assistant director.

"Ghosts Still Speak" continues at 8 p.m. Saturday, Wednesday, Thursday and Oct. 18 and 19.