Budbill’s ‘Judevine’ To Return
To Stage at Lost Nation Venue

When David Budbill’s poem-play "Judevine" last played in Vermont 16 years ago, The Herald’s review said the following:

"The success of ‘Judevine’ is a tribute to the power of truth, affirming that when audiences see and hear the truth, they will recognize it and respond to it. The play, and the poetry, achieved that rare phenomenon, acclaim from the critics along with appreciation from the people."

Over the next 16 years, The Herald’s words were echoed and amplified by dozens of astonished critics across the country. In that time, some 58 productions have played in 21 states, bringing to life the vivid characters that inhabit Budbill’s vision of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Now, "Judevine" returns to Vermont to open Lost Nation Theater’s 2007 season. The play will run from April 19 to May 13, at Montpelier City Hall Arts Center.

David Budbill’s "Judevine" is a tribute to gritty back-road Vermont as seen through the eyes of one of her best poets.

Through a collection of beautiful and compelling portraits of ordinary people, by turns raucous and bawdy, delicate and painful, intensely funny, loving and angry, the characters in Budbill’s "Judevine" reveal the survival strength in the oppressed and hurt.

Lost Nation Theater’s ensemble of Ben Ash, Karen Lefkoe, Bob Nuner, Abby Paige, Scott Renzoni, and Mark Roberts create 24 indomitable characters.

Kim Bent founded Lost Nation Theater in Bristol in 1977. What better way to spring into the company’s 30th year, he thought, than with Budbill’s play?

The original Vermont run, directed by Robert Ringer of Vermont Repertory Theater, was a huge success—perhaps because it started out by being banned at Woodstock High School for some admittedly raw language. The play’s run was extended a week at its home theater and then proceeded on a triumphal tour to seven venues.

Author Budbill is excited about Lost Nation’s upcoming production.

"This is going to be a particularly excellent version of Judevine," he said. We have a great cast and Kim Bent is the perfect person to direct this play. Kim is a sixth-generation native Vermonter (he grew up in Braintree), a farm boy in fact. He understands the people in Judevine. And the cast understands the characters also."

The show is recommended for adult audiences as it contains mature language and themes. Curtain is 7 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 7 p.m. Sundays, except for the final Sunday, May 13 which is at 2 p.m. There is also a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, April 21.

For tickets call 229-0492 or visit www.lostnationtheater.org.

‘Herald’ Review

The Herald’s review 16 years ago included the following:

It took an Act of Congress for Robert Penn Warren to be named national poet laureate last week, but in Vermont, David Budbill won the post by acclamation.

Thanks to an impeccable and affecting performance by the Vermont Repertory Theater of Winooski, Budbill’s three books of Vermont poetry came alive before the wide audience the work deserves.

I term "Judevine" a poem-play because it is not quite a play; it’s just a step removed from a poetry reading.

But what joy to see an audience of 400 weeping and laughing and squirming at a poetry reading! And what satisfaction to hear a dramatic presentation in which each word is so well considered, each thought so cleanly limned, each line so deeply true—a presentation, in short, in which the actors speak poetry.

Seeing "Judevine," for the audience, was much like wandering through one’s own town in a dream, shaken to recognition by a joke here, a phrase there, a situation, an irony. The difference between Judevine and any real town—Wolcott, for instance—is that in Judevine the characters speak, although roughly and comfortably, with precision and grace.

What a fine and encouraging combination: a Vermont writer writing about Vermont, a Vermont theater with a Vermont director, putting poetry on the stage for hungry Vermont audiences!

—M.D. DRYSDALE