Amy Timberlake’s “One Came Home” has a distinct whiff of “True Grit” in its bones, with a dash of Ian McEwan’s “Atonement.” But in Lifeline Theatre’s world premiere adaptation by Jessica Wright Buha, the story of Georgie Burkhardt’s search in 1871 Wisconsin for her elder sister often feels tough, tender and remarkably honest about how complicated — and yet paradoxically simple — the truth can be.
As far as the small town of Placid, Wisc., is concerned, Agatha Burkhardt came home in a pine box, her mangled remains identifiable only through the blue-green ball gown she cherished. She left in a buckboard driven by “pigeoners” — hunters of the passenger pigeons that turned central Wisconsin into the largest recorded nesting ground for the birds in 1871. By 1914, of course, the species would be extinct.
The juxtaposition of the birds’ looming fate with Agatha’s doesn’t always mesh smoothly in director Elise Kauzlaric’s staging, though Alan Donahue’s bird puppets capture the distinctive size and color of the pigeon whose migrations once darkened the skies for days. But when the story focuses on Georgie’s stubborn refusal to accept Agatha’s extinction and her journey to discover the truth in the company of Agatha’s one-time beau, Billy, it hums. Buha’s narrative seamlessly weaves together the flashbacks to the days before Agatha’s disappearance with Georgie’s quest, aided greatly by John Szymanski’s stark-but-nostalgic original music, played live on guitars and percussion by the ensemble.
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Ashley Darger’s Georgie is a motormouth with dead-eye aim with a gun, thanks to her grandfather’s tutelage. Her eagerness to shoot birds disturbs tender-hearted Agatha (Amanda Jane Long), who asks her “Why be rough when you can be kind?”
It’s a good question, and one of the great strengths of this production is that Darger’s Georgie, like Mattie Ross in “True Grit,” isn’t necessarily likeable, despite her obvious moxie. She’s self-righteous and quick to judge what she doesn’t understand (which is where the “Atonement” parallel comes in). Georgie not only needs to test her mettle on the open road as part of her rite of passage into adulthood — she also needs to learn that she still has a lot to learn.
Darger’s febrile take on Georgie is well balanced on her journey by Jeff Kurysz’s even-tempered but on-the-verge-of-exasperation Billy, whose own motivations aren’t always what they appear. The differences between the sisters in the flashbacks sets Long’s Agatha up as a dreamer with a pragmatic streak. “I know how to walk so no one hears me,” she tells Georgie. “I know the secret places.”
Often, those secrets are hiding in plain sight. Donahue’s rough-hewn set with its thicket of bare branches and Diane D. Fairchild’s rich color-and-shadows lighting suggest that abundance and scarcity nestle side-by-side in both nature and the human heart. One day the skies are filled with birds as far as the eye can see, but before you know it they’ve been silenced forever. “One Came Home” presents that trajectory of loss with heart and grit. Like the best young-adult stories, it’s sure to resonate far beyond the target audience and hit the hearts of those wondering just how our relationships took the turns that they did, and whether we can find our way back home.
3.5 STARS
When: Through April 5
Where: Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $40 at 773-761-4477 or lifelinetheatre.com