North Marion High students to present the drama "Nora's Lost" on Friday

Jan. 25—RACHEL — A gripping story of love and loss will unfold Friday night on stage at the North Marion High Auditorium.

Theatre students in Troupe 4145 will host a public performance of the dramatic one-act play "Nora's Lost" by Alan Haehnel at 6:30 p.m. Celi Oliveto, director of the school's theatre program, describes the play as a beautiful, nonlinear story that is told using poetry from the perspective of the character Nora Blodget who has Alzheimer's disease.

"So it's not a traditional this, this this and this happens. So it's very much from her perspective. So you could be back in her time when she was 20 and then she's 50 and then she's back in her 30s teaching," Oliveto said. "So yeah, it's very challenging for the students to keep the story while still being all over the timeline like Nora would experience it."

Friday's performance will be the second time the students have performed "Nora's Lost." In November, Troupe 4145 performed the play at the West Virginia Theatre Association Festival where they were awarded "Distinguished Play" and North Marion junior Lydia Hatten earned the honor of "Top Performer" for her role of "Young Nora."

Friday's show will also serve as a dress rehearsal for the students who will perform the play Saturday at the Robinson Grand Performing Arts Center in Clarksburg during regionals competition. Oliveto hopes her students earn one of two slots to move on to the state competition, but she admits the troupe will face some pretty stiff competition going up against Fairmont Senior, Robert C. Byrd and Bridgeport high schools.

"I really love facing these difficult schools, because it's just, you know, you play better teams, you become a better team," Oliveto said. "It is both a curse and a blessing that we are in this really challenging region that we face really great schools."

North Marion senior Catelyn Brooks, 17, of Four States, portrays the older version of Nora's daughter Martha in the play. She hopes the community turns out to watch the play even though it's been a while since the students staged a play that's so dramatic and moving.

"Yeah, acting in a dramatic show is certainly very different than a comedy, you really have to put your entire emotional bandwidth out there," Brooks said. "And you have to be able to use that to just convey like the absolute worst grief imaginable, in some instances, and there's a scene with Nora and Jean, where they are talking about how Mark had died in Vietnam and how they are harboring feelings against each other because of that.

"It's a really great scene, the actors in it really get into it. And so far, it's the real breakdown crying scene and it's very moving."

Her character has three major scenes that are distributed pretty evenly throughout the play.

"There's a really profound message, I think, about family and how we grieve the loss of loved ones and a lot specifically with Nora and her dementia, about how she's not dead yet, but the deterioration of her mind has put so much stress on Martha that she can't really just enjoy being with her mother and to the point where her granddaughter really doesn't know her because she doesn't really have the cognition to communicate with her," Brooks said.

"But Martha knows what an amazing person Nora used to be, and all these things that she used to do. And she's just so heartbroken about how she seems to be this shell of a person she once was, and throughout the show, we really get the value of Nora's life past what she is now."

Brooks' younger sister Alyvia Brooks, a sophomore, is stage manager for the play. She admits, "I'm kinda' the boss backstage." She also enjoyed watching the student actors deal with the emotions needed to stage such a heavy drama.

"I have enjoyed watching the show because as Catelyn said, we've only done comedies in the past. And it's nice to see the actors get a new challenge because this is pretty much everyone's first drama, and there's a lot of emotions — puts a lot of stress on the actors, but they cope very well and they've become a lot better actors because of it. I quite enjoy that," Alyvia Brooks said.

She said the deep work they are having to do has made the students learn more about themselves.

"I think this has shown them some emotions they may not have experienced yet, since they're so young, and gave them an opportunity to learn about things that they also weren't alive to experience to. Because none of us were alive during Vietnam or any anything before that, obviously because we're all younger," Alyvia said.

For Jeremy Hayes, 15, of Mannington, "Nora's Lost" is his third play. He portrays the character Jack Wiggins who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder connected to the Vietnam War.

"For my character, one of the harder parts was really having to grasp and try to think of what it would be like to go through things like PTSD and things like that after Vietnam," Hayes said. "Because my character basically watches his friend die, which is Nora's son, and just in general having to try to get a grasp on what experiencing things like that would be was fairly difficult."

Hayes believes the play is still important today because of the universal themes of love and loss.

"Because it really helps people experience and understand what things like dementia and grieving can sort of look like and help kind of open people's eyes to what that stuff looks like nearly," he said.

Reach Eric Cravey at 304-367-2523.