‘Lie’ brings family history to stage

In between all the outdoor activities in conjunction with this weekend Fall Festival, you can settle in to Shireman Auditorium at Girard High School for an hour of story telling and original music with the play, “Tell Us A Good Lie and Other Small-Town Tales.”
The original play features the stories and recollections of Clarence “Jack” Miles, a former instructor in the industrial arts program at Pittsburg State University. Before Miles died in February, his daughter Janis Saket, the author and director of the play, spent an afternoon listening to her dad's stories and capturing them on tape for family posterity.
“I take the play directly from the book I wrote about my dad,” Saket said. “These are all stories that, in the last year of his life, he and my uncle John were in the hospital room telling these stories I'd never heard before.
“They're all about my family and dad said they were all true. I thought this was quite a piece of history for our family.”
All the stories center around Jack Miles growing up in the Chetopa area. The title story, 'Tell Us A Good Lie,' relates the tale of Jeb, the town marshal and a notorious teller of tall tales. Some of the towns-folk stop him one day and ask him for a good lie.
He tells the folks he can't stop because he has to find the undertaker because one of their neighbors was just killed in an accident. Knowing the marshal's penchant for not being very sensitive, the men decide to take it upon themselves to inform the widow of the tragedy and, as they are doing so, the supposed dearly departed arrives home from work.
Angered, the men track down the marshal and confront him, to which he replies, “You told me to tell you a good lie. That was a good one!”
That's just one of the eight stories related in the play, Saket said. The rest of them, you have to see and hear to get a full appreciation of the tales. Saket doesn't really have a favorite among the stories in the book. It was tough winnowing the list down to just eight for the play.
“It's like your favorite child,” Saket said. “It's the one you're with, I suppose. They all have their charm.”
One story she believes the audience particularly enjoy, is “Champ,” the story of her father's Bantam rooster. Growing up, the Miles family lived next door to a man who raised big, fighting roosters.
They all made fun of Champ, until one day, a cousin decided to give the little “Banty” a jump-start, in the form of a few swallows of whiskey gleaned from one of the bottles they collected along the side of the road to sell for 2¢ a piece.
“It went and beat the crap out of that big rooster,” Saket said. But there was more to the story.
“After the book went to the publisher, my dad said, 'There's something I forgot to tell you,'” she said. “He said, 'After that little Banty did that, he jumped up on the fence and dropped over dead.'”
The play is produced by Fine Arts in the Four States, a group started almost four years ago by Saket and retired teacher Greg Wright. The cast features both veteran actors and individuals experiencing their first foray on stage. Included in the latter is Saket's son, Dave Goble, manager of Crawford State Park, who's portraying his grandfather. It's a tough role for him to take, he said.
“It's different,” Goble said. “It's kind of uncomfortable. We were real close and, with just losing him, it's difficult.”
Goble appears at the start of each of the eight acts, to set the stage for the coming story. He continues the narration, as needed, from offstage to fill in around the edges.
“I'm not really trying so much to portray the part as I would have remembering a family member,” Goble said. “It's more just setting the stories up for the comical things they are, helping people understand.”
Another highlight of the production this weekend will be the music. Local artist Shane Duling wrote and will be performing his own original compositions between acts. He got his inspiration for the eight songs from reading the stories and trying to incorporate each ones individual mood.
“If the story was a little darker story, I tried to make the music sound a little darker,” Duling said. “They're kind of country-based, because that's what (Saket) wanted, but I added a little bit of my own stuff, my own style, too.”
Saket hopes people will enjoy the stories on different levels. From one angle, the play offers a humorous slice of Americana and area history. But, deeper down, she believes people will be able to connect with the type of story-telling the play portrays.
“I hope some of the older people will be able to say, 'Yeah, we had stories like that in our family, too,'” Saket said. “This started out as a project to preserve family history and it's kind of taken on a life of its own.
“My family, at least, is delighted we got to hear these stories. To help us know where we came from and who we are.”
Goble agreed. He thinks the play will just be plain fun.
“It's pretty entertaining,” he said. “It's dual edged. You've got some original music by Shane (Duling) that's just outstanding, that would stand alone by itself.
“And the play itself is pretty humorous and it's pretty entertaining. It's well worth the $5 admission to kill and afternoon.”

CURTAIN TIMES
Tell Us a Good Lie and Other Small-Town Tales
Curtain times at John Shireman Auditorium at Girard High School:
Today — 8 p.m.
Sunday — 2 p.m.