The Door County Advocate

“The Mountains Call My Name” uplifting

HEIDI HODGES - July 1996

Uplifting. Relaxing. Informative and entertaining.

In a nutshell, that’s the American Folklore Theatre’s (AFT) production “The Mountains Call My Name.”

It is a grand one-man show detailing the life of naturalist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club and the inspiration for the national park system.

Situated in a pine grove in Peninsula State Park, the cedar aroma surrounding the amphitheatre sets the mood long before the show even starts.

Off to one side on stage is a small “campsite.” An amazing backdrop , designed by artist James Maronek of Ellison Bay, mimics mountains, trees and sunsets.

The aesthetics are great, but AFT actor Jeff Herbst, as Muir, commands all attention once he enters the stage.

“The Mountains Call My Name” relates the stories of Muir’s life, in a production that runs a little more than an hour.

And what stories they are. Herbst deftly weaves together tales of Muir’s childhood and his wanderings and adventures, while the audience hangs on every word.

Created by Frederick “Doc” Heide, a veteran AFT producer, the show was originally introduced by the troupe in 1989 and proved to be one of its most poopular efforts to that point. Former AFT cast member Gerald Pelrine played Muir that year, backed up by vocalists Laurie Flanigan and Alice Peacock.

It was a departure from the ensemble’s original “format” shows, in which five musicians shared the stage at all times, singing songs and telling stories based on historical themes. But what was then a departure proved to be the wave of the future for the AFT.

The popularity of “Mountains” led AFT producers to resurrect it this year, with some revisions, for the troupe’s 26th season. Some stories from the original show were edited out, and different tales concerning Muir’s family and childhood were added.

In the original show, singers remained on stage and provided not only music and singing but also whispery voices from Muir’s past.

In the current “Mountains,” singer Karen Mal comes on stage only during songs and sings duets with Herbst, keeping the audience’s focus solely on Muir.

Songs in this year’s production, such as “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and “Wild Mountain Thyme,” will undoubtably [sic] put a lump in your throat.

The lion’s share of the work belongs to Herbst, though, and it would take a firecracker under your seat to break the enchanting connection between audience and actor. Herbst is Muir. His physical appearance—a convincing beard and some wrinkles—gives not a hint of the real-life actor under it all.

All the stories are from Muir’s own published journals and writings. Clearly, the naturalist had an easy wit and a way with words.

One of the most engrossing stories involves a little dog that follows Muir out on a walk over an Alaskan glacier. The audience finds itself gasping at the mental picture of the perils the two faced. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s hard to find a dry eye in the audience at the story’s conclusion.

Another favorite tale is a touching account of Muir’s encounter with poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.

By the end, the audience feels a true kinship with Muir, who lived part of his life in Fountain Lake, WI. But even if you have never heard of Muir, you’ll enjoy this show—and learn something to boot.

“Due to the sophistication and pace of the show, you may wihs to leave younger children at home. They will love any of our other three shows this summer,” Heide mentioned.

The Milwaukee Journal

It’s a Natural: Musical comedy-drama on life of John Muir proves to be Heritage Ensemble’s biggest hit

MIKE DREW - August 1989

FISH CREEK, Wis. – John Muir, one of America’s great pioneer naturalists, seems an unlikely subject for a musical comedy-drama.

For five years, however, Frederick Heide has created original musicals out of far less material for the Heritage Ensemble at Peninsula State Park.

Heide’s Muir biography, “The Mountains Call MY Name,” is the biggest hit in the ensemble’s 19-year history. And justifiably so.

Heide, a psychology professor at the University of California-Berkeley during the school year, has been with Heritage since 1972. His current show alternates with “Tunes of Trial and Triumph; Wisconsin in World War I” through Friday. The Muir show runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening.

Its attendance has been near capacity at the 550-seat amphitheater at Peninsula State Park. (With bench seating, capacity varies depending on customer friendliness and the width of their beams.)

Stately pines framing the stage make an ideal setting for the musical autobiography.

Muir, who died in 1914 at age 76, was savior of California’s sequoias and founder of the Sierra Club. He spent two decades living in Wisconsin’s Portage and Madison areas and is a University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus. He was a confidant of philosophers (Emerson) and presidents (Theodore Roosevelt), and influenced Roosevelt to establish national parks and forests. Several Wisconsin schools carry Muir’s name, and California has named more public places after him than after any other person.

The show, punctuated with Robert Burns ballads and Heide folk tunes, stresses Muir’s Scottish heritage. In a departure for the Heritage troupe, which usually does revues, “The Mountains Call My Name” is a vehicle for the Muir character. He’s played winningly, with bravura brogue, by Gerald Pelrine, a 1980 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee theater graduate.

Pelrine, 34, has performed in the Milwaukee area since the mid-1970s and with the Heritage Ensemble since 1982. He’s at his peak here, resonant baritone resounding through the pine columns on the ballads and warmly delivering anecdotes from Muir’s writing.

Heide’s adaptation makes a witty, if somewhat lightweight, family evening, filled with tales about bizarre inventions, dogs, cats and long hikes in the woods. It’s his show (and Muir’s), but Pelrine gets able backing from singers and musicians Heide, big-voiced Fred Alley, Alice Peacock and, especially, Laurie Flanigan on flute and psaltery (a sort of hammered dulcimer).

As in the past, UW-Green Bay has recorded the performance in 12-track Dolby stereo. For the second year, audio tapes will be marketed nationwide, including, this time, at Muir centers in California. Wisconsin Public television also will tape a half-hour version of the show for statewide telecast.

Before settling on the Muir show, Heide considered a musical biography of the great Aldo Leopold, a more recent Wisconsin naturalist.

With the success of The Mountains Call My Name on stage and at the box office, that seems an ideal project for the Heritage Ensemble’s 20th anniversary next year.

Green Bay Press-Gazette

History comes to life under starry canopy

WARREN GERDS - July 1989

Door County’s Peninsula State Park is home to a troupe worth discovering—or rediscovering.

The Heritage Ensemble is distinctively Wisconsin as it stages original shows: firmly rooted in the traditional folk music style, with theater thrown in to boot.

The troupe is a longtime success.

This is its 19th year.

It draws 12,000 people to its six-day-a-week performances during a two-month season.

It also is one of the better entertainment bargains you’ll find--$3 for adults and free to kids under 16.

Heritage Ensemble shows are unique experiences. It’s not every day you can plunk yourself down on wooden benches in the middle of a wooded amphitheater to be swept back into colorful history.

It makes you wax romantic, just like Frederick Heide, one of the troupe’s movers and shakers:

“I love this theater, and what we do I think is perfect in this environment—the towering pines and the atmosphere and the stars up above.”

Heide is the creator of one of this season’s two offerings, The Mountains Call My Name. The other is Tunes of Trial and Triumph, which troupe founder David Peterson created to tell of Wisconsin’s part in World War I.

I was able to catch The Mountains Call My Name and found myself especially wrapped up in the performance by Gerald Pelrine. He portrays John Muir, complete with Scottish accent, as the famed naturalist recounts his life through anecdotes and comic stories. Blended in are songs, many of which Muir is known to have sung.

Heide created the show for many reasons.

He figured there would be interest in Muir because of a couple of anniversaries. The founder of the Sierra Club died 75 years ago this year. Last year was the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Muir also had strong state ties. Though born in Scotland, he spent his boyhood near Portage—which also happens to be 10 miles from Heide’s birthplace. Muir also was a University of Wisconsin graduate.

On top of it, Muir is exactly the kind of personage who fits into the mindset of a park and an environmentally minded troupe.

In sum, The Mountains Call My Name has all the right stuff, including the overall objectives of the Heritage Ensemble.

“We want to make people aware of the rich vein of American folklore and folk music that’s been dying out completely, disappearing entirely from consciousness,” Heide said, “It’s so fabulous, and so much of the current stuff is just so mediocre. . .

“A folk song doesn’t survive unless it’s good. There’s a natural selection process in folk music. If a song isn’t good, people don’t remember it. They’re not written down, so it has to be good…

“And the humor, too. It’s time-tested…

“We want to move people, take them into a different place, connect with a time before them.”

The troupe also aims to inform, entertain and uplift, with socially significant themes always close at hand, Heide said,

Along with being a =show creator, Heide is the company manager and a performer. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and is associate professor at the California School of Professional Psychology at Berkeley, Calif.

Pelrine is a theatrical and broadcast performer based in Milwaukee.

Other troupe members are Fred Alley, a singer and songwriter from Madison; singer Alice Peacock, a Lawrence University student; and singer and flutist Laurie Flanigan, an Illinois native who performed last summer with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.

While the troupe stays in the park all summer, it is starting to look at the possibilities of going places the rest of the year.

“The ensemble has been in a building frame for the last few years,” Heide said. “We used to be this college group out of Green Bay (UWGB), and it was fine.

“About three years ago, we decided, ‘Let’s really make something of this.’ We’ve got this huge audience, and people love it.”

He has seen the formula work elsewhere. For instance, the longest-running show at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., is built along the same lines offered by the Heritage Ensemble.

“When I saw that, I figured, ‘Let’s take the show on the road,’” Heide said.

The possibilities of a New York City showcase will be discussed late in the season with the troupe’s guest director Jeff Herbst, who has been involved in off-Broadway productions.

“I’d like to see us be a force outside of here,” Heide said.

With a wealth of experience and material to draw from, the troupe may well be headed where Heide hopes.

Gerds writes about arts and entertainment for the Press-Gazette.

What: The Heritage Ensemble

When: The Mountains Call My Name, 8 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A second production, Tunes of Trial and Triumph, made up of stories and songs of Wisconsin in World War I, is performed 8 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Performances continue until Aug. 26.

Where: Amphitheater of Peninsula State Park at Fish Creek.

Admission: $3 for adults; free for children under 16. For more information, please call (414) 868-2578

Fresh approach: At front, Heritage Ensemble actor Gerald Pelrine portrays John Muir, the Scottish naturalist who founded the Sierra Club. Muir, who died 75 years ago, spent much of his boyhood near Portage. From left, at back, are players Alice Peacock, Laurie Flanigan, Frederick Heide and Fred Alley. [photo caption]

Excerpt:

Here’s a comical John Muir tale from The Mountains Call My Name:

“After wandering the Sierra mountains for a summer, I needed to raise some money.

“Now, I’ve always believed that life is too short to allow much time for money-making, but we all need a little, so I decided to sell my labor to an opaque little Irishman named Smoky Jack to herd sheep for the winter.

“Smoky Jack, I soon learned, was a queer character. Unmarried and living alone, he lived mostly on beans.

In the morning after his bean breakfast, he filled his pockets from the pot with dripping beans for luncheon, which he ate in handfuls as he followed the flock.

“His overalls soon, of course, became thoroughly saturated, and by sitting down to rest, parts of all the vegetation became embedded in them, along with wool fibers, butterfly wings, mica crystals, fragments of nearly everything that part of the world contained, rubbed in and stratified, so that eventually this garment grew to have a rich geological and biological significance.”

Door County Advocate

Friday, August 4, 1989

Muir show is best yet from Heritage Ensemble

The tall pines of Peninsula Park’s amphitheater form a perfect setting for “The Mountains Call My Name,” a tribute in story and song to conservationist John Muir.

Muir, more than anyone else responsible for saving California’s sequoias, is the subject of a new show by the Heritage Ensemble. “Mountains” plays Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights at 8:00. Tuesday , Thursday and Saturday “Tunes of Trial and Triumph” is on, with songs from World War I.

The talk among long time Heritage fans is that “Mountains” is the best show yet from Dr. Fred Heide, who has been turning out a new presentation annually for the past five years. We can believe it. This is an outstanding and inspirational evening of theater.

We encounter Muir in his cabin, keeping his stove going, cleaning out his simple cooking tools and spinning one delightful yarn after another. It’s a turnaround from previous Heritage shows. The story is foremost, with Scottish folk songs as a pleasant enhancement.

This is Muir’s show, a tour de force for actor/singer Gerald Pelrine. Pelrine has mastered the Scotch-Irish brogue and is a consummate storyteller. He also has a strong singing voice.

Muir was in love with nature as a boy, and was raised in a religiously strict Scottish family. He grew up feeling the oneness of God’s creation, as reflected by his saying “Plants are all fellow mortals.”

Obviously a genius, he was making complicated clocks as a young teen. But the wilderness, not mechanics, was his first love, and after a factory stint that almost cost him the sight of one eye, he set out to explore the land. He walked from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. Before his death at 76 he had hiked much of the world and spread the gospel of preservation.

He founded the Sierra Club. He attracted the notice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who visited him.

Teddy Roosevelt ducked away from his entourage to camp with Muir and found it so “bully” he went back to Washington and set aside five national parks.

“Mountains” is a thoughtful show but appeals to children as well as adults. Pelrine has the kids in his pocket telling stories about a cat and a loon and a glacier-climbing dog. The lilting accent makes a good yarn even better.

The five-member ensemble are first-rate musicians who love what they’re doing. Fred Alley, who has a folk album “Beneath the Northern Sky,” has a Broadway voice. Dr. Heide’s is the more typical folk voice. The two women, Alice Peacock and Laurie Flanigan, are pleasant to hear and to look at.

When you go to “Mountains” the show starts the park gate. Drink in the beauty. Look for deer lunching in an open field. Smell the tree-scented air. Allow time for the slow, 3.d mile drive to the amphitheater. By the way, you don’t need a park sticker if you’re just going to the show.

Muir spoke of “This covenant I have with nature.” After attending a performance of “The Mountains Call My Name” you not only understand it, you can feel it. –CFH