Smith! Being the Life and Death of Cap’n John, produced by Virginia Premiere Theatre at the Kimball Theater, is inventive, witty and a drama well worth seeing.

Smith! is brought to the stage by award winning British Playwright Ivor Noël Hume, a recognized authority on the history of English colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He has also earned the distinction as an Officer of the British Empire (O.B.E), dubbed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in 1992.

This one act drama is about Captain John Smith during his last hours of life and set in an upper room of the Three Tun’s Inn, in London. Strikingly simple, the set designed by Lausanne Davis Carpenter was constructed using a backdrop of burlap panels, with a fixed covered poster bed and a panel of three windows frames minus the windows. This would later prove to be disturbing because the attention was drawn to the miming actions accompanied with squeaking sound effects of opening a closing. The set is transformed by lighting designer, Todd Cooke which changed the raw fabric to look like parchment to create an ambiance that works effectively allowing the audience to be transported to 1631.

Although the title implies that this is a historical play about Captain John Smith (played by Stanley Beadle), Smith’s character falls secondary to his caretaker and friend, an aged former thespian named Porter. Played soulfully by John Hamant, Porter leads us through his own memories and tales of his admiration for a once great man. He is tortured by the lack of respect displayed by others toward Smith, who only has but a few moment left of life.

Porter seems to do all the work in the show and delivers a commanding performance.

Despite the historical references, this play uses three fictional characters and one man’s perception to glamorize Smith’s accomplishments during his lifetime. Hume seems to direct the audience to perhaps ponder how people will perceive our own lifetime achievements.

The script was straight forward, clean, witty and moving. Beadle as the dying Smith gives outburst from time to time during the course of the play from behinds the curtains that shields him from the audience and only emerges to the forefront for his melodramatic death scene.  As the insipid Doctor Davenant, played Joel Grow, Davenant effectively plays Smith’s board caregiver who is not impressed as Porter obviously is. His character gives little to enhance Hamant’s role or that of Smith. There were moment of rising tension between Grow and Hamant with the help of a little swashbuckling but the script doesn’t allow for any moments of greatness to occur. A bit of feistiness and uplifting energy was successfully brought about by the Inn’s maiden named Meg, played by Crista Bergmann.

The production offers insight to historical truths with a creative flair which proves to be an entertaining history lesson with a philosophical twist.

The play is a Virginia Premiere Theater production under the Artistic Direction of Robert Ruffin and will presented at the Kimball Theater in the heart of Colonial Williamsburg. Future performance dates include May 8 - 10, 25 - 27 and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in June. The performances will continue through September.