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<\/a><\/p>\nFresh Take on Mythos of the Old West<\/span><\/p>\n So you may think you know all about \u201cThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance\u201d; \u00a0you\u2019ve seen the famous 1962 John Ford movie with Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Lee Marvin, right?<\/p>\n Boy, have you got another think coming.<\/p>\n The spellbinding tale unfolding on Meadow Brook Theatre\u2019s stage, kicking off their 60th<\/sup> season, bears very little resemblance to the one on the silver screen. While Ford\u2019s film used Dorothy M Johnson\u2019s 1949 short story merely as inspiration, the 2014 stage adaptation by British writer, producer and director Jethro Compton<\/b> is much more faithful to Johnson\u2019s original material.<\/p>\n \u201cLiberty Valance\u201d takes place in the small town of Twotrees in the fading years of the Old West, in an unnamed territory, entirely inside The Prairie Belle Saloon. It addresses frontier justice, politics, class inequality, racism, gun violence and societal change in ways that are both of the times, and timely. A touchingly bittersweet surprise at the end will linger in your memory long after you\u2019ve left the theater.<\/p>\n Chris Blisset, Brandon Ruiteer<\/p><\/div>\n The story opens in 1910, with the famous Senator Foster arriving in town for the funeral of an old friend. There are pallbearers, mourners, and a singing guitar player that serves as a narrator, helping to tell the story from scene to scene.<\/p>\n The rest of the tale is told in flashback. We travel back in time 25 years earlier, and find the ruff n\u2019 tuff young lady saloon keeper, Hallie Jackson, owner of The Prairie Belle Saloon. Her admirer, burly bearded Bert Barricune, hangs around to lend a hand. And there\u2019s Jim, AKA \u201cThe Reverend\u201d, a gifted young Black man who works at the saloon but dreams of bigger things. One day Burt carries in an unconscious young man and deposits him on the bar. Hallie tends to his wounds and cleans him up. When he awakens, he says he\u2019s looking for the guys who beat him up and left him for dead on the deserted plains. He is Ransome Foster, and he has traveled all the way from NYC to find a new way of life. He apparently is well-educated, with law books in his backpack.<\/p>\n Bert recognizes Foster\u2019s description of the attackers \u2013 it\u2019s the notorious Liberty Valance, malevolence personified, and his gang of thugs. The local authority, Marshall Johnson, is summoned. Foster plans his revenge, but days turn into weeks, and soon he comes to feel very much at home in his new town. A growing attraction between himself and Hallie makes him want to stay even more, much to Bert\u2019s dismay.<\/p>\n<\/a>