It’s an old saying, “If these walls could talk.”
And talk they do in this
Author Celeste Walker, playing herself, tells her life story focused on a torrid, but doomed love affair at Allentown’s historic Americus Hotel where she once worked and found love.
Walker gives life to multiple characters adapting her mood, her accents, cadences, and postures to make them all stand out in her monolog.
They all help tell her story.-- supportive friends, her sanctimonious and unforgiving sense of guilt, her heel of a lover, several other characters and … the walls of the Americus Hotel, a 1920s-era art-deco hotel still in business modern downtown Allentown.
Her show is a tour de force as she brings many facets of her gem of a life to bear for scrutiny by the viewer. The result is a polished stone of a story representing low points, struggle, acceptance, accomplishment and acclaim.
Walker’s performance is in turns hard-bitten, gritty, angry, sometimes profane. She also finds joy as she examines a life that has seen ups and downs.
She tells the “mostly true” story of her life, her tumultuous love affair with underserving man, and of her friends who support her, question her judgment and love her.
It is the story of a young woman obsessed by love of a married heel of man (“He will not leave his wife and children”) and how she finally learns to be happy with herself. She eventually finds peace with the realization that she deserves more, can achieve goals and do important things with her life.
In a way, the Americus Hotel is a character in the story especially to those who have had a drink at the small bar, or lunch in the adjacent dining plaza. The scene is set there when Allentown was first immortalized in modern culture with Billy Joel’s 1982 hit song “Allentown.”
Director Jessica Lynn Johnson is also credited as a developer with a “Developed With” title.
Lighting, while uncredited, is superb as it adds dimension and drama.
Most notable in the lighting sequence are the demon scenes where Walker conjures up from her past the guilt and shame she experienced.
Special credit goes to Dan Shore whose music scores bring back the sounds and feel of an 1980s piano bar with dim lights and intimate moments where couples and friends share time over cocktails.
Stage Manager Torez Mosley and Production Manager Rae La Badie are credited.
At Civic Theatre of Allentown at 514 N. 19th St. Allentown, PA 8 – 10 Nov. 2024.
Tickets: email