To tell mainly the youthful part of his own story, Alan Brasington interweaves his personal poetic words with lines from “Alice in Wonderland.” Other literature — like “Black Beauty” and The Tempest — influenced his life, but mainly the influences were real. They are vividly presented through his own words and his straightforward oral interpretation of his script in Words from the Heart. Alan clearly presents his family and his teachers, especially one Miss Featherstone, as the most important people to him as a boy. He described incidents about his grandpa’s “interaction with queen bees” and how that affected his father and his cleaning-obsessed mother. He apparently spent most time with his grandmother, who became “the queen” after his grandfather died. His mother had introduced him to colors, with a buttercup Crayola yellow being his favorite. But his grandmother indulged him later when he hated to eat from a plate of food of different colors that “didn’t match.” He interacted so much with Miss Featherstone at a formative time that he went to see her when she’d retired to a senior facility. She said former students who visited her usually remarked, “ I guess I’m leading a normal life.” Alan’s teacher told him, though, that “everyone has his own normal life,” and it was a lesson he carried with him afterward. She also spoke to him of a mystery man who believed he could forget anyone. A college teacher told him we can “take mind pictures so we’ll remember.” Among the mind pictures Alan Brasington shared was his meeting as a boy with Eleanor Roosevelt. He was also almost devastated by coming across, at age 25 in a camp near a lodge, a dead elephant. A poacher had killed him a day before; the elephant’s partner laid down with him, mourning. Alan and companions were afraid they’d be rushed, but an Episcopal priest left their vehicle. Though others laughed, the priest went and prayed beside the dead animal. The living one understood and all left saved. Alan Brasington’s upbeat ending is well received. The only jarring thing about the presentation is his set. Across the black curtained background are large pictures of Alan in many of the roles he undertook during 35 years in professional theater. Two other pictures sit on easels surrounding his podium. These scenic elements have almost nothing to do with the matter and manner of his presentation. They promise something they don’t deliver and detract from the actual delivery.
