Writer-director-actor John Putch grew up in two wildly different settings, simultaneously: rural south central Pennyslvania where I hail from, and Hollywood. This head-scratching circumstance was the result of his lineage: born into a theater family, his father Bill Putch was the locally renown founder and producer of the Totem Pole Playhouse outside of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He had left the New York theater scene to found the repertory playhouse (the real story is more complicated; I’m short-cutting here) in the 50s. In short order, he and his playhouse were regional fixtures, and would remain so for decades. Its modest success gave him the freedom, along with many of his actors, to seasonally alternate between Broadway and Chambersburg.
John’s mother was in theater too, an actress, and was in many of the Totem plays. Her name was Jean Stapleton– you will recall her as Edith “Dingbat” Bunker on All in the Family. The sudden fame thrust upon her in the early 70s caused a hiccup in the rhythm of the Playhouse, as she was required to spend months at a time in Hollywood while Bill mostly stayed east. Hence the unique circumstance of John’s growing up in two different places at once.
Young John acted in both places as well; you would recognize him from some of his television and film roles, but it seems most of his work was at the Totem Pole, both on and offstage. He helped to capture Super-8 films of many of the performances across the years– if not the whole show, at least the musical numbers, musical comedies being the staple product of the Playhouse.
As an adult, John tapped into this unique talent stack (to borrow Scott Adams’ term) to produce, write, and direct films, his locally acclaimed Route 30 Trilogy. Like his father before him, he is a regional presence, using not only local settings and actors. He also taps into his Hollywood rolodex, using who are not household names but many of whom you would recognize, like DANA DELANY (remember China Beach?), Booger from Revenge of the Nerds (CHRIS ARMSTRONG), that one guy from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (ROBERT ROMANUS) that other guy who played Ted What’s-His-Name on Mad Men (KEVIN RAHM), and Dom DeLuise’s son (DAVID DELUISE), to name a few. What makes the movies really sing, though, are the regional inside jokes, obsessions, and especially its patois. If y’ins are from there, you’ll understand: Yuengling. Bigfoot. Molly Pitcher. Three Mile Island. Hunting, but not really hunting.
This is not Hollywood filmmaking. This is shoestring-budget and guerrilla production stuff. Sometimes jokes and emotions fall flat, sometimes plots are hard to follow; characters disappear; actors reappear as different characters across the films– or as the same one: all of that just adds to the charm. These are professional films that are made like amateur films… that are not at all amateurish.
All of this is a long introductory background to the movie at hand, his 2017 production called The Father and the Bear.
The plot is simple and bittersweet, and deliberately blurs the line between fact and fiction: the Totem Pole’s greatest actor returns for one last performance years after abruptly retiring. It soon becomes clear that he might not be up to the rigors of rehearsal. That’s it.
Its charms are two-fold: one, even if you are not familiar with south central PA, the lovingness with which it is portrayed will have you itching to take a weekend trip. Second, the simplicity of the story and characters reveals how irrelevant, complicated, and over-produced most tv & film has become. Remember simple people with a little relatable drama in their lives? John Putch does.
The actor playing the actor is Wil Love, who was a mainstain of the Totem Pole in its heyday, and also had great roles in all three of the Route 30 movies. He is masterful at conveying stage-acting onscreen, which makes me appreciate in hindsight just how modulated his Route 30 roles were.
Here is where Putch’s mastery and resources come to bear. Although it’s only for a minute or two of screen time, we are treated to some of the aforementioned Super-8 footage as Putch takes us on an unexpected time travel, back to the innocence of a repertory playhouse in the middle of nowhere in the 1970s, in grainy, saturated, distorted, wonderful color. Much of the footage features young Wil Love (and some of even younger John Putch.)
My family used to go to theaters like that at that time, so seeing those snippets are like seeing my own childhood. There was the Allenberry Playhouse in Boiling Springs, but my favorite was The Surf-light Theatre in Beach Haven, New Jersey on Long Beach Island where we would spend a couple weeks every July. I can still remember the plays we saw there, including my favorite, 1776. (Some of Putch’s Super-8 footage shows Wil Love playing my favorite stage character, John Adams).
The Father and the Bear is no longer available on DVD or Blu-Ray, but you can watch it on its website, as are the Route 30 Trilogy. This is a perfect time for streaming all four of them. Oh– and be sure to watch the documentary and supplemental material on the website as well.
Truth be told, I never went to the Totem Pole. I asked my mother why that was, and she said, “I don’t know. Probably too far.” A forty-mile drive to watch a play in the middle of nowhere at the height of the oil crisis? Don’t be ridiculous.
And yet….seems almost crucial, now, doesn’t it?
VIEW the Trailer HerE:
