WESTERLY — Stonington’s Jim Dougherty returns to the Granite Stage this month to star in “Harvey,” the wildly popular comedy about the eccentric but lovable alcoholic Elwood P. Dowd and his sidekick, Harvey, a fictional, six-and-a-half-foot-tall invisible rabbit.
The play, directed by Tom Steenberg, was written in the 1940s by the late Mary Coyle Chase, a journalist who began her writing career as a reporter for Denver’s oldest newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, and went on to write numerous children’s books, short stories and plays.
According to his biography, Chase was inspired to write the play after witnessing the devastating effect of World War II on friends and neighbours, particularly one who had lost his only son, after hearing stories about the pooka (mythical invisible spirits in animal form that are either malevolent, demonic or benevolent and helpful) from his Irish uncle.
According to one biography, Chase set out to “bring laughter, joy and comfort to a war-torn America” while wondering if he could write something that would make his grieving mother laugh again.
In the Granite production, Doherty plays Elwood, who tries to ensure his best friend Harvey attends his sister Veta’s social events. Veta (Vicki Blake) decides to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium to avoid embarrassing the family, especially her daughter Myrtle May (Jenson Tavares).
At the asylum, a distraught Veta explains to staff that after years of hallucinations of Elwood, she began seeing Harvey as well, which caused the doctors to mistakenly admit her instead of her good-natured brother.
However, the truth is revealed, Veta is released, and a search begins for Elwood, who eventually makes it to the asylum of his own volition in search of Harvey. However, Elwood and his unseen companions seem to have a strange influence on several doctors.
Only at the end does Veta realize that Harvey might not be so bad after all.Barbara Bloomink, Maughan Pomerantz, Molly Gans Pomerantz, Phil Harris, Sidney Hermanson, Ginny Katz, Jim Kenney, Elias Sandlin and Warren Usey make up the rest of the cast.Paula Brouillette serves as stage manager.