All aboard... for laughs

Wine Train hosts comedy nights this summer

By SASHA PAULSEN
Register Features Editor

The Wine Train has always inspired a bit of local drama, but as it celebrates its 20th year in the valley, its winemaker lunches and dinners, Murder Mystery nights and annual Santa Claus runs have melded into the local scene.

Riding the Wine Train last weekend to experience its newest offering — a series of one-act comedies served up with the four-course dinner and wine — what was striking was how many locals were happily on board what was initially viewed as a strictly tourist proposition.

Fourth-generation valley girls Judy Pina of Napa, and Elaine Pina and Debbie Polvarino of St. Helena were there for a girls’ night out. Damon and Angelica Larmon from Angwin had decided to try a ride on the train — his first, although she had ridden the lunch train before.

It turns out they’d chosen a good night. After successfully offering entertainment like the popular “Murder on the Wine Train” dinners and the annual Christmas Santa Claus run, the Wine Train management “was looking for something new,” said director John Gibson, when they approached him  about presenting a theater night onboard.

“I read 65 plays,” said Gibson, who is producer and director of Benicia’s Gibson House. Its performers have been seen before at a plethora of private productions in the valley.

The goal was to find one-act comedies that his actors could perform in the narrow aisles of a moving train. The result was “Trainplays,” four highly amusing works that the talented troupe presented while dodging busy servers.

Although the Wine Train may seem a slow-moving beast to the observer watching it pass, onboard there is a definite sense of motion as one maneuvers up and down the aisles. In all, seven actors performed twice on the way to St. Helena, while the servers brought out the appetizers, salads and entrees; and twice after the train was heading back and the diners had moved to the Silverado lounge car for coffee and dessert.

Gibson said his actors had one dress rehearsal on the train “but it was at the station.”

The audience, however, never would have known the actors didn’t routinely perform on trains.

They opened with “It’s Not You!” by Craig Pospisli, which conveniently took place on a train, as four friends (Tina Luisen, Krisi Pilkington, Greg Davis and Tenaya Hurst) decide they need to ditch one of their group between stops.

Alex Broun’s “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning” featured Dennis Parlett and Kori Parlett in a skit in which a young woman is persuaded out of her morning-after-a-wild-night guilt by an imaginative young man.

Pilkington, as a plain housewife, and Michelle Davis, as a glamorous actress, sparred over one husband in the third skit, “A Matter of Husbands.”

And appropriately paired with dessert was “The Kiss,” a sexy clash between two business people on a train (Kori Parlett and Dennis Parlett) who are distracted from their agenda by the passionate carryings-on of another couple, played with gusto by Greg and Michelle Davis.

The troupe, which has also performed on a boat, Gibson noted, kept on their feet, and the servers were equally cat-footed.

 Steward Daniel Parker said, who has been with the Wine Train for four years, said it was all in a night’s work.

“It was a little tricky,” said Pilkington, the Napa member of Gibson’s troupe who has also been seen on stage at Dreamweavers Theatre. Gibson’s is “where I got my start,” she said.

“Thank goodness there were the back of seats to take hold of,” said Pilkington, who noted it was her first ride on the Wine Train.

“We had a wonderful time,” Gibson said, adding that the troupe will be performing their comedy night on the train throughout the summer.

The local riders as well gave two thumbs up to the new dramatic venture.

“It’s very romantic,” Angelica Larmon said. “It’s a beautiful train.”

“I didn’t know a lot about it,” Daniel Larmon agreed. “But it’s really a beautiful old train. We’ll be back. I think we’ll try the murder dinner next.”

Riding the Wine Train

The next Comedy Night is Friday. Check-in begins at 5:45 p.m. Boarding is at 6 p.m. The train returns to Napa at 9:30 p.m. For dinner plus the performance, the cost is $135 per person.

• Also on Friday, on another special run, for the first time passengers will be able to disembark in St. Helena to attend Cheers! St. Helena, a downtown walk-around food and wine event. The Cheers! train leaves the station at 5 p.m., and arrives at 6 p.m. A return train leaves St. Helena promptly at 9 p.m.

• The ticket is $30 round trip. With a tasting bracelet for the night, the cost is $65. A Cheers representataive will be onboard pouring tastes of wines from Napa Valley Farms.

• The Napa station at 1275 McKinstry St. For schedules and reservations on the Wine Train, visit winetrain.com or call 253-2111.

Napa Valley Register Copyright © 2009