You can boo and you can hiss here. It's not like in the movie theaters," said Wayne Cornell of Albuquerque, who has attended the Durango melodrama over 44 years. Jeannie Wheeldon wanted the lease to be extended to a potential buyer.
The plot of the drama closing the theater goes like this: In 1962, a year when the Cuban missile crisis had Americans biting their nails over much more than the machinations of mustache-twirling villains, Earl Barker and a handful of businessmen decided the town needed some evening entertainment. They refurbished an old Dodge garage adjacent to the Strater Hotel and turned it into a theater where melodramas - plays characterized by stereotyped characters, exaggerated emotions and a clear conflict between good and evil - became a hit. Jeannie Wheeldon, then little Jeannie Barker, took a shine to the bright lights in her family's theater.
In time, she began to act in the plays and, 27 years ago, took over management and ownership of the melodrama. Now, Wheeldon sees herself as the character who is tied to the railroad tracks. A train - the loss of the theater's lease - is bearing down on her.
No dashing hero is in sight. The Snidely Whiplash villain, in her telling, is her brother, or as she says, "ex-brother," Rod Barker. He owns the Strater Hotel and holds the lease on the theater.
When Jeanne told him she was interested in selling the melodrama several years ago, he decided he would like to do something different with the popcorn-strewn space where patrons cozy up to red-checkered-tablecloth-covered tables. He refused his sister's request to extend a lease to a potential buyer for the melodrama. "She is a very melodramatic person.
She doesn't just direct the theater. "I'm the innkeeper. I'm not the evil landlord.
" Barker said that after the last performance on Aug. 31, he hopes to spruce up the space and eventually fill it for part of the year with some sort of cowboy-poetry-related performance. The remainder of the time the theater will be available for weddings, family reunions and other gatherings as it has been for years.
Wheeldon said she is hunting for another space but doesn't have much hope that the melodrama could survive elsewhere. About 80 percent of the business is tourists lured in by the sandwich-board sign and the constant aroma of popcorn out front. Eric Hoit, director of The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville in Oceano, Calif.
, and a 15-year director for Durango melodramas, said melodramas are dwindling. He guesses about a dozen are still in operation in the country, mostly in the West. Colorado still has regular performances in Cripple Creek, Manitou Springs and Buena Vista.
Hoit said audiences would rather head to the latest "Spider-Man" movie than watch a damsel in distress be saved from the tracks. He said that fact makes the impending Durango closure particularly sad because it still had an audience. "It's going to be sorely missed.
" Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com. You can boo and you can hiss here.
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