1 play + 2 actors + 15 roles = a lot of costume changes.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

The big challenge in staging Irish playwright Marie Jones' swift moving comedy "Stones in His Pockets" is that just two actors play all 15 roles.

That makes things such as costume changes a little difficult.

"Some productions have used absolutely no costuming at all," says Kirk Boyd, who is directing Willamette Repertory Theatre's production of "Stones," which opens with previews next week at the Hult Center. ``But I have read a lot of critiques of the show that, for the first 20 minutes, it's rather confusing to have these two actors playing all the characters.''

So Boyd is determined to help the audience out by using at least some costumes to help differentiate sudden incarnations of Caroline from Sean and Finn as the witty comedy plays out.

"I thought if we could find at least a costume gesture for each character it would help the audience out," he says. "We started out with more than we need, and we've been cutting back."

That's because the changes are rapid fire. A character might turn around once on stage and instantly become another character.

So Boyd and his pair of actors, Darragh Kennan and Jeff Pierce, have been practicing with the mechanics of costumes and props - and simplifying as they go.

"In the beginning, Caroline had a hat. She had glasses. She had a scarf. In the bar, she had a whole other coat and hat and glasses." Boyd laughed. "We are now down to a hat, a small jacket in the bar, and a pair of sunglasses."

Boyd compared the staging to a William Shakespeare play where the actors of one scene might be walking off stage at the same time actors from the next scene are walking on - except that it's all the same actors.

"So we have been eliminating costumes and adding places they can pick them up from."

All this should give an idea of the tight, quick structure of Jones' play, which tells, in its layered way, the story of what happens when an American film company shoots a movie in an Irish village.

In essence, the movie makers find the real Irish people aren't "Irish" enough to fulfill America's romanticized notion of Ireland.

The play may be a dig at such movies as "Far and Away," the 1992 drama that starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman affecting less-than-convincing Irish accents.

The play also contains a character said to be the last surviving extra from the 1952 John Wayne-Maureen O'Hara flick, "The Quiet Man."

The set is spare and simple, though it contains a painted backdrop that the movie makers created to depict the "real" Ireland in their film.

The two main characters in "Stones" - Jake, played by Pierce, and Charlie, played by Kennan - are local boys who work as extras in the film.

They introduce the other roles as characters in the stories they tell each other - from Caroline Giovanni, the film star, to the ill-fated Sean, whose tragedy inspires the play's title.

Kennan, whose mother is Irish, played Charlie in a production that ran for four months last year to good reviews at Seattle's Capitol Hill Arts Center. He's also worked with Seattle Repertory Theatre and Tacoma Actors Guild.

Pierce played in Willamette Rep's ``All in the Timing'' last year and has acted with Oregon Festival of American Music and Lord Leebrick Theatre.

The show contains adult language and material.

PLAY PREVIEW

Stones in His Pockets

What: Willamette Repertory Theatre presents Marie Jones' comedy about an Irish village coping with an American film company

Where: Hult Center's Soreng Theatre, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

When: Previews Wednesday and April 5; regular performances will be April 6-7, 12-15 and 19-22; curtain is at 7:30 on Thursdays, 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays

Admission: Previews $12 to $20; regular performances $15 to $35; call the Hult box office, 682-5000

More information: www.willrep.org