Acting out of character

Michael Miller

He has a delicate physical condition -- for two years, he has been

confined to a wheelchair -- but Dusty Brandom won’t be treated like a

patient in Lincoln Elementary School’s production of “Oliver!” In

fact, he gets to play the villain.

Dusty, a sixth-grader at Lincoln who has muscular dystrophy, would

like to be a rock star -- he writes his own songs, plays guitar and

loves Jimi Hendrix -- but this week at Lincoln, he is a different

kind of performer.

In the school’s production of Lionel Bart’s musical “Oliver!”

Dusty plays Mr. Bumble, the wicked head of the orphanage, who sells

young Oliver Twist on the street as punishment for having asked for

more food. Along the way, Dusty sings three songs, including the

classic “Boy for Sale,” and gets to relish portraying one of

literature’s classic tyrants.

“He’s supposed to be kind of mean, and he’s really loud and

scary,” Dusty said of his character.

“I don’t think it’s very hard,” he explains, “except for

memorizing lines.”

Dusty’s casual nature belies the hurdles that he’s overcome

reaching that multi-purpose room stage.

Born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a special type that only

affects boys, Dusty began to show signs of the disease when he was 6

years old.

“He started to fall a lot, and he had no strength in his legs,”

said his mother, Catherine.

By the age of 10, Dusty was too weak to walk.

Since then, his strength has continued to wane; Catherine says

that his electric guitar, which he played recently at a muscular

dystrophy benefit show, is getting too heavy for him.

Muscular dystrophy causes muscles to deteriorate over time, and

the average life span of its patients is 20 years. Dusty’s family --

which also includes his father, Neil, his brother, Lucas, and his

sister, Gabriella -- supports Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, a

nationwide charity, and waits intensely for the latest research

breakthroughs.

In the meantime, Dusty uses every grain of energy he has.

His resilience even surprised his teacher, Claire Ratfield, who at

first assigned him the part of Bumble because she thought it was

smaller.

“When I first cast the part, I thought it was only the first act,

and then I realized he came on in the second act too,” Ratfield said.

“I thought, ‘Well, he has scene one and scene two and then he can go

home early because he usually gets tired easily.’”

As it turned out, Dusty was more than up to a longer part; the

only difficulty was finding a way to maneuver his wheelchair on and

off stage. The district came to Ratfield’s aid by donating a metal

lift, which hides offstage and raises and lowers Dusty on a platform.

To cloak the actor’s wheelchair, a friend of the school donated a

black velvet cape. Coupled with Dusty’s hat, suit and cane, it makes

him look positively Dickensian.

Catherine, who describes her oldest son as “soft spoken,” has

enjoyed watching him rehearse such a blunt character.

“He becomes Mr. Bumble, this loud man,” she said with a laugh.

In one sense, Catherine can identify with him; as a schoolgirl in

Kent, England, she appeared in a production of “Oliver!” playing one

of the orphan pickpockets.

In another sense, however, she has a deeper connection with her

child.

“I just found out I’m a carrier,” Catherine said about the gene

for muscular dystrophy. “I got it from my mother, and I always

thought it was a genetic mutation.”

No one else in Dusty’s family, so far, has shown symptoms of the

disease.

For now, the Brandoms hope that their charity work will lead to a

cure for muscular dystrophy; in the past few years, they have

contributed to golf tournaments, soccer camps, casino nights and

more.

“These boys don’t have a voice because they die young,” Catherine

says. “Parents are the voice. We are it.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].