Actor's Path Trails Life of John Muir Festival in Concord honors work of naturalist with talks, plays, music by Peggy Spear Friday, March 17, 2000 CONCORD -- It was a cool April evening in 1983 when Lee Stetson, an actor/playwright from Los Angeles, first saw Yosemite Valley. "I was visiting Yosemite because I had become interested in the life of John Muir, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps a bit. I hiked up to a place called Columbia Point, and as I stood there, a full moon came out from behind a cloud, and there it was. The sight of the valley almost knocked me out, and I knew what John Muir must have felt." That little bit of research pointed the actor/playwright down a path he's never regretted. "The next day, I got a job in one of the park's concessions, and a few months after that, offered to do a presentation on John Muir for visitors at the rangers' station in Yosemite Valley," he said. That presentation turned into "Conversation With a Tramp: An Evening With John Muir," a one-man dramatic production written and performed by Stetson. Since then, Stetson, 58, has hiked his way from Yosemite across stages throughout the United States, bringing to life an American icon. Contra Costa audiences will be able to see Stetson's portrayal of their favorite son during the John Muir Festival, which starts tomorrow at the Willows Theatre in Concord. Besides two performances by Stetson, the festival will feature period music, roundtable discussions, lectures, and a workshop presentation of "Mountain Days -- the John Muir Musical." The final production of the musical will be performed next fall at the Concord Pavilion. With Muir's East Bay roots, it's no mystery why Contra Costa audiences are so interested in his life, says Stetson. That fascination isn't limited to his hometown, however. "I think people have a fascination of Muir for three reasons," says the laid-back Stetson, a native of Hawaii, where he was performing last week at Hawaii Pacific University and, as he puts it, "sauntering through the back country." "John Muir made some tremendous achievements, both in helping create the National Parks and by founding the Sierra Club," he says. "He also had a bit of a poetic temper that manifested itself in his writings about nature. But most of all, people are in awe of the incredible adventures he had in the wilderness. He stared danger in the face, and didn't blink." If Stetson sounds as if he is teaching a course on Muir, it's because he holds a graduate degree in history from the University of Hawaii, and was on his way to becoming a college professor when nature called, so to speak. After working with a small acting company in Honolulu, he moved to Los Angeles. Since he was an avid hiker, he was attracted by the Sierra Nevada. A friend turned him on to the writings of Muir, and the rest is history. "We are a lot alike," Stetson says of his alter ego. "We both embrace the wilderness with a passion, and we share the same values." Still, Stetson would be the first to acknowledge that the world is far different now from anything Muir could have imagined. "We know now that things like the air and the oceans can become polluted and abused. Muir was too innocent to believe that -- there was really no way for him to know." So besides loving the character he portrays, Stetson believes he is also carrying out Muir's message. "I just hope I can heighten awareness of the beauty and drama that Muir saw in the wilderness, as well as convey John Muir's humor and eccentricities." Besides "Conversation With A Tramp," Stetson and his company, Wild Productions, present several other one- and two-man plays about the life of John Muir, including "The Tramp and the Rough Rider: Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir," which he will perform on March 25. Doug Brennan joins him onstage as Roosevelt. This performance illuminates the duo's extraordinary four- day camping trip in 1903. As Stetson says, "Muir's poetic and evangelistic temperament clashed with Roosevelt's political enthusiasms, creating both tension and humor. "Still, sitting beside a campfire at night, these two very different men discovered how the other had been shaped by their very unique experiences in the wilderness they loved,'' says Stetson, "and it opened up some rich possibilities of `doing the forest some good.'" With that, Stetson is off to another engagement, and, if he's lucky, a nice long saunter in the backcountry -- wherever he can find it.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------   MUIR FESTIVAL   Tomorrow through April 1 at Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond Blvd., Concord. Tickets: $5-$15. (925) 798-1300. Events: --``Muir in Song and Story,'' 8 p.m. tomorrow --Lee Stetson's ``Conversation With a Tramp: An Evening With John Muir,'' 3 p.m. Sunday --``Mountain Days'' musical workshop, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, March 28 and 30; 8 p.m. March 24 and April 1; 3 p.m. March 26; 2 p.m. April 1 --``Adventures With Muir'' featuring storyteller Garth Gilchrist, 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday --Muir Trail slide show and lecture, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. March 25 --``The Tramp and the Rough Rider: Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir'' featuring Stetson and Doug Brennan, 8 p.m. March 25 --Roundtable discussion on Muir's impact, 8 p.m. March 31