Theater veterans, new blood brings the Zoo to life

Author: Colin Foss


Audio produced by Radio Arts Middlebury.

To find good theater, sometimes you only need to open up your European history books. Shakespeare knew this well enough, and some of his most often produced plays are historical in some sense.

So, in true English fashion, modern poet-turned-playwright Glyn Maxwell takes the real events of his country's past and exposes them on the stage. For example, "The Lifeblood," a play seeing its second American production at Middlebury (its first was in New York), is a faithful imagining of the final days of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the political and religious imbroglio she found herself in at the end of the 16th.

Maybe imbroglio is too light a word. Her husband was killed, the murder pinned on her, and she was abducted, possibly raped and imprisoned in Staffordshire Castle where she miscarried two children. This, by the way, is where the good theater comes in. She is tried for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth under suspicious evidence - evidence that comes from forged documents, tampered-with letters and false correspondence.

To find this kind of dramatic dupe in history is almost too good to be true, and there is an element of legend and fantasy in "The Lifeblood." The play's language is rich and nuanced. Written in verse, the text is enough to make audience members tilt their heads in collective strain, and the French and English accents do not facilitate comprehension. But the elevated language of the play is a hallmark of its creator: Maxwell was a successful poet before he entered theater.

The director of the Hepburn Zoo production, Aaron Gensler '08, sees Maxwell's play as a modern restaging of the past. The universality of the story, she said, is what makes it relevant in any time period. An age of letter tampering is not far from wire tapping, after all. Maxwell's play premiered in 2004 in England, so it was written to be applicable to our times, and Maxwell is as conscious as any director would be of the difficulties of staging a historic piece in a modern context.

Allison Corke '08 has control of the role of Mary Stuart, a role that is challenging not only for its historical importance, but also in its new, dramatic situation. An audience expects a certain regal authority from Mary - and Corke's interpretation of the queen silences any concerns. As her 700-level project, "The Lifeblood" lets Corke, self-admittedly a usually comic actress, take her vivacity into the confines of Staffordshire Castle, and crown herself after her four years on the Middlebury stage.

The 700-level project is, in the Theater Department, the coup de grace for departing seniors. Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki '08, who dons the role of Sir Thomas Gorge, follows another route to this collegiate gateway before the real world. His performance in another historical piece, the more ribald "St. Crispin's Day" performed in January 2008, is the other half of his multi-part senior project. He said he found "The Lifeblood" along with Corke, during their sophomore year. When they were looking for something to do for their senior projects, the choice was inescapable.

"The play stuck with us," said Tirrell-Wysocki. "We decided we wanted to do a 700-level together, and then, when we were looking through plays to do, this was in the back of our minds the whole time."

For Gensler, who directed her 700 project "Lion in the Streets" in January, the selection process works in equally mysterious ways.

"Sometimes," she said, "a play finds you."

For Tirrell-Wysocki and Corke, this is the last big hurrah before they enter into the slightly less accommodating world of professional acting. The actors, and to a larger extent the people they are, will be determined exactly by what they have done in college theater, and so the choice of roles is very important. And with a look at what they are doing with "The Lifeblood," this performance will show them off better than any agent might try. Tirrell-Wysocki has the panache of a film-noir spy in his portrayal of the conniving Gorge, and Corke's verve and brilliance shine through the smothered splendor of a queen imprisoned.

To round out the cast, Willie McKay '11 is Mary's right-hand man Claude Arno, and Xander Manshell '09 sits on the high horse of Sir Francis Walsingham, the puppeteer of the performance and the man who abducted the would-be queen. Eric DePriester '09 is the Puritan Sir Amyas Paulet.

"The Lifeblood" runs in the Hepburn Zoo April 10-12 at 8 p.m., with another performance on April 10 at 10:30 p.m. Radio Arts Middlebury spoke to the cast of "The Lifeblood" in between rehearsals. Listen online at www.middleburycampus.com to their discussion of the production, and find out why there's so much hype around the 700 project. Radio Arts Middlebury airs every Wednesday at 4:30 PM on 91.1 FM WRMC, or online at radioartsmiddlebury.blogspot.com.