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While the nation
celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of its most beloved
presidents, Monmouth College is taking a slightly different approach
this spring. The college’s theatre group is busy recreating the last
thing that Abraham Lincoln saw.
On April 4-5, Monmouth’s Crimson Masque will present “Our American
Cousin” at The Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Ill. It’s the play that
Lincoln was watching at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was
assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
(MC alumni and friends and their guests are invited to join President
and Mrs. Ditzler for the April 5 performance, which will feature a meet
and greet following the production. The play’s cast and its director,
theatre professor Bill Wallace, will join the group, and backstage tours
will be offered. To RSVP, contact the alumni office by April 2 at
alumni@monm.edu or 309-457-2316.
Online registration is also available
here)
“We’re going to try to help the audience understand what a performance
would have been like at that time,” said Wallace, referring to technical
elements, costumes and acting styles. “We want it to be as historically
accurate as possible as we recreate for the audience what it would have
been like in 1865.”
Part of that accuracy will come from specific elements of the play as it
was performed on the fateful spring evening, Wallace explained.
“In reality, the Lincolns were late that night. We have a pit band that
our music director, Steve Richter, has been kind enough to put together
for us, and we will stop the production while they play ‘Hail to the
Chief’ as the president enters.”
Wallace said that MC students will play the roles of the President and
Mrs. Lincoln, as well as their guests that evening, Maj. Henry Rathbone
and his fiancée, Clara Harris.
“Their box will be decorated with red, white and blue bunting and a U.S.
Treasury flag and, at the point of the assassination, we’ll call
attention to it with a gun sound effect. We’ll cut the lights on the
box, but then we’ll continue the play and move forward.”
Accuracy will also come from the set itself. Theatre professor Doug
Rankin, the production’s designer and technical director, and a dozen of
his students are recovering and repainting about 20 original stage flats
dating to The Orpheum’s 1916 opening in a further attempt “to replicate
as much of the feel as we can.”
“The flats are amazing,” said Rankin of the scene sections, which are
16-feet long and 5-feet, 9-inches wide. “We could not build them today.
You can’t buy lumber that long and straight.”
In its early days, Rankin said The Orpheum was a stop on the vaudeville
circuit. It was part of a chain of theaters, which had the same stock
flats. Approximately three-fourths of the flats have survived, despite
not being in use for more than 80 years.
“They are paint on canvas, and some have as many as 15 layers of
stencils,” he said of the flats, which were built by Twin Cities Scenic
Studios of Minneapolis.
When assembled, the flats recreate the look of various backgrounds,
including a drawing room, foliage and a city skyline. Rankin said that
some of the flats will be used “as is,” while others will receive a new
canvas or new coloring.
“Dick Blick Art Materials (of Galesburg) has been extremely generous to
help with the materials we’re using for the restoration of the flats,”
said Rankin. The supplies include more than 100 yards of canvas, stencil
materials and paint.
While performing at The Orpheum, Wallace said that the college’s Crimson
Masque will be treated like any other visiting ensemble.
“We’re touring,” he said. “The Orpheum is handling the promotion and the
ticket sales and helping us pay for the production.”
Although some routine details are off of the department’s “to-do” list,
Wallace said that a completely different slate of responsibilities has
replaced them.
“On the Sunday before we open, we’ll load up the set, costumes and props
onto a truck and take them over to Galesburg,” he said. “We’ll have a
technical rehearsal that night like a professional theatre group would
have. Our students are really going to see what life would be like if
they were going to get into the business.”
Wallace said the actors will also be rehearsing in several different
locations to get a feel for playing to an audience in the balcony.
“At The Orpheum, we’ll be playing a much bigger house than what we
normally do (in MC’s Wells Theater),” he said.
As for the three-act play itself, Wallace called “Our American Cousin,”
which was written by Englishman Tom Taylor, a “very broad comedy and
farce, making fun of the British aristocracy,” some of whom believe that
typical Americans are “17 feet tall, dressed in buckskin, hunting
buffalo.”
Wallace said the “American cousin,” Asa Trenchard, is somewhat “a bull
in a China shop.” He claims to be the heir to a wealthy English estate,
then falls in love with the granddaughter of one of his aristocratic
relatives.
In addition to the two public performances on April 4 at 7:30 p.m. and
April 5 at 2 p.m., there will be two free shows for area schoolchildren
on April 3. Tickets can be ordered in advance through The Orpheum Box
Office, 250 E. Main St., in person or by phone at 309-342-2299. They can
also be ordered online at theorpheum.org. Prices range from $15 to $25.
“This is an excellent learning opportunity for our students – not just
the ones involved in the production, but also our history and political
science students,” said Wallace. “We think it’s a win-win all the way
around … for our department, the college, The Orpheum and the general
audience. I think it will also be valuable as an educational outreach to
the community.”
Lincoln-related memorabilia from the Warren County Public Library’s
Abraham Lincoln collection will be on display in The Orpheum’s lobby,
and the educational element also includes a series of talks by four MC
faculty members, titled “And How Was the Play, Mrs. Lincoln?”
Held from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at The Orpheum prior to the April 4
performance, the talks will include “West Central Illinois Participants
in the Civil War” by Tom Best and “Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” by William Urban. Stacy Cordery,
bibliographer at the National First Ladies Library, will speak on “The
Life of Mary Todd Lincoln,” and Wallace will give “A Production History
of ‘Our American Cousin.’”
“We’re hoping that those who come on Saturday will make a day of it,”
said Wallace. “They can come to the talks in the afternoon, then go out
to dinner and come back for the evening performance.”
