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| The American Story
Project, a theater company comprised of Wesleyan students and alumni, will
perform We Can't Reach You, Hartford at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival held in Edinburgh, Scotland Aug. 7-19. |
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| Posted 07.28.06 |
Students, Alumni Bring Fatal Fire Story to Life through Play
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In 1944, the Hartford Circus Fire caused more
than 150 deaths during an afternoon circus performance. Although the cause
of the fire remains officially undetermined, five employees of the Ringling
Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were charged with involuntary
manslaughter, and the circus was forced to accept full financial
responsibility for the fire that occurred during their show.
This tragic, yet compelling story, will be retold and performed by the
American Story Project, a new theater company comprised of Wesleyan students
and alumni. The seven-member group will premier We Can’t Reach You,
Hartford, a play by Jess Chayes ’07 and Stephen Aubrey ‘06, at the
Bedlam Theatre during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival held in Edinburgh,
Scotland Aug. 7-19.
Under Chayes’s direction, the audience will witness the story of sad clowns,
unlikely heroes and the forgotten tragedy under the big top. Performers
include Annie Bodel '08, Edward Bauer '08, Elissa Kozlov '08, Mike James '07
and Hayley Stokar '06.
In We Can’t Reach You, Hartford, Bauer plays the role of Emmett
Kelly, a sad clown from the Depression-era 1930s who once performed as an
actual member of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus from 1942
to 1956. One of the most memorable pictures to emerge from the Hartford
Circus Fire depicted Kelly, in full sad clown makeup, attempting to
extinguish the flames that had already engulfed the entire circus behind
him. Even until his death in 1979, Emmett Kelly never discussed what he saw
that day in July.
James plays Meryl Evans, a band director who continued to conduct during the
fire until the flames forced his musicians to flee.
“Jess really wanted to make the play a living document without following
docudrama rules,” James says. “She and Stephen made something surprising.
The play focuses mostly on the disaster’s periphery; it’s an eerie stage
poem.”
This will be a second venture to the Fringe Festival for Chayes, James,
Stokar and Kozlov. Last year, the American Story Project’s production of
Tone Clusters premiered at the Bedlam Theatre and brought critical acclaim.
The American Story Project has also performed at venues in Connecticut and
New York.
“Each of our plays strives for honest, powerful expression among the more
bizarre channels of the human experience,” Chayes says. “Each piece tackles
difficult, haunting questions, striving not for answers, but for
illumination, insight and a journey into the human condition.”
In 2001, a comprehensive history of the Hartford Circus Fire was published.
Novelist Stewart O’Nan, author of “The Circus Fire: the True Story of an
American Tragedy,” attended the company’s workshop performance in May.
Afterwards, he wrote of the production: “We Can't Reach You, Hartford
re-imagines the tragedy of the Hartford Circus Fire with a strange and
compelling immediacy. It's a weird, nearly overwhelming tale, but director
Jess Chayes, writer Stephen Aubrey and the players bring an intimate scale
and bracing range to the material. Creepy, funny, touching--it's a tour de
force.”
A benefit performance of We Can’t Reach You, Hartford runs in Manhattan,
N.Y., Aug. 2; and in Scarsdale, N.Y. on Aug. 3. For more information visit
americanstoryproject.com. |
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| By Olivia Bartlett, Wesleyan
Connection editor |
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