Spoon River Anthology

I was so excited when I got the initial email invitation to take part in a street performance of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology for the Rochester Fringe Festival, coordinated by Rochester theatre group Method Machine. Decades ago, in high school acting class, I performed in a student production, and I still remember two of my characters, plus the songs I had sung. I volunteered these in my reply, but was assigned a different poem – Amelia Garrick (I suspect that with trying to coordinate 244 participants, accommodating requests was not a priority for them!). Hers wasn’t one we did in school, and it’s not on the original cast recording so I had no help on figuring out who she was (yes, I still have my paperback with the notes, and I do have the record…). 

my group of wanderers

Was she an aborted baby? An institutionalized child? A lesbian lover? A husband’s illicit affair? And how would those interpretations affect my reading? My friend Colleen weighed in on characterization, and she actually pointed me in a great direction with a suggestion of violence – I decided I was a middle-aged first wife, poisoned by a social-climbing successor. We had one rehearsal, mostly for logistics, not acting (and I think for the director to make sure we would really show up, in costume and makeup…).

Last night was show time! Most of the ghosts were lined up along Gibbs Street downtown, but I was assigned to an area near the Spiegeltent as a ‘wanderer.’ At 6:30, bells rang, and a dozen of us milled around, speaking in turn, and able to choose whom to confront. As many times as I rehearsed my lines, I was nervous that I would forget them in the heat of the moment, and I was glad that the half-hour performance time allowed for more than one chance to get it right. We were extremely lucky with the warm and dry weather, so we had a decent audience. I only got to do my poem twice, but I enjoyed my wandering, and I really freaked out one couple, who started walking faster to try to lose me, and a couple of kids, who kept looking around to see if I was still there. My husband, his sister, and his brother-in-law also attended the spectacle, but I tried to stay away from them, so I wouldn’t break my concentration.

j'accuse!

At 7:00, the bells rang again and we all dispersed into the crowd, and resumed our own identities. The couple I spooked actually asked to have their photo taken with me then. It was a fun experience to perform, and to see the audience’s reaction. If you didn’t get a chance to experience this presentation of Spoon River, you have another opportunity tonight at 6:30.