The Theatre Company Presents...
Titanic: Tragedy and Trial
Friday and Saturday, January 28 & 29, 2011 at 7:30pm
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 2pm
Titanic: Tragedy and Trial will be presented by The Theatre Company at the historic Lyric Theater during the last weekend of January. Pat Cook’s full-length play is comprised of two one-act docu-plays; Voices From the Titanic and Echoes From the Titanic.
As such, in the first act we see the actual events, as reported later by the survivors. A history professor walks on stage and begins to read “On April 14th, 1912, at 11:40 p.m. the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg.” He then wonders about the bravery and compassion of the souls lost that night. Suddenly the stage comes alive with passengers and crew from that fateful voyage and that guilded age. In a series of vignettes the characters tell their own story speaking to the audience as if it were just another passenger. “I never said it was unsinkable,” remarks Titanic builder Thomas Andrews, “I said it was practically unsinkable.” Not only do we hear the heartwrenching accounts of the officers and first class passengers, but we also hear and see what happened to those in steerage.
In the second act, we witness testimony and personal accounts of the survivors of the Titanic in their own words. This act is taken directly from the 1912 Senate Hearings into the Titanic disaster. We hear testimony, both frivolous—as when the senator asks Fifth Officer Lowe, what an iceberg is made of. “Ice, I suppose,” he replies—to the compelling—“As the ship went down, it broke in two as if cut by a knife.” Piece by piece, the eyewitnesses tell their own stories and we get a fuller picture of the tragedy and trial of the Titanic.
“We have nothing to conceal,” proclaims White Star Lines President Bruce Ismay, but then has to explain why he was able to get in a life boat. Hear Fifth Officer Lowe’s report why some boats were not completely filled when they departed and why he fired a pistol to control the crowds. Find out why the Californian, a steamer only nineteen miles away, did not come sooner to render aid. One by one they testify. Pieces fall into place as we begin to see the full story. We are amazed and appalled at the testimony—a gripping tableau of honor, valor, sacrifice and suffering which makes us each ask ourselves “How would I act under such horrific circumstances?”
Performances will be Friday and Saturday, January 28-29 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, January 30 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students and senior citizens, and $5 for children.
