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One woman takes on
By Stephanie Kendrick
two summer plays
Star-BulletinTHE stories of two women beset by change will be told this weekend and next by the actors at Hawaii Pacific University Theatre.
Theater director Joyce Maltby will read the lead roles in both "The Insanity Case of Mrs. A Lincoln," written in 1998 by Richard Goodman, and "Between Waves," written in 1997 by John Dinsmore.
"Both playwrights have wanted me to play the leading ladies in their plays," said Maltby. HPU didn't have room on its theater calendar to mount full productions, so she created the summer reading series.
"The Insanity Case of Mrs. A Lincoln" covers the commission of Mary Todd Lincoln to a sanitarium by her eldest son, and her efforts to get out of that predicament. "I thought it was made to order as a drama," said Goodman, who lives in San Francisco and taught English at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960s.
Mrs. Lincoln was devastated by the assassination of her husband and had become somewhat eccentric, embarrassing her son, who was concerned about the image of the Lincoln era, Goodman said.She was committed without the opportunity to organize a defense. Despite rules requiring all her incoming and outgoing correspondence to be read after her incarceration, she smuggled out a plea for help, winning an ally who would help free the former first lady in less than a year.
"Mrs. Lincoln was a very intelligent woman. She was difficult, but she was bright," said Goodman. "I sort of admire her.
"I thought the part of Mrs. Lincoln was particularly suited for Joyce," said Goodman. "She can get down to very difficult emotional levels."
The elements of social injustice in the story attracted Goodman, who explores the fact that such a prominent woman could be locked away simply for refusing to comply with convention. Social injustice reappears in Goodman's most recent play, about a black man in the pre-Civil War north who led a campaign against kidnappers who sold blacks into slavery.
Maltby has invited him to be a part of the rehearsals for Saturday's reading, a process that has helped him trim some fat from the play, he said.
Maltby and the actors at HPU will next tackle Dinsmore's play, "Between Waves," which is set in Hawaii.
It is about an elderly woman whose world is changing. "She's having a hard time trying to figure out what her life is about," said Maltby.
Dinsmore said it was hard to go much into detail about the story without it sounding fantastic. But he said two things that excite him as a playwright are watching characters deal with situations beyond their control, and playing with language.
"The waves in the title are the changes that happen to her and that sort of engulf her," he said. One of the changes that engulfs her is a stroke that robs her of ability to use language for a time, presenting a special challenge, especially in the context of a reading.
A full production would give her the opportunity to communicate the role physically, said Maltby. In a reading, her options are limited. "It's like a radio drama in a way," she said. "I'm just going to start off kind of slowly, but I think the audience will have to except that I'm going to speak normally so they'll understand me."
Maltby is dealing with the challenge of playing two very emotional lead roles back to back by taking them one at a time. Is it a difficult task? "I'll know after I'm through with it," she said.
Summer play readings
What/When: "The Insanity Case of Mrs. A Lincoln," 7:30 p.m. Saturday
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