Formidable Cast of The Women of Lockerbie Gives Sensitive Portrayal of Grief and Remembrance

by Gerry Roe

Iowa City - To begin their season of plays by women, Dreamwell Theatre has chosen The Women of Lockerbie, by Deborah Brevoort, based on the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 in which 270 people died—including all the passengers (most of them Americans), the crew, and 11 people on the ground. Brevoort has written that she set out to write the play, set on the seventh anniversary of the disaster, in the form of Greek tragedy. Dreamwell’s production captures the spirit of Greek tragedy in an extremely moving and cathartic evening of theatre.

Director Rachael Lindhart was drawn to this play not only because it was written by a woman playwright but because she welcomed the challenge and the rewards inherent in the structure and characterizations of the play. She has assembled a formidable cast to bring this play to the stage. Seven years after losing a son in the crash, Madeline Livingston, a New Jersey housewife played with dignity and with passion by Theresa Meeks-Mosley, has come to Lockerbie to search for some remnant of her son. She is accompanied by her husband, Bill (Rip Russell), who has struggled for seven years with Madeline’s obsessive grief, making his own grief inaccessible. The two actors work well together, presenting a convincing picture of a devoted couple torn apart by their separate reactions to incomprehensible loss. Russell gives us a memorably dynamic portrait of frustration and fear that loss of his son will be compounded by the collapse of his marriage.

A feature of Greek tragedy is a chorus reflecting on the protagonists’ actions and reactions. Paula Grady as Olive Allison admirably serves as the leader of the chorus of women as they try to assist Madeline and Bill even as they recall their own direct experience of the shattered airplane and a sky full of falling bodies and body parts. Other chorus members, Mary Jane Myers as Woman 1 and Tracy Schoenle as Woman 2, make strong contributions with their recollections and representations of the Lockerbie women. The women have set a goal of returning to family members the clothes or other personal items belonging to the victims retrieved from the hills after the crash. They are frustrated in this attempt by George Jones (Stephen Ivester), the American in charge of such items, who believes that policy disallows their wishes. He is determined to destroy the hundreds of garments and relics collected in the aftermath of the crash. Together with Hattie (Jen Brown), his office cleaning woman, he shares a comic scene that breaks, momentarily, the tension of the script at the same time as it reveals something of the nature of each character. Ivester and Brown play off each other with gusto and conviction. Their comic interlude provides a welcome relief for the audience even as it captures the essential conflicts between strict adherence to policy and generosity of spirit.

Rachael Lindhart’s sensitive direction of her talented cast has been aided by Movement Director Christina Patramanis and Dialect Coach Brett Myers. Together with the actors, they have prepared an evening of theatre to linger in the mind of anyone who sees it—and I urge you to make this play a part of your theatrical memory.

The Women of Lockerbie runs for three more performances: Sep 15, 21, and 22, 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Iowa City. Tickets are $13 ($10 students/seniors). Reservations can be made at www.dreamwell.com/ or by calling 319-423-9820.