The Garden City Telegram
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'Lockerbie' a walk on the serious side
Published 11/27/2007 in News : Education By Emily Behlmann
Madeline Livingstone was making a pie crust when it happened, recalled Cheyenne Thomas, the Garden City High School senior who will play the character on stage starting Thursday.
She was making a pie crust on Dec. 21, 1988, in her New Jersey home, when Ted Koppel's voice came on the air in the middle of a soap opera: "We interrupt this broadcast. ... PanAm 103 was last seen in a fire ball over Scotland."
PanAm 103? Thomas, as Livingstone, said she looked at the note taped to the fridge. Her son, Adam, was to arrive at JFK Airport that evening -- on PanAm 103.
But the flight was headed not for the airport, but for the ground on which fictional character Olive Allison's home sat in Lockerbie, Scotland. There were 259 people on board. They, along with 11 on the ground, were killed when a bomb exploded in the terrorist attack.
GCHS' play, "The Women of Lockerbie," picks up seven years later.
Madeline goes to Scotland, with husband Bill Livingstone (played by GCHS senior Tony Perkins) in tow. As she roams the hills of Lockerbie, searching fruitlessly for her son's remains, she and Bill meet the women of Lockerbie.
In the fictionalized play based on the actual PanAm crash, the women are gathering their forces, going up against the United States government.
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Garden City High School thespian Tony Perkins portrays a mourning Bill Livingston during rehearsal for GCHS\'s \"The Women of Lockerbie,\" which opens Thursday night at Clifford Hope Auditorium.
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Garden City High School drama students Ashley Adams and Alyssa Davis grieve over lost loved ones during rehearsal for GCHS's "The Women of Lockerbie," which opens Thursday night at Clifford Hope Auditorium.
The government, having completed an investigation into the crash, wants to follow protocol and burn the contaminated clothes of the attack victims, said Evan Elms, the GCHS sophomore who plays the government official.
But the women of Lockerbie say they think it's important to recover the clothes, launder them and give them to the victims' families, said Angela Adler, the GCHS freshman who plays Hattie, one of the women.
"It's a way to wash away their grief," Adler said.
For Madeline, Adam's clothes are "the last shred she has of her son," Thomas said.
Although the play's characters are fictional, the premise is real, and members of the six-person cast said that was part of the draw for them to get involved.
Students have spent some time learning more about the historical event to prepare for their roles.
"The day I saw the cast list, I went online to see a list of the victims," Thomas said. "It was eye-opening."
Jenny Regier, GCHS drama director, said doing a serious drama like "The Women of Lockerbie" is a challenge that contrasts with more lighthearted shows GCHS has performed recently, like "Seussical: The Musical" and "Anything Goes."
"It's forced me to grow as a director, and it's forced them to grow as actors," she said.
She said she knows cast members are developing their talents because they've told her after rehearsals, "You don't always push me this hard."
One challenge for some of the actors is perfecting the Scottish accent. Ashley Adams and Alyssa Davis, who play two of the Scottish women, said they have been listening to a CD designed to help actors work on accents, but that it's still a struggle.
The cast got some help from Irish actors, whose accents are similar, when they visited Garden City as part of a Southwest Kansas Live on Stage tour of "Celtic Tenors," Regier said. She does technical work for the Garden City productions.
The technical work for "The Women of Lockerbie" is done mostly by a technical theater class Regier teaches. Those students also helped build the set she designed.
The set is full of jagged, black platforms covered in the front by an assortment of clothing, symbolic of the victims' clothes that are central to the plot of the play.
Regier said she wanted the show to be "sparse" -- with one basic set and just a single prop -- to stretch the actors.
"Everything is imagined by the audience," Elms said. "It helps the audience better picture it. They get to decide what it looks like."
He said the dark look of the stage gives a good idea of the grief that washed over Lockerbie following the plane explosion.
Because of the plot's serious nature, Regier said, it's not a show for small children. Adults and older children will be able to enjoy the play, she said.
The play gives a glimpse into what people go through when they grieve, Adler said.
Its theme, Thomas said, is that "it's important for people not to hate, despite the tragedy in the world."
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