A play by Stephen Volk
(UK tour including Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 1994)
Directed by Caroline Maynard
Designed by Jennie Norman
An Antidote Theatre Production
(UK premiere: 31 July 1993, Glynne Wickham Studio, Bristol)
(4-7 August 1993, Rondo Theatre, Bath)
(UK tour incl Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 1994)
"A tight script... A fast, faultless narrative" Alex Linklater, The Scotsman
"This impressive play, though often searing, is profound and compelling" The Stage
"The show has a power which belongs on another plane... Go and see it" Bath Chronicle
"A gripping experience" Wiltshire Times
In 1848, two barefoot children from a backwater farm in New York State started a cult that became a religion. It swept American by storm -- and swept them with it. In public the three Fox sisters became spiritual and moral leaders. In private, their personal lives were tainted and finally shattered by jealousy, lies, guilt and tragedy.
Until, forty years after it all began, when one of them, racked with guilt or addled by alcohol, but empowered by the weight of her conscience, stood up against its millions of followers and proclaimed it all a monumental fraud.
You are invited to attend the confession of Margaret Fox Kane. in the presence of her two sisters, the powerful and manipulative Leah, and the child-like innocent Kate -- the three "Mothers of Spiritualism".
What do you believe? -- Was Spiritualism a sign from God? ...Or the greatest lie ever told?
Original cast:
Maggie........................Isabel Brook
Kate............................Siân Owen Jones
Leah...........................Rebecca Simmons
Elisha.........................James Traherne
See also
NAZARETH NEW YORK in OTHER SCREENPLAYS
A couple of recent non-fiction books about the true story of the Fox sisters and the rise of Spiritualism:
More on the Fox Sisters at Answers.com
Read more about Spiritualism's Unlikely Founders at History.net
Read about the Fox Sisters at The Haunted Museum
SMILING LIKE LAZARUS
A play by Stephen Volk
(rehearsed reading: Antidote Theatre/Rondo Theatre Bath, January 1996)
("The Raising of Lazarus" by Caravaggio)
Most people know the Biblical story of Christ's most prestigious miracle.
Lazarus is a simple farmer living outside Jerusalem at Bethany with his two sisters, the prostitute Mary and the home-loving Martha.
Lazarus dies. And three days later, Jesus returns to raise him from the dead.
But what happened next? For the rest of the New Testament, Lazarus is conspicuous by his absence. The Gospels are strangely silent on the matter. But then, they were heavily edited for political reasons by the early Christians, some versions even rejected outright as heresy.
If Lazarus told his story, what story would he tell?
What would come from the lips of the most famous dead man in history?
See also
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LAZARUS in BOOKS
For more on the Biblical legend of Lazarus, see St Lazarus of Bethany in the Catholic Encylopedia online.
Click here for the extract in John 11: 41-44