“Women of Lockerbie” Retells Historical Tragedy with Human Emotion
Photo by Kim Sleeper
by Hayley Wallace
Concordia students put on three heartfelt productions of Deborah Brevoort’s historical drama The Women of Lockerbie on February 24, 25 and 26.
The play was directed by postbaccalaureate and music education major Kaleb Busche. It starred junior Jenna O’Laughlin, freshman Joseph Greenmyer, sophomore David Krueger, sophomore Abigail Wisniewski and senior Allison Caudle, as well as six others.
The Women of Lockerbie tells the story of Madeline Livingston, a New Jersey woman played by O’Laughlin, who wanders the hills of Lockerbie, Scotland looking for any memory she can of her son Adam. Adam was killed along with 242 other passengers and 16 crew members seven years before in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Twenty-one houses in Lockerbie were also destroyed, killing an additional 11 people.
“We were going for emotional and to tell the story honestly and truthfully to give it justice,” said Krueger, who played U.S. General George Jones. “And I think we did a great job of that.”
Livingston is accompanied by her husband Bill, played by Greenmyer, who said he had never performed in a serious play before.
“Bill has to learn how to grieve, and I had to learn how to grieve with him,” Greenmyer said,
During their search, the couple run into the women of Lockerbie, who are struggling to get the victims’ clothing from the U.S. government, hoping to wash and return the items to the victims’ families to bring some comfort and healing. However, they are unable due to resistance from General Jones. But after enough opposition from the women, Jones has a change of heart and finally allows them to enter the warehouse to collect the clothing.
Two of the attendees of the shows were Deloris and Dick Schmidt of Crete, a couple who regularly attend Concordia theatre productions.
“These kids probably don’t even remember it,” Dick Schmidt said. “I remember the actual event, seeing the pictures on the television.”
“It really makes you look at human feelings,” Deloris Schmidt said.
Busche had been part of the show previously in costume design, and found out last spring that he would have a chance to direct the play. He and stage manager senior Melonie Kotschwar began planning the production over the summer.
“It’s a teaching show,” Busche said. “The cast is young, so I got to teach them about it as well. But they did really really well amazing. There was a lot of emotion involved.”
The set design included artificial turf, paper mache boulders and a working, running stream. Tickets to the play were designed to look like boarding passes with seat numbers and boarding times.
“The best part was that we worked as a team,” Kotschwar said. “I value teamwork.”
