Iron
Age
Theatre
&
The Montgomery County Cultural Center
Presents
Iron
Age
Theatre
&
The Montgomery County Cultural Center
Presents
As British soldiers hang colonists one after the other ahead of him, captured American spy Nathan Hale spends his last hour in a life or death debate over the political ideas that turned him into a traitor in David Stanley Ford’s play “The Interrogation of Nathan Hale” at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this fall.
The play is an intense, emotional account of twenty one year old Hale’s last hours before he was hung by the British army. As he went to the gallows he said “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
The setting is perfect for this play about the American Revolution,” said Director John Doyle. “Here in Philadelphia, the crucible of these radical new ideas, a country was born.”
The play is a co production of Iron Age Theatre and The Centre Theater.
“The Interrogation of Nathan Hale” is being presented in conjunction with the Howard Zinn play “Marx in Soho.” According to Doyle the two plays deal with political ideals and battles from two different centuries, battles that are still being fought today.
In the play Hale is brought chained to the quarters of British Captain John Montressor to await his impending execution. Hale, who was a Captain in the Continental army, volunteered to try and find out how strong the British were after General George Washington pleaded for men to take on the dangerous spy mission “in the darkest hour of the Revolution.”
Montessor, intrigued by the bright, Yale-educated school teacher turned soldier, pleads with him to sign a pledge of loyalty to the crown before it is to late. As the men ahead of him die, Hale and Montressor match wits about the war, patriotism, political ideas, sex and love in a no holds barred contest over the soul of the young man and the new country he is willing to die for.
The play stars Ray Saraceni as Montressor and Jered McLenigan as Hale. Saraceni an Iron Age veteran most recently played Jim Tyrone and appeared in the Barrymore nominated Terra Nova. Saraceni was also in the Barrymore nominated production of “Angels in America” at Villanova as Roy Cohen.
McLenigan having returned to Philly from Seattle has been seen as Evans in Terra Nova and Buddy Layman in “The Diviners.”
Of he original production Toby Zinman of the Citypaper Stated: “Ray Saraceni plays Montresor with all stops out: Hungry, huge, sweaty and loud, blindingly articulate and manipulatively honest, he gives a spectacular performance. The Interrogation of Nathan Hale leaves us with important questions lingering in our minds as we walk across the straw strewn stone path, through the forts ironclad door into the dark night, the modern America Nathan Hale gave his one life for. Worth the trip in a number of ways.”
Doug Keating of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: “It allows room for a no holds barred headlong performance by Ray Saraceni as the cynical, arrogant and aggressive Montressor."
Iron Age Theatre is one of the most critically acclaimed companies working in the Philadelphia area. At last year’s Fringe Festival the company presented Amiri Baraka’s incendiary play about race relations “Dutchman” at the African American Museum. The company was nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Ensemble for “Terra Nova,” at the Centre Theatre and recently produced Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” and the O’Neill classic “Moon for the Misbegotten.”