On The Road for “Trying”

by Jim Reiter

Colonial Players next show, Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, is an intimate look at the working relationship between former U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle and the young woman who helped him write his memoirs. Research is part of any director or actors tool kit, but director Darice Clewell and her team have gone above and beyond to uncover the heart of the story.

Sometimes the subject matter of a Colonial Players production demands more than mere line memorization, blocking, costume design and refocusing light grids. Sometimes, it demands getting out of Annapolis and “into the field. For the upcoming production of Trying, the field means Georgetown. Ms. Clewell and set designers Heather Quinn and Laurie Nolan recently followed up a plethora of Internet research with a trip to Former U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle’s Georgetown home, and to the Georgetown University Library’s Special Collections Research Center.

Biddle, who hailed from a Main Line Philadelphia family, attended Harvard Law School and was a private secretary to Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, became Attorney General under Franklin Roosevelt, and was appointed the chief American judge at the Nuremburg Military Tribunal by Harry Truman. All of this adds up to a treasure trove of papers and other resources available to help bring to life this American icon. His final year, working on his memoirs with young secretary Sarah, is the subject of Trying. Sarah is the alter ego of playwright Joanna McClelland Glass who was Biddle’s secretary during that time and who based the play on her experience.

What the trio of Colonial searchers found was 22.25 linear feet – 14 boxes – of Biddle’s papers; 31.5 linear feet – 60 boxes – of materials from his wife, Katherine Garrison Chapin Biddle, a noted poet, essayist and reviewer for Harper’s, Ladies Home Journal, The New Republic and many more, and four boxes of Biddle family letters. Says Ms. Quinn, “We got to see scrapbooks, photographs, lists of Biddle’s books, letters from Presidents to Biddle, Biddle’s appointment books from 1967-1968; degrees and certificates. There was so much that we did not have time to delve into it all.”

Scott S. Taylor, the Manuscripts Processor for the Library, coordinated their requests with the Biddle estate, which granted permission to scan key documents – photographs, Biddle’s law degrees, presidential correspondence and more – that were not part of the public record, and use them in Colonial’s production. Ms. Quinn adds, “Darice took photographs of the items that were in the public record that we found of interest. Thank goodness Katherine Biddle had a clipping service and put all of those newspaper clippings into scrapbooks. It was a wealth of information for us geeky theater researchers!”

At Biddle’s Georgetown house, the three talked with a current resident who said that the backyard building they thought may have housed the office loft in which the play is set is now an indoor pool. Was it a loft? Did playwright Glass apply a little dramatic license? Or was the pool building indeed once an office? You can bet these researchers are looking for more answers! So is Colonial Player's longtime member and set builder Jim Robinson, a retired federal judge, who is working hard to apply his expertise to the unearthing of even more nuggets of interest about Biddle’s activities at the behest of the presidents he served.

The bottom line: sometimes it takes more than the internet and some director’s notes to truly bring an historic figure to life. And while Trying is a beautiful story of what an old, privileged Main Line aristocrat and a young woman from the plains of Canada teach each other in his final year of life, it will be well-informed by those who are working hard bring our audiences the true depth of character that made Biddle who he was.

Trying opens February 8th and runs through March 2, 2013. For tickets and information, contact the Box Office at 410-268-7373 opt. 2,  browse our website, or click here: