A fireplace, shuttered windows, and stark, puritanical furniture all adorn the set of the Hillsdale theatre department’s newest show: “The Devil’s Disciple.”
The show, by George Bernard Shaw, is set during the time of the Revolutionary War, and the home pictured on stage is that of Mrs. Dudgeon, a stubborn Presbyterian woman entangled in the ideals of the past.
Sophomore Catherine Coffey, who plays Mrs. Dudgeon, said her character is a victim of the things that were wrong with Puritan America. Mrs. Dudgeon is desperate to reconcile new revolutionary ideas with the way things always have been.
“Shaw asks important questions about religion, the founding, loyalty, and perception,” Director and Professor of Theater James Brandon said. “If you don’t get to the end of a Shaw play and ask questions, you aren’t doing it right.”
The play opens when Richard Dudgeon, the self-proclaimed Devil’s disciple and the estranged son of Mrs. Dudgeon, comes back home after his father’s death to hear the reading of his Mr. Dudgeon’s dying will.
When Mr. Dudgeon bequeaths his entire home and estate to wayward Richard in his will, his widowed and penniless wife is infuriated.
The action of the play follows Richard’s transformation and unlikely heroism.
“This plays begs the question, ‘How far do we take faith?’” said junior Aaron Pomerantz, who plays the Devil’s Disciple.
He added that it will be a “kick in the pants” for Christians across campus.
“I was homeschooled in a very repressive society,” Pomerantz said. “This is how I feel every time I go back and they see the horrible person I’ve become.”
Pomerantz said how pleased he was to play a character who was more than a love interest.
“I really empathize with him. Richard is much more complex and feels a much broader array of emotions,” Pomerantz said. “I get to be angry and scary and an in-depth character.”
Senior Peter Kistler, cast as Anthony Anderson, the town’s minister, said he is portraying a far more serious role than he usually plays.
“Anderson’s concern is, ‘Am I actually promoting the spiritual growth of the people of this town,’” he said.
Kistler said Anderson cuts against the grain of what is popular in his town because he is more concerned with helping people be good, productive children of God than whether they are following human laws.
“Regardless of what he shows outwardly,” Kistler said, “he is really struggling with, ‘How do I keep myself and the people safe from the British?’”
Kistler said that Shaw puts very strong opinions into the mouths of his characters using barbed, perfectly crafted one-liners and rapier-sharp wit.
The play, formally titled a melodrama, is what Kistler calls a mix between a comedy and a thriller.
Sophomore Matt Sauer plays General Burgoyne, the only historical character in the play.
“He is the antagonist to the extreme,” Sauer said. “He has strong, aristocratic ties, [and is] obsessed with maintaining the order of high society, England, and manners.”
Complete with period costumes and military stunts, everything is as accurate as possible, a fact which Pomerantz considers a delight for the history majors in the audience.
Sauer said Burgoyne demands attention and holds tight to his expectation of the way things are supposed to work.
Burgoyne, who Brandon said is known in history as a failure, makes his own jab at the history books in the play.
“History sir, will tell lies as usual,” he says to a lesser officer in expectation of the battle of Saratoga.
Sauer said that Mrs. Dudgeon and Burgoyne are fighting the same battle: the rebellion against their old ideals.
“It is like watching someone try to wrestle an octopus. They are rocks, and the revolution is an octopus: rock-tapus,” Coffey said.
Brandon said he could not remember the last time Hillsdale did a play from the 18th century, and the college was due for one.
“Shaw makes it very difficult to peg anyone as either a friend or villain,” Brandon said. “I like that the scoundrel is a hero and the transitions that characters have throughout the course of the play.”
Brandon said the message of the play revolves around the idea that even the worst characters can behave heroically, and that an audience can never recognize a hero until he is pressed.
One of Anderson’s last lines in the play sums up Shaw’s point.
“It takes all kinds to make a world,” he writes. “Saints as well as soldiers.”
