Director's Statement
Your wife's struggle with grief is the struggle we all share. -- Olive, The Women of Lockerbie
Sharing and engaging with others brings healing, and helps us to move on.
The year 2011-2012 was proclaimed by UM-Flint’s Provost as "The Year of Engagement." This play demonstrates how engagement with others in times of despair brings wellness and healing. But what exactly is engagement? Listening, sharing, and empathizing are actions of engagement. Listening to the stories of others is engagement. Telling your story to others is engagement.
In Women of Lockerbie, the American characters Bill and Madeline move on from isolation in their grief, to a place of healing when they engage and hear the stories of the women of Lockerbie. Can Bill and Madeline be viewed as "America," selfishly isolated from the suffering of other nations? Is this play a call for America to engage with the global community? Does this play call for us to listen to the stories told by others, in order for healing to begin? Stories shape who we are, and how we perceive others.
When Qaddafi met his violent end in Fall 2011, we couldn't open a newspaper or turn on our computer screen without seeing the words Lockerbie and PAN AM 103. The identity of this tiny town has been shaped by the terrorist act that killed hundreds of people. We hear the name Lockerbie and we immediately think of the crash -- the horror, the tragedy, the grief. The crash has defined the landscape of the place in the minds of many people around the world. This notion inspired the scenic designer to create hills to resemble the forms of the Pan Am 103 fuselage.
Our city of Flint has a parallel negative echo: Flint = violence, blight, crime. The stories told over and over again burn an identity of Flint's worthlessness and despair in the minds of those living far away as well as those living within and around the city. By sharing stories of people moving on from isolation and despair, such as this play does, the theatre can be a place that enables each of us to do the same.
The Women of Lockerbie
By Deborah Brevoort
Directed by Janet Haley
Scenic Design
Stephen D. Landon
Costume Design
Shelby Newport
Lighting Design
Doug Mueller
University of Michigan-Flint Department of Theatre and Dance Mainstage
Fall 2011
Photos by Jessica Wilkowski and Jeremy Winchester
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