Bright, yellow light seeps through the cracks between the floorboards as smoke begins to rise. The actors’ costumes are singed at the edges, their faces smudged with soot. They represent the unfortunate souls who experienced the great Richmond theater fire of 1811.
Those who know acclaimed local playwright and author Clay McLeod Chapman’s work will instantly recognize his signature style in TheatreVCU’s season-opening play, “Volume of Smoke.” Master of playwriting and storytelling in the form of many monologues, Chapman’s work tends to lean toward the deliciously morbid and gleefully gruesome.
Chapman wrote and directed the play, which was originally commissioned by the Firehouse Theatre Project in 2005. When the theatre department asked him to come to VCU as a guest director, he presented a few of his plays, and the department picked this one.
“We first established a tie between us as artists and VCU when we came through and did a show here in 2003,” said Chapman, referring to himself and his assistant-director, Isaac Butler. “I think VCU liked this play for the same reason the Firehouse did – because it’s a local story.”
Butler said “Volume of Smoke” is a good show for an academic setting because it has many roles. The cast was chosen from a cattle call of all theatre students. The directors said they saw what felt like a “bajillion” – or at least 200 – students audition. The pair said they were able to boil this down to a happy ensemble.
The play is relatively short at only one hour and 15 minutes. Chapman said he’s used to rehearsing plays for four weeks, so having five-and-a-half weeks to work with students felt like a luxury.
“At first we had no idea what we would do with that much rehearsal time,” Butler said. “No matter how much rehearsal time you have, you always wish you had two more rehearsals.”
Chapman is a phenomenal writer. He paints vivid images of bones being trampled under the feet of those trying to escape the fire and flames eating along the music papers as if they were playing the music.
The actors articulate beautifully imaginative imagery and metaphors to tell their personal first-hand experience of the theater fire. Stories are told from the point of view of the audience, actors, orchestra musicians and backstage workers.
A former blacksmith slave gives a particularly moving monologue about how he saves the lives of women as they jump out of the theater windows. In a rare section of ensemble work, the performers happily and matter-offactly calculate the exact number of bones left crumpled inside the theater.
When it comes to the audience discerning a particular meaning or lesson from the play, Butler said it’s best to let audience members make their own decisions and see the play in their own individual ways.
“You can’t force ideas on them. Otherwise they’ll just forget the show entirely,” Butler said. “I want the audience to have a complex experience of the show. If they agree with some things and disagree with others, then they’ll remember it.”
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“Volume of Smoke,” shows Sept 28-29 and Oct. 4-6 at 7:30 p.m. and Sept. 30 and Oct. 7 at 3 p.m. at the Raymond Hodges Theatre in the Singleton Center for the Performing Arts.
Tickets for the public are $18; seniors, VCU faculty and staff, $15; and VCU students, $7. To reserve tickets call the TheatreVCU Box Office at 828-6026.