When the last name "Shakespeare" is mentioned, the first name that comes to mind is usually "William," not "Susanna."
The DePauw theatre production of Peter Whelan's play, "The Herbal Bed," gives Susanna Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's daughter played by junior Elise Lockwood, a place in the spotlight and gives DePauw students a glimpse into English life in the 1600s.
According to Andrew Hayes, associate professor of communications and theatre and director of "The Herbal Bed," history records only three things about Susanna: that she was born, that she was accused of adultery, and that she sued her accuser for slander.
"This particular playwright has taken the thin historical record of Susanna Shakespeare and said, 'hmmm, I wonder what that's all about,'" Hayes said.
Though Whelan's version of events may be loosely based on historical records, it is hard to tell how close this drama is or is not from the truth of these events. To Hayes, this ambiguity is actually a positive.
"That's the joy or the great benefit of the theatre," Hayes said. "We can find a way to tell a good story so that, whether the story is true or not it still may tap into universal truths ... without necessarily having to be historically accurate."
Whelan's version of events is set in 1613, and opens on the family of Susanna, whose last name is now Hall. Married to Dr. Hall, Susanna has been exposed to more learning than is usual for a woman in her time, but though she respects her husband, she feels that, in many ways, she is trapped by her marriage. By the end of the first act, the air is thick with tension and accusations.
"We're automatically predisposed to like a character whose maiden name is Shakespeare, because we're supposed to like Shakespeare whether we do or not," Hayes said.
However, throughout the two acts, the audience quickly learns that Susanna may not be as pure and good-hearted as those around her have been led to believe.
"She lies, she manipulates, she's interested in an extra-marital affair," Hayes said.
For Brittany Brumfield, who graduated DePauw in 2008 and has returned to be the assistant director for this production, Susanna's multi-faceted character is part of what makes this play so realistic.
"You don't really have a villain or a leading lady. Well, you have those, but the leading lady is kind of a liar, and the villain isn't really a bad guy," Brumfield said.
Costume designer senior Claire Wilkinson felt that, as a designer, she had to be particularly careful with how she judged the characters and their actions.
"I really tried not to judge Susanna, even though I personally disagreed with what her and Rafe were doing-for instance I didn't put her in red," Wilkinson said.
Another interesting aspect of this play is its relative anonymity. Hayes, who tries to enter into every production with a challenge in mind, felt that for this particular performance, the challenge would be that most students auditioning would never have heard of "The Herbal Bed" beforehand.
Brumfield, who herself hadn't read the play when she was first asked to be assistant director, used her fresh eyes as an asset.
"It was interesting for me because I had no preconceived notions about what the play should be and how it should be acted and how the characters should perform," Brumfield said.
In order to ensure that this somewhat unknown play was done justice, auditions were held in the beginning of March, and rehearsals began shortly afterwards.
Senior Emily Bell, an actress in the play, said that rehearsals were far from easy.
"We had some really long rehearsals, there was one day when we had six hours of rehearsals," Bell said.
A further challenge for Hayes was simply the timing of this production. Hayes cites a full spring calendar as a reason for choosing Kerr Theatre, rather than Moore, as the stage for "The Herbal Bed."
Kerr Theatre contains seats for an audience of 76, while even a production set up onstage in Moore Theatre can seat up to twice that number.
"With 76 seats even if I only have an audience of fifty it will feel very full," Hayes said.
Aside from directing, Hayes has had to take on the responsibility of lighting design, and he feels the smaller stage has been very helpful for him in that regard.
"Typically we would hang 238 lighting instruments if we were doing a production on Moore stage," Hayes said. "There's a total of like 42 instruments that I've hung in [Kerr]. The scale is just smaller."
The smaller scale has meant changes to the onstage performance as well. The actors have no microphones because of the close space and there is no traditional stage makeup.
The close quarters have also had a big impact on costumes.
Wilkinson, with the help of costume shop supervisor Caroline Good, designed and created the costumes for this production. She also designed many of the costumes for the theatre department's production of "Into the Woods" last semester, and said that while she enjoyed designing for both, they were two very different experiences.
"In "Into the Woods," if something wasn't perfect, whatever-we've got 20 costumes to make and the audience is far away, whereas here, they have to be perfect. I think we used one zipper in the entire show," Wilkinson said.
For some of the actors, including senior Patrick Corley, getting used to the smaller stage has been a challenging transition.
"I've got a sword, and I don't own a sword normally, so the first few weeks I was chopping off the imaginary audience members' heads. It was rough," Corley said.
A smaller stage was also perfect for the smaller cast required by this production. Because of the busy spring semester, another possible hurdle for Hayes was casting. However, he was able to neatly sidestep this obstacle by his choice of play, since "The Herbal Bed" includes only eight roles.
This smaller cast was another plus for Wilkinson who was responsible for nearly 20 costumes needed for the production of "Into the Woods." Wilkinson enjoyed the detailed work she could do with only ten costumes to complete.
Brumfield also feels the smaller cast was not an issue, since the quality of the actors more than made up for the lack of quantity.
"There's a lot of beautiful moments in the play, and a lot of great characters and the actors do very well at bringing them to life."
"The Herbal Bed" opened last night in Kerr Theatre and will be performed again tonight, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and will close with a matinee showing Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are on sale in the Moore Theatre Box Office at the Green Center for the Performing Arts. Student ticket prices are $3 and general admission is $6.