Montpelier’s Lost Nation Theater Returns to Its Home Stage for ‘Sam & Jim in Hell’ 

click to enlarge

• Courtesy Of Kathleen Keenan
• Materials from Lost Nation Theater's storage facility going into a dumpster post-flood

It's been a rough two months, but Lost Nation Theater's Kathleen Keenan lives by the show business axiom: Come hell or high water, the show must go on. Now that the high water is gone, it's time to bring on the hell.

On October 5, Lost Nation will debut Sam & Jim in Hell. The new comic drama by Roxbury playwright Jeanne Beckwith imagines Irish writers Samuel Beckett and James Joyce meeting in the afterlife, only to discover that it's not everything they expected.

The fact that Sam & Jim in Hell is happening at all, let alone on schedule and on Lost Nation's home stage in Montpelier City Hall, seems like a gift from heaven. On July 11, city hall, like much of the downtown, was inundated by historic flooding. Lost Nation lost 35 years' worth of costumes, props, set pieces and organizational materials, which were stored in the basement of a nearby building.

"It feels like a miracle that we're pulling this off," said Keenan, Lost Nation's producing artistic director, who's also directing the play. "Finding places to rehearse is really tricky. All of the performance spaces in Montpelier have really been hit hard."

Lost Nation was scheduled to open the musical The Addams Family about a week after the floodwaters hit. Rather than canceling, the production was hastily moved to the Barre Opera House for an abbreviated run. It was important that they salvage the show, Keenan said, in part because 12 members of the cast and crew were students, ages 12 to 21, participating in a professional theater production training program. She described the audience's response as "electric."

"It really did mean something to people," Keenan added. "They wanted to laugh. They wanted this escape. They wanted to say, 'Yes! We are overcoming!'"

For Keenan herself, the flood packed a "triple whammy." In addition to the damage to Lost Nation's building and storage facility, Keenan's home on Elm Street was also underwater and had to be evacuated. (Her family has since returned.) As she put it, "It was almost good to have a theater to manage, to take our minds off what was happening at our house."

As of last week, Lost Nation still had some serious cleanup to do, including removing an abandoned set for The Addams Family. But by the time the curtain rises on Sam & Jim in Hell, audience members shouldn't notice many differences.

For those who can make it inside, that is. City hall's elevator got "annihilated" by the flood and has yet to be repaired, Keenan said. To meet the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Lost Nation will live stream the show for those who cannot climb the steps to the auditorium.

"It really breaks my heart," she said. "I've spent my entire professional career mounting shows in fully accessible stages. But we have an emergency situation on our hands."