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Clinchfield
"Trace a lie to its beginnings and you might find the truth."
Inaugural Winner
The Richard Burton Award for New Plays
On September 11, 1916, in St Paul, Virginia, a hotel worker named Red Eldridge was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the Sparks World Famous Shows Circus. The next day, in Kingsport, Tennessee, he was killed by Mary, a five-ton Asian elephant.
The details of the aftermath are confused in a maze of sensationalism and folklore. What is known, is that on the following day a crowd of over 2500 people assembled atop the Clinchfield Railroad Yard to watch Mary hang.
At a time when ‘spectacle’ executions in the U.S. drew crowds of up to twenty thousand, this bizarre event serves as a crucible in which to study the convergence of Justice and Theatre - and a reckoning with the true purpose of punishment: rehabilitation, restitution or retribution.
Inaugural Winner
The Richard Burton Award for New Plays
On September 11, 1916, in St Paul, Virginia, a hotel worker named Red Eldridge was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the Sparks World Famous Shows Circus. The next day, in Kingsport, Tennessee, he was killed by Mary, a five-ton Asian elephant.
The details of the aftermath are confused in a maze of sensationalism and folklore. What is known, is that on the following day a crowd of over 2500 people assembled atop the Clinchfield Railroad Yard to watch Mary hang.
At a time when ‘spectacle’ executions in the U.S. drew crowds of up to twenty thousand, this bizarre event serves as a crucible in which to study the convergence of Justice and Theatre - and a reckoning with the true purpose of punishment: rehabilitation, restitution or retribution.
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