Lowell Manfull
Title of Play
The Cricket on the Hearth
Date and Place of Reading
December 15, 2003
Manhattan Theatre Club Creative Center
New York City
Access the Play
Email bhorizonsnyc@yahoo.com.
Director
Lewis Magruder
Cast
Mark Dundas Wood–Stage Directions
Jack Koenig–John Peerybingle
Ursula Abbott–Dot Peerybingle
Taylor Donnelly–Tilly Slowboy
David Little–Caleb Plummer
Bertha Plummer–Jessica Bashline
Mr. Tackleton–James Glenn
May Fielding–Kelly Mealia
Mrs. Fielding–Lucy Martin
The Stranger–Mac Brydon
The Cricket–William O'Donnell
About the Playwright
Many of us connected to Broad Horizons Theatre Company gathered at Pennsylvania State University, in State College, Pennsylvania, to celebrate Lowell Manfull's life. Lowell was born in 1927 in Ogden, Utah and died in State College, Pennsylvania in 2007.
We had come to know Lowell in different ways. First, he was a recently retired professor of theater at PSU where many of us earned our graduate degrees as actors or directors. Second, he and his wife Helen were instrumental in giving Broad Horizons its start. They donated money, they shared wisdom, they inspired us, and they played roles in early projects. They became for all of us the model of theater artists and teachers.
When the English-American Theater in
Dǔsseldorf, Germany engaged Broad Horizons to create a production of Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, Lowell answered my plea that he play Old Man. When Helen played Maud and Betty in Broad Horizons' 1998 New York production of Cloud 9 by Carly Churchill, Lowell was there to support her and us.
About the Play
The Cricket on the Hearth is an adaptation for the stage of the book by Charles Dickens. A summary of its plot follows.
The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) is a Christmas novella centered on the Peerybingle household. John, a kind, plodding carrier, is married to Dot, a much younger and lively wife, and they have a baby. A cheerful cricket chirping on their hearth serves as the home’s guardian spirit.
Their happiness is shaken when a mysterious, deaf stranger lodges with them. John glimpses Dot in secret conversation with him and begins to suspect infidelity. Tormented, he contemplates a drastic response, but the cricket’s fairy visions remind him of Dot’s goodness and devotion.
Meanwhile, the miserly toymaker Tackleton, who is to marry young May Fielding, torments his poor employee Caleb Plummer. Caleb shields his blind daughter Bertha from the truth of their poverty, living in a fantasy of comfort.
Misunderstandings dissolve: the stranger is May’s long-lost sweetheart in disguise, and Dot’s secrecy was innocent. Love triumphs, and the tale celebrates home, forgiveness, and trust.