Photo by Gaetano Marangelli
Keighley Sadler, Zach Thomas Woods and Joe Picchetti
“I know this is true because I say it is—and I say it is,” declares Ben, a once idealistic political candidate who wins an election by bending and twisting the truth. It’s the key line from Gaetano Marangelli’s brilliantly conceived play, The City of Benedict della Crosse. Set during the 1988 election cycle in Wisconsin, the play had been workshopped for several years and was performed this summer at the Wauwatosa Historical Society’s Kneeland-Walker House & Grounds. With an emotional dynamism and human insight worthy of Arthur Miller, The City of Benedict della Crosse has the potential to become canonical.
On September 14, I had the privilege of witnessing a live broadcast of the play, by the cast who performed it this summer, on Riverwest Radio. The five actors were crowded around a microphone-covered table at the Riverwest studio, with station manager-founder Xav Leplae at the controls and Marangelli, the writer-director, hovering in the wings.
They gave an unconstrained enactment in the cramped setting, rubbing elbows as they leaned into the microphones. Like radio plays of the 1940s, the presentation depended on the emotional resonance of their voices. There were no elaborate sound effects, just transitional music composed by Didier Leplae.
It was an impeccable ensemble performance, with the protagonist, Benedict della Crosse, played by Zach Thomas Woods. Co-starring are Keighly Sadler as Isabelle Juneau, Ben’s skeptical girlfriend; Joe Picchetti as Billy Williams, Jr., Ben’s longtime friend and advisor; Selena Milewski as Emilia Barnes, Ben’s ruthless sister-campaign manager; and Ken Miller as Christopher Lucas, the GOP operative who turns Ben rightward from his origins as a moderate Republican (fiscally conservative, socially liberal) and instills a winner-take-all ethos, a relativism that has become a crucial issue of our time: What can we believe?
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Photo by Gaetano Marangelli
Selena Milewski and Ken Miller
Marangelli wrote the play in the belief that 1988 was a sadly pivotal year, memorable for GOP operative Lee Atwater’s savagely manipulative campaign for George H.W. Bush that helped turn American politics into a zero-sum game.
None of the young actors were of voting age in 1988, and as I learned in the half-hour interview I conducted with the cast as part of the broadcast, only one was alive in 1988. The players emersed themselves in history, not only of the ‘80s but of the ‘60s radicalism that haunted the Reagan-era milieu. During the interview, Marangelli said that The City of Benedict della Crosse evolved into its present form through the nuanced, believable performance by the cast.
Xav Leplae and Marangelli conceived the idea for turning Benedict della Crosse into a radio play whose production was enabled by a grant from the Open Fund. The play is essential listening in this election season and will be rebroadcast on Riverwest Radio (WXRW-LP 104.1 FM) on:
- Saturday, October 3 at 12 p.m. and 7 p.m.
- Saturday, October 24 at 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.
- Saturday, October 31 at 12 a.m., 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
- Monday, November 3 at 12 a.m.
You can also listen at: riverwestradio.com.
