By Meredith Kreigh
Managing Editor
The Hilltop Players’ most recent performance was “Kind Lady,” starring senior Hannah Shipe as kind and charitable Mary Herries. It is a drama that Edward Chodorov adapted from Hugh Walpole’s short story “The Silver Mask.”
The audience is introduced to the play with a scene from the end of the story: Herries does not leave the house anymore. Do you want to know why?
She was once tricked by an aspiring artist named Henry Abbott (senior Justin Jones) who makes himself — and his wife, Ada, a lunatic (freshman Grace Loe) — at home. Soon he invites another couple, the Edwards, and their undisciplined daughter to stay at the Herries residence as well. Days turn into weeks and anxiety levels increase as Herries finds her home being weaseled away from her by the unwholesome characters.
It becomes exceedingly obvious that it is a plot by Abbott to take all that Herries owns while she remains a captive in her own home.
For the play, each of the actors wrote backstories for their characters to describe why they said or did certain things.
Shipe said the role reminded her of herself in many ways: generous, sweet, almost to a fault. In her backstory, she wrote about a man she used to date who was poor but loved tea. This is why she kept referencing tea during the production and why she let Abbott in when he asked for a hot cup of tea. Sophomore Caleb Julin said that backstories make it easier to feel the lines that they are saying.
“It’s a way to remember why we are saying these things. And all of our stories overlapped, so we were all active, ongoing parts of the story,” he said.
Julin said he was glad to be back in his typecast role of the villain (Mr. Edwards) after playing the comedic Earnest in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Typecasting refers to assigning a particular actor to a certain type of role repeatedly, such as the damsel, the hero, the villain.
Jones said this play was his favorite type, a psychological thriller. But playing a manipulative man, he was not in his typecast role.
“I am usually someone more adorable, the one who looks nice and knows what is going on. I think this story was all about the idea that people are nicer on the outside but darker in their hearts,” Jones said.
Julin said this was probably the creepiest one he had done. In his backstory he explains that, in a house and situation very similar to Herries’, he had pushed an elderly lady down the staircase, killing her.
