But people were excited and Jane and Allan kept working on the script, trimming and tightening. The next performance was in an antiques auction house.
“People were crazy for it. We became aware that it was really good,” Holding says.
Since then Holding and Gurganus have taken the play on the road about 25 times, mostly in eastern North Carolina, with some jaunts into South Carolina and Virginia, always performing for benefits and fundraisers. The props – a rocking chair, bed and rug – all fit in the back of a station wagon.
“We love that home-grown notion of a play and the theater itself, church basements, libraries, sanctuaries – very low tech.”
They’ve staged the play to benefit the restoration of an historic cabin in Southern Pines and for the Chapel Hill Historical Society. In Tryon, the performance will benefit CooperRiis Healing Community in Mill Spring and Asheville.
The performance will be dedicated to the late Tempie Ann Bell Holding, Jane’s sister, a former resident of CooperRiis and LaurelHurst in Columbus.
Holding and Gurganus may have begun modestly, but their play is now published by Samuel French.
“Every year we get a few royalty checks,” Holding said. “Any actress would love this part. It’s huge. Lucy Marsden is all ages and she has an enormous range of expression. She accuses and defends both herself and her husband. She tries to tell everything and to be fair. She is tough and tender and outraged and hilarious and sexy and violent and utterly serious.”
The play tackles “the very complicated life of marriage,” Holding explained. “Lucy hates Captain Marsden and at the same time loves him profoundly. Lucy is grappling with her conscience at the end of her life, looking back over her relationship with her husband – really wanting to reach him – the audience is her jury of peers, her fellow congregants.