Arwen Anderson knew that playing the role of Libby in Lydia Stryk’s An Accident at the Magic Theatre would be challenging, but what the trapeze artist wasn’t prepared for was how mentally draining lying in bed for much of the 80-minute play would be.
“I knew it was going to be difficult first half an hour to only act using my body from the neck up,” she said. “But it’s basically the exact opposite from what I had anticipated. I’m more exhausted from lying in that bed than anything I’ve ever done --– theater, dance or circus-related. The last two weeks I haven’t been able to go in and train. I’ve got nothing. I feel like the bed really sucks my life force.”
The only other actor in the play is Tim Kniffin, who plays Anton, a man who hit Libby with his car in a grocery store parking lot. Anton, whose life has been forever changed by the accident, like Libby’s, keeps visiting her in the hospital.
Anderson says when she read the script, she was struck by Libby’s sense of humor, her spunkiness and how she responds to surviving a horrible accident .
“She’s a fighter. She’s tough, and she’s really spirited,” she says. “A lot of people would fall into depression in her situation. She is angry, and some people could let that rip them apart, but she lets that fuel her.”
Anderson says that everyone involved in the play—Stryk, director Rob Melrose, and the artistic director of the Magic, Loretta Greco, said to explore the rage that a person would feel in this situation.
“Rob and Lydia and Loretta all really wanted to make sure Tim and I were fearless and took it as far in any direction that we needed to,” she said.
Stryk experienced the process of recovery after being run over on her bike. Anderson, who commutes by bike and motorcycle, said the play makes her think how quickly everything can change.
“It definitely drives home in a real and palpable way what it would be like if something happened,” she said. "Everything can change in the blink of an eye. In the circus I’ve seen things happen. I’ve seen people fall on their heads. Sometimes it’s not quite so dramatic. You twist the wrong way and something horrible happens to your shoulder, and you’re out for six months or a year.”
In spite of the heavy issues raised, Anderson is glad that audiences recognize the humor in An Accident.
“Last night we had an audience who really got it was OK to laugh from the first moment,” she says. “They got that here’s someone with a sharp tongue and an ironic sense of humor.”
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