Exploring how we remember and why we forget some terrible events but not others, The Collective Theatre's new show Eastland uses storytelling, found objects, and live performance to recreate the events before and after the sudden capsizing of the passenger ship SS Eastland in front of thousands of people in the middle of Chicago.
Below, playwright Jocelyn Clarke introduces his play, inspired by a forgotten tragedy.
"Have you ever heard of a ship called the S.S. Eastland?"
This is the question I have asked hundreds of people over the last two years. The answer is always the same: they never heard of the Eastland or what happened to her. Or if they recognised her name, they still didn't know what happened to her.
On a drizzly morning in July 1915, thousands of people watched the S.S. Eastland turn over in the Chicago river while tied to the Clarke Street dock. 844 passengers, including 21 entire families, died in less than 20 minutes in the middle of the fourth largest city in the United States. More passengers died on the Eastland than on the Lusitania three months earlier or on the Titanic three years earlier. We "know" about the Titanic and the Lusitania because occupy a space in our collective imagination as public memories.
"Theories of the cause of the accident abound, which is the true one has yet to be settled. The man upon whom rests the responsibility for the calamity stands in an unenviable plight. Strict inquiry will be made by a proper authority in due course, and the crop of charges will be sifted. The result will give no consolation to the bereaved and no punishment which may be inflicted on the persons found responsible – we are assuming that this accident was preventable - can be more terrible than the tortures of remorse."
-The Irish Times, Monday 26th July 1915
(Pic: Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty)
The real question should be "why have you never heard of the S.S Eastland?" The Eastland capsized in front of thousands of people in one of the largest cities in America. 500,000 people gathered on the streets and bridges overlooking the site of the disaster in the days after to watch the futile search for survivors. The Eastland Disaster was covered by nearly every newspaper in every language around the world. How do we forget some terrible events within a few years but we still remember others decades afterwards?
With my new play Eastland, I wanted the actors and audiences to build a ship on stage with tables, benches and chairs, which would then capsize without spilling across the stage... An inquest in which audiences would participate, as jurors and witnesses. And to show how the events that led up to the disaster on that warm drizzly morning in July 1915, what happened in the days, months, and years after until the moment the Eastland was… forgotten.
How do we forget some terrible events within a few years but we still remember others decades afterwards?
Two years ago, I asked Anne Bogart, the internationally acclaimed theatre and opera director, if she had ever heard of the Eastland… When I told her about a ship of furniture capsizing on stage, she said she wanted to direct it before I had written a word of the play. We have collaborated before on several different projects in the United States - our musical The Beautiful Lady, with music and lyrics by Elizabeth Swados, opened in New York in May: Eastland will be her first production in Ireland with Irish actors and designers.
We are currently in rehearsals in Dublin where we are inviting people to come to the rehearsal room to help us make a ship with tables, benches and chairs and take part in an inquest – if you would like come along, please contact info@thecollectivetheatre.ie
Eastland previews in the Samuel Beckett Theatre on 30th August - find out more here.
