Will the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding conflict ever go away? Well, if this article were being printed in 1994, the answer would seem to be "no" to any American with a television. But the media spectacle that had the whole nation talking in 1994 has all but subsided.
Now the dueling figure skaters are back, and this time, they're singing. Tufts music graduate student Abigail Al-Doory is largely responsible.
With writer Elizabeth Searle, Al-Doory wrote "Tonya & Nancy: The Opera" as her Master's thesis. The show will premiere tomorrow, May 2, with two performances at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the American Repertory Theatre's Zero Arrow Theatre in Harvard Square.
"Tonya & Nancy" took Searle and Al-Doory about two years to complete. At first, Searle did not know how to approach the subject matter. She first attempted to write the show in a chronological fashion starting with each woman's childhood. When that approach proved unsuccessful, Al-Doory suggested using flashbacks to move the story along.
Searle, who had written a novella involving the Kerrigan-Harding feud published in 2001, used newspaper headlines as inspiration for the show. In fact, the choruses of nearly all the songs in the 40-minute show are made up entirely of old headlines.
In this way, audiences see the spectacle from the standpoint of the news audiences in 1994, when Kerrigan's knee was clubbed just a month before the Winter Olympics and Harding was thought (and later proven) to be in cahoots with the assailant.
The show's director, Meron Langsner, insists that both women are portrayed sympathetically, though he does note the violent nature of the show. A former teacher of stage combat at Boston University, Langsner made use of his expertise in the field to choreograph some of the more violent scenes depicting the assault on Kerrigan.
Al-Doory explains that she wanted to use "music to tell the story." The whole event and its unraveling in the media was so melodramatic, said "Tonya and Nancy"'s assistant director, senior Jess Fisch, that it is appropriate that the music for the show was written as an opera - a dramatic medium.
Al-Doory and Searle agree that their style of writing is both "dark and perky," which explains why they describe "Tonya & Nancy" as darkly comedic.
Fisch played Matt Damon this year in "Matt and Ben" a play about Damon and writing partner Ben Affleck before their big break. She describes "Matt and Ben" as "more of an absurdist comedy" where as "Tonya & Nancy" is more of "an interesting interpretation of a media circus."
"Tonya & Nancy" emerges at an interesting time in American culture. It seems pop culture icons are being turned into high culture icons with increased frequency. Evidence of this includes the existence of the recent opera about the ringmaster himself, Jerry Springer.
Al-Doory says of her show and this budding new genre of theater: "It is contemporary opera that fits with a short attention span culture."
Professionals mostly staff the show, with some Tufts undergraduates participating in smaller roles. The leads, Nancy and Tonya, are professionals from Germany and New York respectively. Langsner, a doctoral student in Tufts' Department of Drama and Dance, comes to the show with years of experience under his belt. Fisch points out that Tufts students who are working on the show have been given a unique opportunity to work in such a professional setting.
Though the show has not yet been performed, it has already become something of a media phenomenon. News of the show was picked up by entertainment and sports wires this fall and articles about "Tonya & Nancy" have already been printed in newspapers like The Boston Globe and USA TODAY, among others. Says Fisch, ESPN Magazine is "sending a representative to inquire about the show." Additionally, NPR will cover the show on a local broadcast.
"Attention given to this is amazingly disproportionate for a master's thesis," said Langsner. Fisch concurs: "This is more press than I've ever heard of a show being put on in Boston, let alone at a university."
