One ‘Giant’ hoax
Flock Theatre is performing a new play from local writer Charles Traeger this month at the Mitchell College Red Barn.
The play’s title, “The Night the Cardiff Giant Sang Rossini on the Lawn,” accurately reflects the basic underpinnings of the plotline.
But if you aren’t familiar with the history: the Cardiff Giant was one of the great hoaxes in America.
The hoax happened in the mid-1800s and was perpetrated by George Hull. He was an atheist who was worked up after having an argument with a revivalist preacher who believed in a literal reading of a Bible passage that there were once giants on Earth.
Hull, who was living in Binghamton, N.Y., commissioned the creation of the 10-foottall stone figure and then buried it. He hired workers to dig a well and “discover” this petrified man. Hull publicized the figure as one of the real, preserved giants mentioned in the Old Testament. He created a sideshow of sorts, charging people admission to see the giant.
Traeger uses that as a jumping-off point for his story. In “Cardiff Giant,” the local police arrest a guy who says his name is George Hull. He also says that he snuck into the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown (where Hull’s Cardiff Giant is currently displayed), and the Giant sang a William Tell aria to him. The cop, a reporter and a psychiatrist have a back-and-forth with Hull.
This show is an “exploration of the concept of a hoax,” according to Flock, and Derron Wood directs the play. The cast includes Eric Michaelian, Brandon Tyler, Madeleine Dauer, Suzanne McCormack and Ed Phillips. —
Mitchell College Red Barn, 629 Montauk Ave., New London; runs Feb. 7-23; 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; $20 adults, $15 students, seniors, active military; flocktheatre.org/cardiff.