By STU CLAMPITT
Carmel Community Players (CCP) is staging Shipwrecked, subtitled “The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told By Himself),” for two weekends at the Cat, 245 Veterans Way, Carmel. Opening night is Friday, Aug. 12
Photo provided by Lori Raffel
According to CCP’s website, “The adventurous Louis de Rougemont invites you to hear his amazing story of bravery, survival and celebrity that left nineteenth-century England spellbound. Dare to be whisked away in a story of the high seas, populated by exotic islanders, flying wombats, giant sea turtles and a monstrous man-eating octopus. SHIPWRECKED examines how far we’re willing to blur the line between fact and fiction in order to leave our mark on the world.”
This is a play that doesn’t break the fourth wall – it shatters it. It ignores it. It draws the audience in by having a narrator who speaks directly to them as much as he speaks to other characters on stage, switching from one to the other so seamlessly that you may cease to notice there was supposed to be a separation between you and the story on stage.
Like many other shows, this one was cast two years ago, before the pandemic. Director Lori Raffel had cast Earl Campbell as Louis de Rougemont in 2020, and he is one of only two cast members returning after all this time.
The full cast includes Earl Campbell, Joe Aiello, Vickie Phipps, Margot Everitt, Jayda Glynn, Hannah Janowicz and Tom Smith.
Photo provided by Lori Raffel
During this unseasonably hot summer, practicing in the CCP warehouse was not a good option.
“We tried the warehouse and there’s no air conditioning, so it was torture,” Raffel said. “It’s a very physical play. Everyone moves around a lot.”
Raffel works at PrimeLife Enrichment and said the business allowed her to use space in its facility for rehearsals so the cast could be comfortable and focus on the work instead of dealing with the heat.
Raffel was involved in the play when she worked at the Phoenix a decade ago.
“I volunteered to work every house because I loved the play so much,” Raffel said. “I watched it every single night and I thought if I every had a chance I was going to do it. It’s a little bit of an undertaking and you have to have someone who can handle the Louis de Rougemont part.”
Louis de Rougemont’s character is on stage in every scene and, according to Raffel, there is not a page in the script without lines for him.
“I presented it to the board, but it’s hard to explain,” Raffel said. “It is a story and Louis was a real person. He went on travels. He came back and wrote about these stories, and some of the things didn’t check out. The experts, when he came back to London, tore him apart and said they didn’t feel like it was embellishing, they felt like it was lying. It is the age-old, ‘let’s build someone up so we can tear them down,’ which I think the press does all the time, but mostly people do all the time.”
Raffel said de Rougemont went from being one of the richest men in London to begging on the street and offering stories for a single penny.
“This is the story of if Louis had taken his show on the road,” Raffel said. “This play is for everyone. I think everyone will see part of themselves in Louis.”
Go to CarmelPlayers.org or call (317) 815-9387 for tickets.