DIXFIELD – Professional theatrical performers they were not, but the nearly two dozen Dixfield men, women and youths playing roles of the town’s early settlers Saturday put on a good show.

Dubbed “A One-Act, Slightly Historical and Fairly Hysterical Re-Enactment” of Dixfield’s first town meeting on March 12, 1804, playwright and local actress Nancy O. DeMilner’s play lived up to its moniker.

“It was a darling performance,” DeMilner said. “For a lot of these people it was their first time on stage.”

That showed in the blown lines and frequent prompts from DeMilner.

Local businessman Norman Towle Jr. thought it was “cute and interesting.”

Bicentennial Committee member Charlotte Collins agreed.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “Paul Jones was a sketch and Barbara (Arsenault) was so cute.”

Jones played Revolutionary War Lt. John Stockbridge, a teacher who also surveyed much of Maine lands for Massachusetts, while Arsenault, the performance’s hostess, played Ruth Woodworth Park, the wife of Revolutionary War Lt. Caleb Park, a grist mill owner.

“It was a lot of fun to do,” Arsenault said.

“It was very nice to be able to be in it,” said Selectman Montell Kennedy, who played a non-speaking role. “Nancy and Barbara did a wonderful job and the cast did an excellent job. It was an honor to be a member of the cast.”

The play within a play followed the routines of four families as they prepared for the first town meeting, giving a behind-the-scenes insight into the lives of the women while the men conducted the meeting in the background.

It was also a juicier version of the actual men-only event which lasted a mere five minutes, Arsenault said.

“The original town meeting was so short, so I asked Nancy to spice it up,” Arsenault said. “She did a tremendous amount of research on her own.”

DeMilner said the play did not exist in March. For research, she collaborated with the Bicentennial Committee and listened to suggestions from Dixfield’s Historical Society.

“Barbara was afraid it would be a little dry so I made a suggestion and pitched it, (asking) how do we include the women and make what was a fairly short business meeting as interesting today as it was 200 years ago? That’s where the baby came in.

“As people were leaving for the town meeting with the excited wives telling the husbands what to do, Jacob (Newton) didn’t want to leave (his pregnant wife) Patty, so Peter Holman’s wife Mercy Holman stayed with her so the men could go to the meeting,” she added.

In addition to dealing with a baby that would be born during the meeting, unbeknownst to the men until they adjourned, added suspense included the future of a certain black hog.

DeMilner’s objective was to give the story to the audience and hope they followed it.

“The audience got it so I’m thrilled,” she added.

DeMilner said she wrote the play in April and auditioned for it in May.

Despite only four rehearsals, “it really came together well. The people were charming and they all knew each other. They did everything that was asked of them and then some. Some of them even provided their own costuming,” DeMilner said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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