LOVE ON A SUMMER’S EVENING
America’s Romeo and Juliet comes to The Park Theatre
One of the most widely repeated and recreated American love stories comes to The Park Theatre
this week on Thursday, August 12 at the Jaffrey Woman’s Club as one of the Theatre’s free
Summer Movie Nights. Roseanna McCoy’s story, told by Alberta Hannum in her novel of the
same name, was the real life young girl caught in the middle of the Hatfield-McCoy feud in the hills
of West Virginia nearly one hundred-fifty years ago. Her elopement with Johnse Hatfield in 1880
served to further fuel the flames of the deadly mountain feud and is a story often referred to as
America’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Even today, more than a century later, Roseanna’s life and that of
her kinsmen form the compelling center for books and films, as well as an Arts and Entertainment
TV "Biography" feature. It is one in a horde of retellings of her love - from major movies and love
songs to old texts and a storybook cassette, many with widely varying versions of dates, names,
times and what actually occurred.
Set in the late 19th-century, the saga of the Hatfield-McCoy feud is brought to life in Samuel
Goldwyn's 1949 version of Roseanna McCoy, where Oscar-winner Lee Garmes’ cinematography
captures the mysticism of West Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains. Newcomer Joan Evans stars as
the title character; Farley Granger is her true love, Johnse. Opposing patriarchs, Devil Anse
Hatfield and Old Randall McCoy, are vividly realized by Charles Bickford and Raymond Massey.
Doors at the Jaffrey Woman’s Club open at 6:30. Admission is free and the public is invited. The
film begins at 7 pm and popcorn, candy and drinks are available. The final film in The Park
Theatre’s free Summer Movie Nights is Airplane! shown next week on August 19 at 7 pm at the
Jaffrey Woman’s Club.
The Park Theatre’s 2010 Season is the result of the Theatre’s collaboration with the Jaffrey
Women’s Club and numerous performing artists throughout the region that intend to mount their
productions in the reopened Park Theater. Actors’ Circle Theatre presents “The Merry Wives of
Windsor” on August 14-15th at Depot Square Park in Peterborough. Admission is free and the
shows start at 5 pm. Monadnock Music presents a free Summer Concert at the Cathedral of the
Pines in Rindge on August 27 at 7:30 pm.
