Hatfield McCoy Feud Comes to Life Again via Play
Posted: Thursday, July 31, 2014 5:00 am
Mingo Messenger photo by Bruce Justice
Hatfield McCoy Feud comes to life again via play
This year’s first performance of “Blood Song: The Story of the Hatfields and the McCoys” was held Friday evening at the Hatfield McCoy Park Outdoor Theater in McCarr, Ky. The play will run over the next three weekends.
MCCARR, Ky. — The attire was circa late 19th Century. The cacophony of both peacemaking and combatant voices hung heavily in the already burdened summer air.
Even the disharmony of gunfire was uncannily real and unnerving. There was a cold, hard reality to it all.
If those who happened to be passing through one of the most active areas of the infamous Hatfield McCoy Feud over the weekend hadn’t known better they might have thought that they had suddenly been transported back in time and positioned squarely in the middle of the world-renowned family conflict. That is, if they hadn’t known better.
But they did know better. And what they knew was what they were seeing and what they were hearing at that moment was indeed part of the present —l ocal actors giving their first performance in this year’s production of “Blood Song: The Story of the Hatfields and the McCoys.”
The play, a meticulous account of the feud which places an emphasis on the conflict’s minor characters, opened for its second season Friday evening at the Hatfield McCoy Park Outdoor Theater in McCarr. The production is scheduled for 10 more performances over the next three weekends.
Chris Coleman, chairman of the Hatfield McCoy Arts Council, said the best part of the play for everyone involved is that it is far closer to the actual events and characters of the feud than any previous production, either on film or on the stage, that’s been attempted.
“After the History Channel came out with their mini-series last year, I think everyone who knows anything about (the actual feud) knows the television show had more than its share of inaccuracies,” Coleman said. “What we wanted to do was put together a play that would be performed close to home by local actors and try to honestly portray the feud as closely to reality as possible. We think we accomplished that accuracy and have a play that the descendants of the participating families can really be proud of.”
Coleman said the play was written by Chelsea Marcantel, who is professional playwright in Abington (sic), Va., and whose work was already familiar to the Arts Council through its affiliation with the Barter Theater there. Ensuring the production’s historical accuracy, he added, was historian for the Arts Council, Betty Howard.
Coleman said the uniqueness about the play is the fact that Marcantel focused more on the minor characters of the feud, who beforehand were thoroughly researched and brought out of historical obscurity by Howard.
“In most if not all the other accounts of the feud, the focus is always on the Hatfield and McCoy patriarchs, but the feud was made up of a lot of people,” he said. “Those minor characters and their roles in the feud that are brought out in detail in this play give the audience a sense of the enormity of the conflict and the large number of people who were actually involved.”
Stephanie Richards, Pike County Extension agent for Fine Arts, said the theater and accompanying play in McCarr represent one of three important cultural event centers in the county.
“Of course we want to represent the history, but the goal of the Pike County Extension for Fine Arts is to have cultural event centers in each major area of the county,” she said. “In the southern region we have the Artist Collaborative Theater, and in Pikeville there is a tremendous amount going on with the arts and tourism. The theater here is our major project on the north side between Belfry and Phelps.”
Like Coleman, Richards said the primary goal set early on for the production at McCarr was to be historically accurate — which involved finding equilibrium between the perspectives of the surviving families and ensuring that the drama was also entertaining.
“I think we’ve managed this delicate balancing act, and we’ve done it with local talent,” she said. “More than 70 percent of our cast is from the McCarr area, with many of these being direct descendants of one of the families or other participants in the feud.”
Richards said overall response to the play has been good, to-date having had more than 2,000 local and out-of-town visitors. She said one group, direct descendants of one of the feud’s participating families, came from Hawaii last year specifically to see the production.
“The descendants of the Phillips family traveled here just to see the show,” she said. “So in our first season we had an economic impact by bringing in tourists from Hawaii, and from a local viewpoint that’s really impressive and really important.”
Bryan Ratliff, who plays the uncle of “Devil Anse” Hatfield, Jim Vance, not only has been a member of the cast since its inception but also is a member of the Arts Council, having been elected to that position in August, 2013.
Ratliff said the play is the realization of 13 years hard work on the parts of many people.
“Betty (Howard) came to me in 2000 with character monologues of different people who were in the feud, and ultimately several others and I performed these at different feud sites over the years during the Hatfield McCoy Reunion,” he said. “We always thought we needed a play, but there was a lot of difficulty getting people to help put it together.
“But with the help of (Dist. 5 Magistrate) Hilman Dotson and Judge (Wayne T.) Rutherford and the development of the Arts Council, the monologues performed before just at the sites eventually went to the play here in McCarr, and that’s been really gratifying for a lot of us. I’m just really grateful and happy to be a part of it.”
Dist. 6 Magistrate-elect Bobby Varney who this year is debuting in the play and has three roles — Wall “Valentine” Hatfield, Perry Cline, and Leck Hatfield — admitted that while he often has his doubts about his own acting prowess, so far he is more than just a little impressed by his fellow cast members.
“For one thing this is a pretty factual play, and the fact that these really young people pull it off with the kind of professionalism they do never ceases to amaze me,” he said. “I might sometimes flub my lines, but they never do. They’re really good, and I’m just so happy and honored I’m getting the opportunity to be involved in it with them.”
