"Shipwrecked!" an Epic Outdoor Journey
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On The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's Outdoor Stage arrives an epic play with an equally epic title: “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment—The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself).”
Louis de Rougemont was the pen name for real-life raconteur Henri Louis Grin, who sold serialized stories of his imagined adventures to the British World Wide Magazine in the late 1800s. After he was exposed as a fraud, The World Wide Magazine went on to publish the quote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but De Rougemont is stranger than both."
In 2009, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Marguiles took the tales and re-imagined the 19th Century language and cultural awareness for a modern audience. His version of Louis de Rougemont is therefore a fictionalization of a fictionalization – an excited adventurer who recounts his fantastical journeys of sword fights, flying wombats, and a giant octopus for audiences eager to go along for the ride.
Jersey Arts speaks with actor Bruce Cromer, who plays the title character, and Doug West, director/co-scenic designer.
