Presented in collaboration with the Mostly Medieval Theatre Festival and the International Congress on Medieval Studies, WMU Theatre will premiere an ambitious new adaptation of the 13th-century narrative poemThe Book of Silence at this year’s Medieval Congress, May 9 - 25. The production, a collaboration between director and co-author Lofty Durham and co-author and medieval studies scholar Wally Cornell, will bring contemporary relevance to an 800-year-old text.
“The play is a staging of an ancient work, but we’ve adapted it for modern audiences,” says Durham. “It’s about a knight, assigned female at birth, who is raised as a boy due to restrictive inheritance laws. It’s a powerful story about identity and self-discovery.”
Cornell, a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and co-author of the adaptation, explains the broader context of the work. “The Book of Silence challenges long-standing ideas about gender and identity,” he said. “It shows that even in the Middle Ages, people were questioning societal norms.”
The production, starring Western Michigan University senior Frankie Braker in the lead role, aims to bridge the medieval and the modern. “It’s been a life-changing process,” said Braker, a transgender actor. “I get to be in a story that reflects my experience, and that’s rare.”
Performances will be held at the Gilmore Theater Complex’s Williams Theatre. Tickets and further details can be found at the WMU Theatre website.
“We’ve worked hard to create something unique,” said Durham. “It’s both a personal journey and a piece of living history.”
