Inside A.C.T.

by Allie Moss and Shannon Stockwell Joseph Dougherty’s new play Chester Bailey , starring David Strathairn and Dan Clegg, takes place in a very particular world: a psychiatric hospital on Long Island in the 1940s. Psychiatry back then was very different from what it is now. The play’s Dr. Philip Cotton both reflects and refutes that milieu. The 1940s was a time of transition for psychiatry as a discipline, because advances in the field transformed it from a stigmatized profession to a respectable one. In the United States, many of the psychotherapists at this period started their careers working with World War II veterans suffering from combat fatigue (now called post-traumatic stress disorder). There were two main branches of psychiatric study and treatment during this time—operational psychiatry and Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis (talk therapy). In the 1940s, operational psychiatry was comprised of experimental procedures that were believed to cure patients of mental illness. T...

By Shannon Stockwell Marisa Duchowny (left) and Dan Clegg in A.C.T.'s M.F.A. Program production of Once in a Lifetime  in 2010. Photo by Kevin Berne.  We are thrilled to welcome actor Dan Clegg back to A.C.T., where he will play the titular role in Joseph Dougherty’s Chester Bailey , premiering at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater on May 25. Clegg graduated from the A.C.T. M.F.A. Program in 2011, and he’s delighted to return and have the opportunity to portray this multifaceted and inspiring character. “The first time I read Chester Bailey , I just loved it,” says Clegg. “I thought the writing was excellent, and Chester Bailey is such a great role. The play really stayed with me.” Just after Clegg got out of rehearsal, we spoke to him about his work on Chester Bailey and the challenging questions the play poses.   How have rehearsals been going? Rehearsals have been going well. We had a number of readings before we started, and David [Strathairn] and I had bo...

An Interview with Playwright Joseph Dougherty By Cecilia Padilla  When asked what he thought his play Chester Bailey was about, playwright and television writer Joseph Dougherty responded with a quote from Harold Pinter’s Old Times : “There are things I remember which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place.” This is the undercurrent of Chester Bailey’s vivid imaginings while recovering from a tragic shipyard accident that has left him blind and without the use of his hands. “ But he copes with it through imagination and what he chooses to remember,” says Dougherty. “I believe part of what makes us who we are is a mixture of what we remember and what we imagine.” We had the chance to speak with Dougherty about the mysteries of the play, the imagination, and the fine line between memory and reality.  How did you come up with the premise of Chester Bailey ? I saw a short article in the newspaper about someone who experienced cata...