30 Days of NYMF: A Connection to History

A CONNECTION TO HISTORY
by Frank Evans (lyricist) and Christina Morrell (actress) in Back Home

Every so often, there's a special connection forged between an actor and a part.  When this occurs, there's a part of history that comes to the stage, and makes musical theatre, an art form usually cast off as frivolous and implausible, that much more real.  Christina Morrell plays a British War Bride, Alice, in Back Home, The War Brides Musical.  Her maternal grandmother was a British War Bride.  Christina writes:

"My grandmother - Kathleen met my grandfather – Larry in a pub in Bromsgrove, England, during the war. My grandmother lived there and my grandfather was stationed there. They married in 1944 when she was 17 or 18 and he was 26. She had her first daughter, Kathryn, that same year. When the war was over, Larry went home to America and she didn't come over until two years later. She was transported on a Navy ship, The President Tyler, along with two-year old Kathryn, who fell ill during the 11 day voyage.  Kathleen remembers "the trip over was miserable."  The ship was outfitted for soldiers and sailors and was anything but comfortable. Many of the children became sick on board with dysentery and two babies died on the journey.

When she got off the ship and grandpa met her at the dock, he seemed like a different man. When she met him he was a soldier wearing a uniform and when she arrived here, he was in civilian cloths and unemployed. Things got off to a rocky start. She was in a new country with a man who was practically a stranger. My grandfather had been a different man when he was in England – happy, playful and carefree, but back home in the US - he was struggling to make a living and had a huge weight on his shoulders.  Kathleen remembers that her GI husband did not mislead her: "He didn't tell me any fairy tales."  But the marriage did not work out and grandma ended up moving back to the UK.

I play a War Bride named Alice, whose fate was even worse that my grandma's.  Alice's husband did not meet her arriving ship. The US Government put her up at the Aberdeen Hotel on Eighth Avenue in New York until she returned to her homeland."

Christina's grandmother's story is one of the many that make this musical special.  There are other brides in the musical who have better outcomes than hers, but you'll have to see the show to find out what happens to them!