THE DEATH AND LIFE OF WILLIAM BORN ADELIN Will Be Performed at EXIT Theatre Next Month

"The Death and Life of William Born Adelin" - the fourth monologue by Stuart Bousel in his Anarchy Quartet about the period of English history known as The Anarchy - features Kyle McReddie as the Crown Prince William Adelin, doomed by a premature death in a shipwreck to an eternity on a rock in the middle of the English Channel. "Death and Life," a meditation on coming to peace with the sum of our existence in the face of absolute oblivion, will be performed before an invited live audience at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco Thursday, December 16, 2021 @7PM (Pacific Time) while simultaneously being live streamed on EXIT Theatre's YouTube channel and Facebook page at www.youtube.com/exittheatre/ and www.facebook.com/exittheatresf.

William Aetheling (1103-1120), who went by the affectionate title of "Adelin", was the son of Henry the First of England and Matilda of Scotland, the grandson of William the Conqueror, and brother to the Empress Matilda. The crown prince of England, he was married to Matilda of Anjou in 1119 at the age of 16 and on track to inherit a kingdom on both sides of the English Channel when in the autumn of 1120 he died in a shipwreck while crossing from Normandy to England. Popular history maintains that Adelin had actually made it to a lifeboat and would have survived the tragedy if he hadn't gone back to rescue his half-sister, Matilda, who he heard calling for help. The boat was swarmed by the panicking passengers and capsized, taking Adelin and everyone else down with him. Adelin's death left a hole in the line of succession and the empty throne would be fought over by the Empress Matilda and his cousin, Stephen of Blois, for almost two decades. This time, known as "The Anarchy" in England, would only finally be resolved by the ascension to the throne of Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, founders of the dynasty that would carry England into the modern world.

This last chapter of the Anarchy Quartet imagines Adelin in contemporary times (or is it the future?) observing the world from his perch on the rock that caused the shipwreck. Caught between life and death for over 900 years, he shares his thoughts and theories around the true nature of mortality and imparts the tiny piece of the Divine Plan that he believes he's been a part of, before allowing himself to fade into the end. Or is it the beginning?

Of his play about Adelin, author Stuart Bousel writes, "I wanted to end the Anarchy Quartet where the Anarchy itself began- on a cold rough pass of water now easily crossed every day, but once a formidable challenged to the people who claimed both sides of it as their kingdom and would spend several hundred years trying to make that work, at tremendous cost to themselves and others. Adelin himself is, in my mind, the first high profile collateral damage in The Anarchy and all that follows, from the 100 Years War to World War Two and we're not done yet. Probably. Nor, of course, was Adelin truly the first. But he provides an excellent window into exploring the beautiful folly of being Human, namely thinking what we do Matters and is so Important. Of course, it does matter, we do matter, and our actions often have impact far beyond our own lives, but in the Grand Scheme of Things... who can say? Nobody. And at some point, each of us, as individuals, must make peace with that. And hopefully use it to inspire us to do what we can with the time we have, in a story that is always expanding and which, without us, wouldn't be the same."

Returning Director Nick Trengove adds: "What a gift it has been to bring this cycle to life with Stuart, these incredibly talented actors, and the excellent people at the EXIT Theatre. As I've worked with these monologues and these characters, I've come to think of each of them as cocoons -- snapshots of someone waiting to become something else, and all the fears and hopes contained in those moments. And if we listen close enough, we'll hear them speaking across centuries directly to us, to our moment. That even in our own in-between moments, we are capable of so much: fear and self-doubt, of course, but of stronger things, too -- the perseverance of the Empress Matilda, the self-acceptance of King Stephen, the optimism of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and, hopefully, eventually, the peace and perspective of William Adelin."

Actor Kyle McReddie says of his role, "Adelin is a lone figure in the dark. Not a spark or a bright beacon, but a deep darkness that draws you in as you seek truths about isolation, how we are remembered, and how to enjoy life's little moments of pause."

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