Theater Review: ‘Ellis Island Stories’ relives immigrant experiences

By Joseph Hurley

ELLIS ISLAND STORIES, at the Main Building, Ellis Island Immigration Museum Theater 3, Hypothetical Theatre Company and the National Park Service. Through Nov. 1.

Ellis Island seems to float in the mainly tranquil waters of New York Harbor like an opiated vision of Versailles, which, in fact, provided much of the design inspiration when the major buildings were erected in 1892.

Now operated by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Monument of the National Park Service, in conjunction with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, the island’s primary structure, extensively refurbished in 1992, houses the vast Ellis Island Immigration Museum, occupying something in excess of 200,000 feet of floor space.

In two of the museum’s three theaters a 30-minute film, "Island of Hope, Island of Tears," narrated by actor Gene Hackman, is projected on a staggered schedule. In one theater the film is accompanied by a brief ranger talk and in the other by itself.

In the remaining space, a 60-seat theater known as Theater 3, an energetic new acting ensemble called the Hypothetical Theatre Company, composed for the most part of young, relatively unseasoned performers, brings the immigrant experience to life six times a day with an immediacy and a vibrancy few films could ever achieve.

The 25-minute, 4-character documentary stageplay, "Ellis Island Stories," inspired by the museum’s oral history project and written by Amy Feinberg and Kevin Cornelius, with Feinberg acting as director, employs a company of 13 to 15 actors, seven to nine of whom may be found on Ellis Island on any given day on a rotating basis which allows for vacations and ordinary days off, since the museum is open every day of the year except Christmas.

"Ellis Island Stories" is performed every hour on the half-hour, with the first show scheduled for 11:30 a.m. and the last one beginning at 4:30 p.m. through the peak summer season.

In addition, the Hypothetical Theatre Company actors do a number of one-performer shows, all linked, in one way or another, to the immigrant experience, or the stories of individuals who passed through the facility between Jan. 1, 1892 and Nov. 29, 1954, the date on which the government closed Ellis Island down for good. The pace of activity at the immigration center during the years rose and fell in response to world conditions, and, during World Wars I and II, of course, no "new Americans" were processed, since immigration was curtailed entirely for the duration.

Among the solo sidebars is one in which actress Elizabeth Purcell plays Annie Moore, the Cork teenager who was officially the first person admitted to Ellis Island on its opening day, January 1, 1892, which happened to be her 15th birthday.

Other brief sidebars, averaging about 12 minutes each in length, include two on different aspects of the Titanic, in response to the enormous interest the story is enjoying at the moment, another on the early life of songwriter Irving Berlin, yet another telling the story of Arthur Tracy, an entertainer known as "the street singer," and one bearing the title, "The Story of a Stowaway."

Main event

The main theatrical event, "Ellis Island Stories," finds three new arrivals and one immigration official telling their stories to the generally full houses who have assembled in the little theater to hear them.

The script calls for four performance slots, informally referred to as "A," "B," "C," and "D." All of the facts are real and accurate, drawn from the Immigration Museum’s oral history project, which has by now acquired more than 1,700 interviews, even one told in the words of the individual man or woman who lived the story.

The four "characters" portrayed by whichever actors happen to be taking part in any particular running of the show are composites, and bear names which aren’t real, except in the case of two "immigrants" who bear the actual names of ancestors of the actors playing the roles.

The script remains the same show to show, but a story told by a young "Italian" female at 11:30 may be heard in the voice of a male actor playing a middle aged German immigrant a couple of performances later in the day.

In this respect, the script provided by Feinberg and Cornelius resembles those early Ford Motor Car Company vehicles whose manuals boasted of "interchangeable parts."

On a recent Saturday, all six shows appeared to be at or near capacity in terms of their audiences, which could also be said of the sidebar attractions, scattered informally through the day’s schedule.

In all cases, audience concentration appeared to be intense, extending even to the youngest members of each group of observers, children who might easily have been forgiven had their attention wavered during the delivery of some reasonably serious material.

Among the conventions of "Ellis Island Stories" is the fact that the immigration official is always played by a male, since, in the installation’s history, the jobs were always filled by men.

A sturdy young German talks of his ability to operate farm machinery. A girl from a Calabrian village reveals her hopes of making a new life with the aid of her skill at embroidery. A Polish boy recalls the pain he felt when he was detained for questioning at Ellis Island, unable to rush into the arms of his mother, an earlier arrival who had come to the center in hopes of welcoming him.

These are American stories, eloquently brought to life by Ray Collins, Cheryl Belkin, Jamey McGaugh and Margaret A. Flanagan, who happened to be in the day’s first show, and David Greenwood, Joe MacDougall, James Maggard, Susan Stein and Brigid Herold, who joined them and replaced them as the day’s schedule of mix-and-match performances continued toward evening and the departure of the day’s final boat back to Battery Park, leaving the Ellis Island dock at 7 p.m.

It’s impossible, after a visit to Ellis Island, not to be aware of the degree to which the faces in the audiences for "Ellis Island Stories" seem to mirror aspects of the stories the actors are telling them. These are, obviously, "new Americans" and visitors who are perhaps thinking of joining them, listening with rapt attention to the real life experiences of men and women who journeyed to Ellis Island as the last century turned, and not so very long afterward.

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Ellis Island may be reached by the Circle Line-Statue of Liberty Ferry which leaves from Battery Park in New York and Liberty State Park in New Jersey. For ticket rates and schedule information, call (212) 269-5755.

Annie’s Moore’s journey

Annie Moore’s mother and father had come to America from County Cork in 1890, leaving the young girl, who was then 12, to live with relatives and look after her younger brothers, Anthony and Philip.

Annie was 14 when word came for them to come to America, and her brothers were 11 and seven, respectively.

They sailed from the Irish port of Queenstown, now called Cobh, on a liner that took 10 days to make the trip to America, pausing in New York Harbor so that passengers could be transferred to the John E. Moore, a transfer boat better able to navigate its way to the docks at Ellis Island.

The day that Annie Moore arrived at Ellis Island was January 1, 1892, and it was the official opening day of the new immigration facility.

In her brief solo performance as Annie Moore, before a rapt audience of about 40 viewers in an informal area not far from Theater 3, actress Elizabeth Purcell recounted exactly how it came about that the youngster from Cork became the very first immigrant processed at Ellis Island.

"There was a German man with a scarf around his neck in front of her," she said, "and when he stepped forward, someone grabbed the scarf from behind, held him back and said ‘Ladies first, please.’"

So Annie Moore stepped from the transfer boat and onto Ellis Island and became the facility’s very first client. That day, January 1, 1892, was also her 15th birthday.

A statue of Annie Moore, the work of sculptor Jeanne Rynhart, stands in an upstairs area of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Among the many highlights of a trip to Ellis Island, this simple bronze image of a young Irish girl who crossed an ocean in search of a new life is one which never fails to attract and hold the attention of the visitors who move through the halls and galleries of Ellis Island.