Triumvirate Artists is proud to present a reading of the play

POUND
By
Sean O’Leary
with Christopher Lloyd as Ezra Pound
​Keir Dullea as Archibald MacLeish
Mia Dillon as Nurse Priscomb
Erin Darke as Mary Polley
Reading will be Monday September 18, 2017 at 7pm at
The Vineyard Theatre 108 East 15th St.
Casting:
McCorkle Casting LTD
Pat McCorkle, CSA/Katja Zarolinski


BACKGROUND"

During World War II the American poet, Ezra Pound, made propaganda broadcasts for Mussolini’s fascist government.  As a result, he was charged with treason.  But, before he could be tried, Pound was judged to be mentally unfit to stand trial and was remanded to the custody of St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital, where he would remain from 1945 until 1958 when the indictment was dismissed and he was released. 
Near the end of his stay, this aggressive and manipulative man, who dominated St. Elizabeths much as he had the literary world in the first half of the 20th century, suddenly retreated into an emotional shell and, eventually, “The Great Silence” – a period of despair and seclusion from which he never fully recovered.  The play, Pound, imagines what might have happened in those last days at St. Elizabeths to irreversibly change the character of Ezra Pound.

SYNOPSIS

At rise the overbearing, 73 year-old Pound is confronted by Mary Polley, a young psychiatrist who aspires to help the man who has been labeled “incurable”.  Pound dismisses her, as he has so many psychiatrists, but when he learns of his imminent release, he experiences an inexplicable dread that drives him to Mary for help.
Mary embarks on a course of treatment that, at first, seems merely peculiar and perhaps justified given the short time in which she has to work.  But, soon her techniques become disturbing, visiting extreme guilt upon Pound for a lifetime of manipulation and abuse.  Then, after reducing Pound to almost childlike vulnerability, Mary reveals her true purpose – revenge against the man whose radio broadcasts during the war demonized Jews and encouraged “a purge” – a purge that consumed, among others, Mary’s parents.
The play Pound challenges us with questions about whether words can be as powerful as actions, whether revenge can be just, and, ultimately, whether sanity is possible when we’re made to see the world as it is and not as we would have it.