Meagher of the Sword Performs at the Lodge
 | Author:
Nancy Marks
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
The Port Polson Players made history jump off the page Friday night at the Lodge when two of its members, Neal and Karen Lewing, performed the fascinating story of Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced ma’her) for whom Meagher county was named.
The couple was dressed in costumes of the late 1860s when Meagher was the first acting territorial governor of Montana. His story is alive with amazing sadness, strokes of luck and downright danger. Lewing researched the infamous Irishman and wrote the play as well as original songs which he presented on guitar. His wife of 44 years accompanied him on drum, tambourine and rattle.
Meagher was caught by the British, in Ireland, trying to spark an insurrection, was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison on Tasmania, an island country colonized by the British near Australia. He escaped. The story winds its way through the Civil War, then to Montana where he died mysteriously on a boat near Ft. Benton at the age of 44.
Lewing received the Montana Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Award in 2016. Though he graduated from the University of Montana in music, the theater was in his soul. When he met his wife, Karen, at the Ft. Peck theater they began a life in theater together. In 1983 they purchased the Port Polson Theater and have done serious theater with local actors ever since.
During COVID the Lewings wrote a full-length musical about Meagher. The name of the play is ‘No Coward’s Epitaph.’ They will begin performing it with 14 actors chronicling Meagher’s life in story and song. It will be at the Myrna Loy Theater in Helena sometime in 2023, which is Meagher’s 200th birthday. “I could not believe a movie or stage play had not been written about Meagher. His life was so fascinating, I’m thrilled to play Meagher’s wife in the production,” Mrs. Lewing remarked.
Broadwater Community Theater, along with sponsors Missouri Valley Marketing, Goose Bay Glass and Townsend Drug and Spirits arranged for the play at The Lodge.
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