by Patrick White
The ‘62 Center for Theatre and Dance on the Williams College campus in Williamstown is thankfully hosting performances this summer by much heralded, local theatre companies as Barrington Stage, Berkshire Theatre Group, Hubbard Hall and WAM Theatre among others while the Williamstown Theatre Festival takes a pause.
I am most grateful for them keeping this exquisite facility active this summer as it afforded me the opportunity to see Chester Theatre Company’s remount of A Hundred Words for Snow from last year starring the magnetic and celestial Hero Marguerite (who won last year’s Berkie for Outstanding Actress for this performance) impeccably directed by CTC co-artistic director Michelle Ong-Hendrick.
A Hundred Words for Snow by Tatty Hennessy is a 2013 British one woman adventure story play about grief. 15 year old Rory (her full name is Aurora which she is embarrassed about at the top of the play and embraces by the end) has just lost her father after a car accidentally hit him on the way home from school is snooping around his office, “but it’s not really snooping if he’s dead is it?” She discovers that her Geography teacher father was planning a trip to the North Pole with her.
Rory picks up her father’s ashes, her mother’s credit card and her passport and heads out on a life changing journey. Hero is a fully engaging personality who draws you into Rory’s precocious truth telling. She levels with the audience and herself while embarking on this quixotic trip. (I could swear she looked directly into my eyes after a bark of my laughter). We worry for her safety but cheer her on from the sidelines.
The Olivier nominated Hennessy has done her homework and filled the play with information about the five North Poles (geographic, magnetic, geomagnetic, celestial and the North Pole of inaccessibility), “beardy” explorers of the past (Peary & Henson among others), takes you convincingly to the streets of Svalbard, the Northern most town in the world between Norway and the Pole, and deflates the myth of the Inuit having a hundred words for snow. She also exposes the racist original of the word Eskimo; meaning eater of raw fish. All of this is just to say there’s more than just one young woman’s voyage.
She meets and interacts with other characters and Hero plays the scenes simply and convincingly with herself. She is also her own stage crew as she moves a table, desk, chair, ladder and curtains to create myriad locations simply and jaw dropping theatrically. Boats appear, helicopters, planes, frozen roads and barren tundra magically are evoked thanks to scenic design by Jeremy Winchester and the brilliant physical life of Hero Marguerite’s playing. Wonderfully effective lighting designed by Margo Caddell, costumes by Stefanos Zogopoulos and sound design and original composition by Raphael Hendrick-Baker.
It does not short change the depth of Rory’s loss. She imitates her father clawing the air in front of him. This was his embodiment of awkward paws. She frequently shares her experiences with the urn of ashes and the bond with the container is palpable. There are no pauses in the play as it hurtles into the cold but there are reflections “Difficult is what takes a little while. The impossible takes a little longer.”
The play is teeming with life whether Rory is suffering from hunger pangs or savoring salty chips, choking on her first aquavit, shaking with cold, staring at the ceiling after her first sexual encounter or wrapped in her mother’s embrace; the senses are working overtime in this opus. Marguerite Hero is an agile actor and communicates powerfully with her body whether she is climbing, running, moving furniture or dancing with abandon in a nightclub.
I can not recommend this play and performance more. It has everything you want from great theatre: an audacious premise carried off with surprising thrills, intimately told with surefire theatricality and a smashing performance at its center which will excite you and move you to tears. At a time when most standing ovations can’t last until the cast has cleared the stage, Wednesday afternoon’s went on for a full minute seeking in gratitude to draw Hero back.
The Chester Theatre Company production of A Hundred Words for Snow by Tatty Hennessy, directed by Michelle Ong-Hendrick, presented at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College, June 23-27, 2026. CAST: Hero Marguerite as Rory. CREATIVE TEAM: Scenic designer Jeremy Winchester, costume designer Stefanos Zogopoulos, sound design and original composition by Raphael Hendrick-Baker, stage manager Leanna Niesen.
The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College is located at 1000 Main Street in Williamstown MA. Tickets are managed by the Chester Theatre Company box office, info@chestertheatre.org or (413) 354-7771. Use this link to BUY TICKETS.