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Rehearsals for a Utah production of ‘Men on Boats’ weren’t clicking. Then the director urged the young actresses to ‘have the confidence of a totally mediocre white guy.’

(Todd Collins | Courtesy of the University of Utah Department of Theatre) Cast members of the University of Utah Department of Theatre’s March 2019 production of “Men on Boats.” The play by Jacklyn Backhaus tells the story of John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition to chart the Green and Colorado Rivers through what would become Utah and other states.

The characters prowl the stage. They glare and curse and get in each other’s faces. They stand and sit with their legs wide and they walk hips first.

“Men on Boats” is based on the true story of John Wesley Powell and his crew’s swashbuckling quest to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon in 1869.

But not one man appears on stage. All 10 are played by women.

Like the musical “Hamilton,” the play — being performed by the University of Utah’s Department of Theatre through March 10 — retells history, implicitly questions who gets to tell stories and whose stories are told, and features an inclusive cast.

“The characters in ‘Men on Boats’ were historically cisgender white males,” reads the playwright’s casting notes. “The cast should be made up entirely of people who are not.”

The U. cast members aren’t women playing men by binding their chests or wearing beards, said director Sarah Shippobotham. Instead, the transformation was as much internal as external. They are women who are exuding the boundless confidence of a white man exploring the Western frontier.

“We talked about the notion of taking up space — men take up space more than women do — and what does it feel like to really just be OK” with that, she said.

While society talks about women being equal to men, “we still live in a world that doesn’t function that way. We have a lot of baggage or a lot of inherent feelings about how we operate in the world,” Shippobotham said.

It was an eye-opening — some said even life-changing — lesson on and off the stage for students at both the U. and at Westminster College, which produced “Men on Boats” in October. In interviews, the actors say they walk taller now. They spread out. They apologize less.

“That experience was the most we’ve grown in our lives,” said Mina Sadoon, who played Powell at Westminster and has talked about the changes with her fellow performers. “I feel like I’m more grounded. I don’t feel like I need to look down. I feel like I’m more equal.”

‘Start to make a change’

First produced in 2016 in New York City, “Men on Boats” retells the story of Powell’s expedition traversing the Colorado and Green rivers from Wyoming Territory to the Grand Canyon. It features the real men who accompanied him and is based on Powell’s journals, which playwright Jaclyn Backhaus (who grew up in Arizona) read as a child.

The U.’s production coincides with the 150th anniversary of the adventure. Using a backdrop that evokes redrock canyons, ropes to simulate boat frames and dance-like choreography to mimic near-drownings, the play recounts the men’s yearning for adventure, their infighting and the terrifying thrills and spills on the river.

Utah audiences will be familiar with the scenery, if not the story, of the Civil War veteran’s command of a nine-man crew through present-day Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. The canyons are packed with the names Powell bestowed, from Flaming Gorge to Glen Canyon and even the names of the mountain ranges and rapids in between (including Disaster Falls, after losing a boat during the 1869 trip).

The play pokes fun at that male drive to dominate. In a couple of scenes, the characters Powell and William Dunn (a hunter and trapper) giddily survey the landscape to find things to possess. They say they must follow the “Unwritten Rules for Getting Something Named After You,” including being the “sole discoverer of the thing” and that “no one objects and everyone agrees.”

They brush aside that Native Americans and other white men have traversed the rivers before. “They’ve also probably named all this land already,” says Powell. “And here we are / naming it after ourselves.”

By the end, the viewer wonders why Powell’s name survives and the others are lost to Wikipedia.

“He wasn’t the most equipped person to lead a trip through the Grand Canyon,” said Mary-Helen Pitman, who plays Powell at the U. Yet “most remember John Wesley Powell. He has a lake named after him, and the rest of the crew was forgotten.”

The main female “characters” in the play are the boats: Emma Dean, Kitty Clyde’s Sister and Maid of the Canyon. By casting women in male roles, women’s erasure from history becomes that much more glaring.

“A lot of women were excluded from these adventures and opportunities when they were actually happening at the start of this country,” Pitman said. Theater, she believes, can correct those mistakes: “The biggest and most exciting message of the story is that opportunities are equalizing. We can start to make a change in our country from the way we tell and share stories.”

Mark Fossen, who directed the Westminster play and is the literary adviser for the U.’s production, agreed: “This play is about a reclamation of history. It’s the same project in ‘Hamilton’ about saying, ‘This is a history that used to belong to white men and it really belongs to all of us.’”

‘You’re completely confident’

To get into character, the U. actors went to City Creek Center to observe how men move.

Nadia Sine, who plays boatman O.G. Howland and Ute chief Tsauwiat, watched many men slouch, lean forward, splay out their legs. While the average woman leads with her chest and bounces, men walk close to the ground, she noticed. “It’s like the bold sense of they can do whatever they want. It’s a certain confidence men have.”

To play O.G. Howland, Sine walks with her elbows out and takes large steps. As the Ute chief, she stands erect, her face implacable.

Had the playwright wanted men to play the roles, it would be like watching a historical documentary, Sine said. With women, it’s more entertaining and empowering. “We have as much ability and power to personify these characters as men. It’s another opportunity to embrace that. Men [also] have the capability to play women. It doesn’t have to be drag or cross dress.”

At Westminster, Fossen said rehearsals weren’t firing at first. Then he offered some advice that he was surprised he needed to give in 2019.

“When you are arguing with somebody, don’t back down,” he told the actors. “Don’t apologize. Don’t worry about what everybody things about you. You’re right. You’re completely confident in every action.”

They needed permission, he said, to “have the confidence of a totally mediocre white guy.”

Sadoon, who played Powell, said the advice, and acting like a man, changed her life. Culturally, women are raised to be quiet, timid and shy, she said. She would sneeze in class and apologize. Even on stage, in other performances, she’s been told she’s too loud, too much. But for “Men on Boats,” she said she played big and bold.

“Mark telling us that it was OK to be like that on stage, that made me realize that it’s OK to be like that in person. It’s OK to be loud and obnoxious and what white men could be. What I have to say is just as important as what they say,” Sadoon said.

During the first rehearsal of “Men on Boats,” Sadoon said, she felt like Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet,” meek and mild. More recently, she auditioned for a role in a Shakespeare company. The monologue she chose was from “Titus Andronicus”; she acted the part of a Roman general.

Pitman, who plays Powell at the U., said the experience showed her how often she goes through the world trying to show she’s polite and nonthreatening by talking in a higher octave, being indirect and pulling into her body. And she considers herself forthright and strong.

On stage, “having to take up space and stand tall with my head directly over my spine during confrontations for a full hour and a half is shockingly hard.”

Now, every time she wants to slouch, she questions: Is it because her back hurts, or to make someone else comfortable? When she’s being direct, she wonders: Would it feel rude if she were a man?

Morgan Werder, who plays Dunn in the U. production, said she learned there are no physical rules to gender. A man can swing his hips. A woman can walk with purpose. While playing Dunn has reminded her to spread out when she wants, she said she’s embraced her “femininity” as well.

“It’s just up to me on how I want to take up space in this world on a day-to-day basis. … Masculinity and femininity exist in everyone and it’s just about what we choose to present to the world,” she said.

The beauty of the play, she said, is when gender disappears.

“You just get caught up in the adventure and excitement and the missteps” of the characters. “You’re going to see women on a stage, but you get invested in who they are as people, rather than what they’ve got between their legs."

GET ON THE BOAT

“Men on Boats” by playwright Jaclyn Backhaus reinterprets John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.

When • March 1-3 and 7-9 at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on March 9 and 10 at 2:00 p.m. There is a post-performance discussion March 8 immediately following the 7:30 p.m. performance.

Where • Studio 115 in the University of Utah’s Performing Arts Building, 240 S. 1500 East. Parking is available in the visitor’s lot to the south of the theatre, at Rice-Eccles Stadium or on Presidents Circle.

Tickets • General Admission tickets are $18, U. faculty and staff are $15, U. students are free with UCard and all other students with valid student ID are $8.50. Tickets can be obtained by calling 801-581-7100, online at tickets.utah.edu or at the Performing Arts Box Office, located at Kingsbury Hall.