Elizabeth’s Viola

We saw the play “Georama” last night at the Rep. Last year we attended a reading of this same play at the Rep’s series, Ignite! It is a musical. In the mid-1800s, American artist John Banvard created the first georama, a 3,000 foot long scrolling painting celebrating the beauty of the Mississippi River, arguably the first ‘motion picture’. I missed the exhibit of his georama at the Saint Louis Art Museum, a couple of years ago. I think that that exhibit inspired this play. Barvard’s georama was a great success then and once paired with P.T. Barnum became an international one too, but Barvard and Barnum had a love-hate relationship that provided most of the tension in this play. John’s wife Elizabeth and their relationship acted as a counterbalancing influence. It was interesting to see how this play had evolved. For example, in the reading Elizabeth played the viola. In last night’s play the viola had been reduced to just a prop.