By Kelli Smith 11

For SIUC graduate student Jill Hilderbrant, conveying the emotional quality of Alias Grace is more difficult than the acting itself.

The Speech Communication Department will present Alias Grace, a play adapted from a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, Thursday through Saturday as part of Women’s Safety Week.

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It’s written so beautifully, Hilderbrant, who plays Grace Marks in the show, said. The language and wanting to capture that language the way it should come out and be portrayed to the audience has definitely been difficult.

Alias Grace is based on the true story of Grace Marks, a servant girl in Victorian Canada in the mid-1800s, who was convicted of the murders of her employer and his mistress and sentenced to life in prison.

The show was adapted and will be directed by Elyse Pineau, an SIUC associate professor in speech communication.

The 15-member cast has had about one month to memorize and perform this three-act play, composed mostly of flashbacks revealed by Grace during interviews with a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist was hired to find out the truth about the murders, after a petition was drafted to have Grace released from prison after 15 years of incarceration. Grace claims to have no recollection of the murders.

The play is set in the parlor of the penitentiary’s governor, where the interviews with the psychiatrist take place. As Grace flashes back, people from her memories appear in the background.

Pineau said the play was selected as a Women’s Safety Week event because many of the attitudes toward women remain the same today as they were in the 1800s.

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Attitudes about women who were sexually active, attitudes about women and violence both done to them and by them are certainly contemporary issues, Pineau said. One can surely draw parallels.

Pineau has adapted novels and short stories for the stage for the past 15 years.

I just did the framing of characters, very careful editing and my interpretation of the characters, Pineau said. It’s all Atwood’s language.

Factiod:Alias Grace will be shown at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday in Kleinau Theater in the Communications Building. Tickets are $3 for students and $5 for the general public. For more information call the box office at 564-2291.