Or maybe “Really Cold Case.” Until then, investigation of the mysterious demise of Meriwether Lewis will best be left to David Jolles, who's spent years bringing the famous explorer back to life.
Jolles debuted his production, “The Last Day in the Life of Meriwether Lewis,” on Thursday night in the Lolo Community Center. While most of his audience were self-professed “Clarkies” - dedicated to the history of Lewis and Clark's quest across the Louisiana Purchase - the facts about that last day are neither well-known nor reliable.
Lewis looked headed for even greater acclaim. He was appointed governor of Northern Louisiana Territory, and appeared on the fast track to become the next Virginia-based candidate for president, following Jefferson and James Madison.
All that collapsed at a roadside boarding house in Tennessee on Oct. 11, 1809. Jolles dug up everything he could find about the death except Lewis' own body, and he's campaigning hard for that, too. In the meantime, he has used the format of a one-man show to present his theory.
“The problem with history is we're always ahead of the story,” he said after Thursday's premiere. “We know how it's going to end, so there's no suspense. But here, there's no evidence how it ended - nothing. So I can tell it in a way that I can stay ahead of you.”
Jolles appeared in the formal dress of an 18th-century gentleman, in a setting lit only by candles. After a poetic preamble as Lewis' ghost, Jolles took a schizophrenic turn as both prosecutor and defense counsel in a court inquiry on the cause of his own death.
He stretched out the theater space by drafting audience members as trial witnesses. While they were only asked to say “yes” or “no” to Lewis' questions, the gambit added some unpredictability to the show. Thursday night's audience included Ritchie Doyle, who played Clark in the two-man show he and Jolles developed during the run-up to the Corps of Discovery's bicentennial.
Doyle looked appropriately queasy when confronted by Clark's dismissive attitude toward his old friend. A couple of times, Jolles had to remind his witnesses they were testifying under oath, albeit an oath sworn on a copy of “Lewis and Clark for Dummies.”
The questions went back and forth like a tennis volley for most of the performance. For every bit of conclusive testimony a witness delivered, Jolles had another historical record to undermine it. The competing theories of murder and suicide remained balanced until the last few minutes. Then the performance took a surprising twist, just as the candles guttered out.
For the moment, Jolles' conclusion will remain a mystery to all but the attendees of Thursday night's premiere. That's because he's still working on ways to get the play into wider circulation. Anyone interested should contact him at jolles@bigsky.net.
“Ultimately, it's all circumstantial,” Jolles said of his character's fate. “We don't even know if the bones under his memorial are his. His family wants to know. I think what he really wanted to do was find an honorable way out. In today's world, we would see him as human.”
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
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