By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
‘E-Mail’ lures Players vets back to stage
Ten years ago, Margaret Huang reluctantly walked down the stairs of one of the World Trade Center towers in an effort to escape the damage inflicted by jetplanes deliberately flown into the adjacent skyscraper by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.
Ms. Huang was three months pregnant at the time.
On Saturday night, Sept. 10, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, the Hillsborough resident added her emotional story at the end of a staged reading about people’s memories from that historic day and the ones that followed.
The event was the Somerset Valley Players presentation of Hillsborough resident Midge Guerrera’s play, “E-Mail: 9/12,” at the playhouse on Amwell Road. “E-Mail: 9/12” takes place on the day after the 9/11 tragedy and is based on the playwright’s experiences that day.
The Players had seven participants on stage, on stools and behind lecterns, reading the script penned by Ms. Guerrera. At the end of the play, Ms. Huang came to the stage to add her perspective.
Ms. Huang remembered the beautiful weather, and said she choose to start her day in the office by going to the cafeteria for breakfast. Preparing to go back up the elevator, she was met by a co-worker who said she had to go down and out of the building.
Ms. Huang said she protested, then relented and started to walk, grousing much of the way about not having her keys, paper and personal effects. Part way down the 20 floors or so the outside, she began to feel weak and wanted to rest, she said. But not wanting to have her friend wait with her, she kept on going, she said.
Ms. Huang had not previously told people she was pregnant, and didn’t know the sex of the child in her womb. But, as she slowly made her way down the tower, she said at an outdoor reception following the reading Saturday, she saw her daughter’s wedding, she said, and she knew she had to keep going.
She was helped down the final sets of stairs by a man who held her around the waist, she said. When they reached outside, she turned to thank him but he was gone.
She said she was very grateful to have her daughter, Lyra, who attended the reception, with her father, Todd. She said she didn’t want her daughter, now 9, to skip the reading and deliberately miss hearing details of the horror of the day.
(Lyra was born on Jan. 19, 2002. Director Andy Gordanier pointed out that the day and month, when reversed, equated to 9-1-1.)
The impetus for the play, said Ms. Guerrera, came from an early-morning e-mail to those she cared about. She said she “was surprised that so many folks were on line and responded almost instantly,” she said. Ms. Guerrera saved the e-mails and became the premise for the play.
To present the script, the Players reached back to several people who helped form the theater troupe 20 to 25 years ago.
Those who “came back” to the stage were Marla Endick of Lopatcong, Steve Hackenberg of Basking Ridge, Eileen Hladky of Somerset, Jennifer Lubach of Bayonne, Betsy Schwartz of Metuchen, Joan Wagner of Hillsborough and Ken Webb of Cranford.
In addition to Somerset Valley, theater companies in New York City, Rahway, Asbury Park and Philadelphia presented “E-Mail: 9/12” on the weekend or Monday.
