Hello! And welcome to the beginning blog posts of BYU’s production of The Mill on the Floss, adapted by playwright Helen Edmundson. My name is Richelle Sutton, the dramaturg for this production, and I am excited to share with you all a bit of the world of the play before you see it this coming November.
Already, as a member of the production team for this show, I have been asked many times, “What is this play about?” Let me outline for you really fast what you can expect. The story centers around the lives of Tom and Maggie
Tulliver - siblings who grow up in their family’s mill on the edge of the river Floss. Maggie’s vivaciousness, intelligence, and constant need for love clash against her family’s and society’s expectations of her. In order to grasp and hold onto the things she finds the most important, she feels that she must change herself. But will these changes ultimately help her or hinder her? Would she be better off fitting in with society or blazing her own path? These are questions that you can expect to crop up as you watch this show.
In order to help you as the audience further enjoy the production, I hope to provide fascinating and useful information relating to this beautiful production. During the next few weeks, I will be discussing things like the monetary system of the 1800's, exploring the life of the original author of the novel, George Eliot, and even sharing my personal interview with Helen Edmundson herself! I hope that you will enjoy this journey as much as I have so far, and as George Eliot articulated, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
