Cover
Story
The Hay House Comes Alive
IT'S 1835 ALL OVER AGAIN AS CHARACTERS BRING NEW ACTIVITY
By Carl
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Nearly two centuries old now, the
Robert Hay House has no doubt
set'll a It it since it took its place in
downtown New Bern around 1805. But
it’s been years — decades, maybe — since
the old place has been home to as much
activity as is going on there light now.
Welcome to the Hay House, a fairly
typical New Bern working-class home, at
the dawn of the 21st century. Oris the year
really I 835.’ Hard to tell for sure, and all
the people in and around the house don’t
offer much help in clearing up the time-
warp confusion: There’s Nancy I lay,
seated beside the fireplace, basket in her
lap, shelling peas. Young William I lay is
out in the front yard, hard at work on the
shaving horse, attempting to fashion a
white oak branch into a chair leg. Up on
the porch, Elijah Johnson and John
Chadwick are deep into a game of Nine
Men’s Morris.
(jL'm'/Viu! Matson, as
William I limit’s, works
at the shaving horse.
And down Eden Street, parasol in hand,
here comes Antoinette Dixon, the neigh¬
bor from the house around the corner. Iwt’s
see it she can help clear things up a bit...
Good day, Mrs. Dixon. Tell us: What’s
your opinion of the job President Clinton
is doing these days.’
“WhoDoi”' she replies, her eyes betraying
obvious puzzlement. Then she pauses.
“What country are you from !
♦
OK, so it’s not really still 1815 over
at the 1 lay 1 louse. But you might
not know that il you happened to
stumble upon the place unaware that the
house is now partofTryon Palace Historic
Sites <St Gardens.
What the Hay I louse is, in fact, is the
centerpiece of the newly expanded Tryon
Palace character-interpreter program,
where 2 1 st century visitors can learn about
the distant past, not from stuffy guides
leading tired old tours, but from ones al¬
one encounters with the people who
actually lived early in the 1 9th century.
(Well, from actors portraying those
people, anyway.)
"1 see the Hay House as a kind of living-
history showcase in which you'll learn a
great deal about the wt irk of men and
women in New Bern in the I SICs,’’ says
Simon Spalding, living history programs
manager. “You'll also learn about political
events, technology, what it was like to live
in 1835.”
Unlike at most museums, the approach
at the Hay House is very hands-on. Inside,
visitors can join in as the women oi the
house sew a quilt, perhaps, or braid a rug.
Upstairs, characters invite the adventurous
to not merely look at the specially
commissioned reproduction of a 19th-
century rope bed, but to actually lie down
and fry it out lor size.
Spalding conceived of the interpreters’
program in 1 998 as a replacement tor the
Palace’s Summer Drama T< nir, in which
TO AN OLD NEW BERN HOME
Registrar Dean Knight handles the roping
chores on the new Hay House bed.
visit* irs g< ting rot im-tt i
it nn t in guided
tours might encounter costumed actors
who recited 90-second historical
monologues. The still-young interpreters’
prt igram was scaled back tempt irarily in
1 999, after Hurricane Floyd forced a cut in
its budget, but it regained full steam after a
new cast t it acti irs was hired and trained in
mid-August.
“The biggest difference is that you’re not
hearing a memorized spiel,” says Spalding,
a character interpreter himself at Tryon
Palace since 1992. “It we do our job right,
you'll have the impression you’re actually
talking to a person from that time period.’’
N< it that the i ild Summer Drama Tour
wasn’t a success with Tryon Palace visitors.
It’s just that, well, as Spalding explains: “1
think wherever a memorized spiel is used —
the same 90-second routine, hour after
hour, day after day, week after week and
month after month — no matter how
earnest and talented the interpreter, the
spiel is going to become a bit stale.”
But while both methods ot interpreting
history require the use of actors, the new
program impost-seven greater demands
on them. In the past, Spalding explains,
“They said what they had to say and hoped
that nobody asked any questions.” Now,
sum script, their success or failure depends
largely on their ability to interact in
memorable ways with theirvisitors from
