Premiere: March, 1983
The Public Theater – NYC

WITH

Bill Raymond (Figure of Grant), Greg Mehrten (Curator), Rosemary Quinn (Curator), Terry O’Reilly (Tableaux Captain), Ellen McElduff (Julia’s voice), Joe Stackell (Double)

Tableau Performers:
Meg Eginton, Peter Levine, Jesse Kitten, Joe Stackell and Kevin Kuhlke
Michael Riesman (musician)

”Cold Harbor” was a sardonic, socio-psychological probe of Ulysses S. Grant. Mr. Raymond played Grant as a sculpture on display in a museum exhibition. The character came to life in all his alcoholic fallibility, falling out of his glass case and then leading us through his military campaigns, including his cataclysmic defeat at Cold Harbor. While learning about Grant, we also saw tableaux vivants of such Victorian sentiments as Suffering and Virtue, juxtaposed with stark still photographs of the Civil War. ”Cold Harbor” was the centerpiece of a current Off Broadway festival of works by the Mabou Mines, the experimental troupe that is the inspiration for so much that is innovative in the avant-garde today.”
Mel Gussow – New York Times