Aaron Klass has been enthralled by the Civil War era since he was a kid. His interest in the decades surrounding the pivotal American conflict led the local history buff to establish himself as an independent researcher and historian who now works as curator of the Merchant Tailor Museum in Longmont.
“Many people have asked me where my interest in this time period comes from, and I don’t have a good answer,” Klass says. “I have just always found this era’s clothing and historical context fascinating.”
Klass’ work as a public historian and commitment to making the past accessible to new generations inspired him to write and direct Ruin, a historical play whose world premiere will run at the Dairy Arts Center from June 29 through July 2.
The mystery is set in Colorado Territory in the spring of 1865, close to the ruins of Fort Vasquez, an early and important fur-trading post in Weld County that was abandoned roughly two decades prior. It centers on Hersa Paxton, a recently widowed woman who hires two frontiersmen to find her missing husband. The fictional story is based on historical primary sources, highlighting Colorado’s bloody colonial past.
“Although the play’s narrative and characters are fictitious, there are anecdotes and references in Ruin that are true to life,” Klass says.
Few of these historical realities loom as large as the Sand Creek Massacre, when more than 230 non-combatant Cheyenne and Arapaho citizens were killed in a surprise attack by the U.S. military near Fort Lyon on November 29, 1864. The play also touches on the assassination of American abolitionist Silas Soule, commander of Company D of the 1st Colorado Cavalry, who testified about the carnage he witnessed that day.
“Silas Soule is famous for not firing on the village and testifying before a military tribunal that was formed to investigate the wrongdoings at Sand Creek,” Klass says. “Silas gave testimony in February 1865, and in April 1865, two Colorado soldiers in uniform killed him on the streets of Denver; their identities were known, but they were never brought to justice. Ruin is set in the spring of 1865, and deals with the aftermath of these events.”
Stranger than fiction
The historical drama is being produced by Blunt Force Drama (BFD), a Boulder-based guerrilla theater company that has been staging performances in unconventional spaces since 2013. Ruin is BFD’s first performance at the Dairy Arts Center, its first since the pandemic and its first new work.
“Initially, I was going to write it as a screenplay, but I liked the intimacy of a play,” Klass says. “No one should write anything the way I wrote Ruin. I basically sat down in early 2021 and wrote for four days, only stopping to drink water and cram food in my mouth. I’ve written a few things like that; you have to go back and edit extensively, but it gets it out.”
When it comes to dovetailing history and fiction, Klass says the upcoming production has been meticulously researched down to each individual artifact used onstage, most of which date back to the mid-1800s.
“There is a broad overlap between my work at the museum and the production design for Ruin,” he says. “Many of our costume pieces for the show are copied from garments that we are in possession of, and the production design is all historically accurate. I envision much of the talkback after each show will be about the play’s material culture and history.”
During the rehearsal process, Klass led the actors, Anna Vernier, Dan Gustavson, and Ding Liu, through a dramaturgical process to help them comprehend the gravity of the play’s events.
“I referred them to as many primary sources as I could stomach,” Klass says. “One of the things the cast said was helpful were trips to see Fort Vasquez, History Colorado’s exhibit on the Sand Creek Massacre, some other trading forts and the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. I am familiar with the activities of the massacre and how it played out, so I walked them through that.”
The production is dedicated to the memory of Silas Soule and the victims of the Westward expansion. And as BFD continues to produce work in Boulder, they hope to maintain this educational emphasis in future projects. But for now, Klass and his team are focused on the task ahead.
“This is the first full-length play I have written, so I am curious to see if my storytelling and dialogue resonate with people,” he says. “For all of its heaviness, I tried to keep it fun because I think it is a way to access this heavy material. It’s structured like a Western, and I hope that will make it entertaining and thought-provoking.”
ON STAGE: Ruin by Aaron Klass. 7 p.m. June 29–July 1, and 2 p.m. July 2. Carsen Theater, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Tickets here.
