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| Tyler Dickinson |
ST. PAUL, Minn. — “It’s quite an honor and a blessing to have this opportunity,” said Diocese of Madison seminarian Tyler Dickinson in talking about playing the lead role in a play about the last man sentenced to death by the guillotine in France.
Dickinson, a native of Edgerton, Wis., acted in productions at Edgerton High School and performed in community theater while he was a student at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. He is in his second year of theology studies at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity.
While he was back in the Diocese of Madison for Holy Week and Easter, Dickinson discussed his role in the seminary production.
Auditioned for play
He auditioned for the part with the author, director, and producer of the play, fellow seminarian Kyle Kowalczyk.
“This is the first time I’ve worked with a director who wrote the play,” said Dickinson.
Dickinson was selected to play the lead role of Jacques Fesch. It is a challenging role, requiring Dickinson to be on stage for every scene in the entire two-hour show. “I only get a break during intermission,” he said.
Saved by the Guillotine |
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Tyler Dickinson, plays the lead role of Jacques Fesch in Saved by the Guillotine, a play to be performed by students at St. Paul Seminary’s School of Divinity Friday and Saturday, April 26 and 27, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 28, at 2 p.m. in St. Paul, Minn. The play was written by another seminarian, Kyle Kowalczyk, based on letters written by Fesch while he was in prison in Paris. Fesch was the last person killed by the guillotine in France in 1957. For tickets go to savedby.weebly.com or [email protected] |
Challenging subject
The role is also challenging given its subject. Jacques Fesch was 24 years old, married with a two-year-old daugher. He was raised in a wealthy family but was estranged from his family.
He needed money to buy a boat to leave Paris, Dickinson explained, so he robbed a money-changer. “He fired a gun and wounded his finger, then grabbed the money. He fled and was chased. A police officer yelled, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot.’ Fesch spun around and shot the officer. He was charged with first-degree murder. It was a tragic situation.”
Fesch was imprisoned for over three years and was sentenced to the guillotine, the last person so sentenced in France.
After appeals were exhausted, he was beheaded on on October 1, 1957, at the age of 27 in the courtyard of the La Santé Prison in Paris for murder.
Path to sainthood
Over 30 years later, in 1993, the Archbishop of Paris, the late Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, signed a decree that may one day make Jacques Fesch a saint.
The story of how a condemned murderer could be considered for sainthood is the subject of the play, Saved by the Guillotine, written by Kyle Kowalczyk, a first year theology student at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, Minn.
Kowalczyk wrote the play based on the prison letters of Jacques Fesch presented by Augustin-Michel Lemonnier in Light over the Scaffold and Cell 18. Kowalczyk is directing and producing the St. Paul Seminary’s production, to be presented April 26 and 27 at 7:30 p.m. and April 28 at 2 p.m. in the Brady Education Center Auditorium, located on the campus of St. Thomas University, south of the seminary.
Dickinson explained Fesch’s transformation while in prison. “He underwent a tremendous conversion, influenced by a chaplain in the prison and a Benedictine monk, who was a friend of his wife’s.”
Fesch also was touched by reading the works of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Francis of Assisis. “It’s a beautiful conversion. He reached heights that most of us can only strive for,” said Dickinson.
He praised the script by Kowalczyk. “He did a fantastic job writing it.”
A changed man
By the time the guillotine came down on him, four years after his crime, Fesch was a changed man.
As his execution approached, Fesch wrote: “Only five hours to live! In five hours I shall see Jesus.” On the scaffold, surrounded by guards and feet shackled, Fesch asked a priest to hold out a crucifix so he could kiss it. A moment before the blade dropped, Jacques Fesch spoke his last words: “Holy Virgin, have pity on me!”
Dickinson urges people to read the story of Jacques Fesch. “It’s absolutely beautiful. You see he is very much in love with God.
“In the last scenes of the play, he has a taste of heaven, a mystic union with God.”
The cause for Fesch’s sainthood has been opened. In 2009, Fesch’s sister and a chaplain who knew him met with Pope Benedict XVI.
Other seminarians involved
Other Diocese of Madison seminarians are also helping with the production, including Grant Thies, who is serving on the publicity team, and Andrew Showers, who is working on the set construction crew.