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By LANE FILLER lfiller@leader.net
Sunday, March 09, 2003 Page: 1F
If not for the rumors of cannibalism, Hank Throne and Dave Fellin probably
would be better-known heroes in the Wyoming Valley. It’s fair to say the duo
are the all-time champs of mine-hell survival, but 40 years and hundreds of
disasters later, how many people remember their tale?
“Coaltown Breaker” author Michael Cotter remembers, and so will anyone
who sees his play.
Beginning on March 14, the fictionalized re-creation of the Sheppton Mine
Disaster will take Scranton Public Theatre audiences back 40 years, to a dark
coal tunnel where three men spent 14 days fighting for their lives, and two of
them won.
The third man, Louis Bova, was never found, thus the nasty rumors Fellin
and Throne denied all their lives.
It happened outside Hazleton on Aug. 13, 1963. According to an Associated
Press account of that day, Fellin, Throne and Bova had just started a morning
of mining coal more than 300 feet underground, when in Throne’s own words,
“all hell broke loose. The timbers on the wall next to us caved in, and the
timbers on the ceiling above us came down.”
Bova was separated from the other two men by the rubble, and his body was
never found. Fellin and Throne were located after six days and rescued after
14, and these days are what “Coaltown Breaker” seeks to re-create.
“Coaltown Breaker,” originally written in 1975, was selected as
Pennsylvania’s official state play for the national Bicentennial in 1976 and
toured in more than 20 counties around the state. Since then, four more
productions of the piece have been staged, including an off-Broadway run in
the mid-’80s.
As the incident dominated the news, a 13-year-old Cotter living in Pittston
followed it closely. Running around town as young boys do in the waning days
of summer, all the talk was of men trapped, men hungry and, eventually, men
saved.
“It was an extraordinary story, even on the national and international
level,” Cotter said. “They were down there for over 300 hours, where the
Quecreek miners last year were saved after 80. For the first six days of
Sheppton, no one even thought they were alive.”
“It’s a play about the human spirit,” said producer Bob Shlesinger,
executive director of the Scranton Public Theatre. “It’s also got a lot of
humor in it. I can’t say I would call it a comedy, but the real story is in
what the men go through and what they would do to stay mentally strong, and
humor is a big part of that.”
Shlesinger also co-stars in the play as one of the miners, while Tim
Hopkins plays the other. In addition, a character called “The Balladeer” has
been inserted and is played by Tim McGurl.
“The Balladeer provides transitions, not through dialogue, but through the
traditional songs of the miners,” Cotter said. “It’s a great character
because it shows that this type of disaster wasn’t unique to Sheppton or
Quecreek. It was part of anthracite mining life and culture, a risk of the
job.”
The cannibalism rumors were fueled by a video camera lowered through the
17-inch hole the men were rescued through that showed vague images of what
could have been bones. Officials then sent a volunteer back down through the
hole to investigate, but the “bones” turned out to be old rope.
Not rumor was the men’s contention that they shared visions during their
time in the hole. Visions of doors, visions of lights, even visions of Pope
John XXIII, who had died 10 weeks earlier.
This mysticism, rare in the early ’60s, was not particularly well-received.
Fellin and Throne, while never ostracized, did not become the legends they
might have today, with movie deals and television appearances lined up to
greet their exit from the mine.
Perhaps oddly, Cotter doesn’t see “Coaltown Breaker” as a coal-mine story
but a universal one.
“The mine is incidental to what is happening,” he said. “Two men, one
older and one younger, are seeking survival, yet at the same time, as their
lives are threatened, they begin to evaluate what those lives have meant. They
have concerns, fears and demons that come out under the stress of this
disaster, but they’ve always been there.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Coaltown Breaker”
WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays from March 14 to
April 13
WHERE: Anthracite Heritage Museum at McDade Park in Scranton
TICKETS: $15 in advance, $18 at the door.
MORE INFO: 344-3656