‘Wild Man of the Wynoochee’ transforms legendary PNW villain/martyr into musical
How do you turn a legendary mass murderer into a sympathetic musical anti-hero? Give him a love interest and tweak the facts — just a little bit.
That’s what the creative team behind the new musical, “Wild Man of the Wynoochee,” have done to bring the legend of John Tornow to life.
Tornow terrified the populace of the southern Olympic Mountains in the 1910s after allegedly shooting to death six men, including his two teenage nephews. With newspapers covering every development, real or not, people from Aberdeen to Tacoma were looking for a bogeyman behind every tree for two years.
“From the moment I heard this story, it grabbed me in a way that really made me sit up, in a way that I would imagine it does to other people,” playwright Jessica Welsh said on Thursday, the opening day for the musical.
Tornow’s story
Olympia-based Welsh came up with the idea for a musical with the input of Linda Dowdell, who wrote the show’s music and lyrics.
Welsh, a veteran episodic TV writer who grew up in the United Kingdom, the U.S. East Coast and works in L.A., was drawn to the natural setting of the Olympic Mountains and Tornow’s mysterious character.
“I’m drawn to antiheroes,” she said. “The irony of somebody who, by all accounts, just wanted to be left alone, but becoming the most wanted person in the country.”
Patrons taking their seats in the Port Townsend theater hear the sound of bird calls, frogs and a busy woodpecker before the production begins.
“The Pacific Northwest is such a magical, mysterious place,” she said.
The story also spoke to her, musically.
“Lyrically, the characters are going through really high emotions,” she said. “It’s betrayal and love and loss and loneliness.”
Fact and fiction
The musical follows the general arc of the real story. Physical and artistic limitations necessitated some subtractions and additions.
Tornow’s killing spree, although some have their doubts, began with the shooting deaths of Tornow’s twin nephews. In the musical, those twins become a single nephew.
A love story between Tornow and a wholly created character, Amanda, played by Anna Mae, was added because every good tragic musical needs a love story. The addition helps to flesh out Tornow, whose frame of mind remains unknown.
The musical’s drama reaches a emotional climax when Tornow is fatally shot by deputy sheriff Giles Quimby just after the outlaw kills his final two victims. The moment is portrayed with tragic tenderness between the two characters — a predestined fait accompli.
In reality, Quimby told newspaper reporters in 1913, “I could only see his face as he uncovered himself to fire a shot, and all the hatred that could fire the soul of a human being was evident.”
Becoming the Wild Man
Federal Way-based actor Casey Raiha plays the title character. He was drawn to the arc of Tornow’s story but had few personal details to work with.
“The rest we’re basing off of facts and history, which was written by the winners about who he was,” Raiha said.
Tornow’s desire to be left alone with nature but constantly pursued by a greedy brother (a fictional story twist) and then by law enforcement was a complexity in the story that appealed to Raiha.
“He covers so many aspects of how terrible a human can be, and also how lovely and empathetic,” he said.
Raiha admits the musical paints a much more sympathetic version of Turnow than probably existed in reality.
Turning tragedy into music
Musical director Dowdell wanted a folksy, familiar Americana sound. One of the show’s songs is an arrangement of an authentic logging song from the period.
“This is theatrical music,” Dowdell said. “It’s definitely emotional. At the same time, there’s a lot of humor also, which has been interesting to sort of find places to have that in such a tragic story.”
A major source of the humor comes from newspaper reporter D.P. Lea, played by Bry Kifolo. Lea never misses a chance to sensationalize the Turnow story as she follows Quimby and Tornow’s brother, played by Robert Winstead, with her camera.
“Haven’t you heard?,” she and the cast sing. “Everybody’s hanging on every single little last word.”
One of Lea’s songs uses headlines from actual newspaper stories as its lyrics.
If you go
What: “Wild Man of the Wynoochee”
When: Oct. 3-27
Where: Key City Public Theatre, 419 Washington St., Port Townsend.
Tickets: $39-49 plus $3.60 fee.
Information: keycitypublictheatre.org, 360-379-0195
This story was originally published October 7, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
