Benedict Arnold gets some credit in play 'Rendezvous with Treason'

New London - The late William A. Stanley, a history buff with a lifelong soft spot for Benedict Arnold, might well have enjoyed Saturday's performance of "Rendezvous with Treason" at the Custom House Maritime Museum.

In the 45-minute play, Arnold was depicted as a traitor to his countrymen during the American Revolution, but also as a man who at one time loved his homeland, fought and was wounded for the cause of freedom, and turned toward the British only after he felt betrayed and belittled by his own country.

"My father never, ever denied that Arnold was a traitor,'' said his son, William B. Stanley. "All he asked was that Arnold get credit for the battles he won earlier in his career."

The younger Stanley spoke briefly before a dramatic interpretation on the lives of Benedict Arnold and his accomplice in treason, British Major John Andre. The re-enactment was dedicated to the elder Stanley, who began a lifelong obsession with Arnold in the 1940s when he wrote a high school paper calling Arnold a valuable American for the Revolutionary War because he won key battles for the Colonies before becoming an English spy.

He was given an F for the paper and suspended from school, said Stanley, whose father died earlier this year.

"All I wish is that Dad could have been here,'' Stanley said. "He would have added his two cents.''

Sean Grady, a middle school teacher, and Gary Petagine, a high school teacher, both from upstate New York, wrote the play about Arnold and Andre and played out the parts Saturday afternoon.

Dressed in period costumes, Grady in red jacket with white ruffled shirt playing Andre, and Petagine in blue jacket with big brass buttons, playing Arnold, strode confidently in their knee-high boots into the second-floor exhibition room of the Custom House. With crisp, projecting voices, they explained the motivation behind Arnold's eventual treason and Andre's desire to make a name for himself in the British Army.

A small but appreciative audience sat enthralled.

"On a scale of one to 10, you were a 14,'' John Hunziker said to Petagine after the show.

"And you were a 15,'' he said to Grady.

Susan Tamulevich, director of the museum, said she received an e-mail from the two men explaining their theatrical presentation and she immediately asked them to come to New London.

"I said yes within minutes,'' she said.

The two are working on another play titled,

"The Enemy Within: Arnold Returns Home." It takes place after Arnold has committed treason and becomes a brigadier general in the British Army. In the performance, Arnold has invaded New London, and debates with a captured American Continental soldier as a massacre unfolds at nearby Fort Griswold and New London burns.

Tamulevich said she would like to bring the duo back next year, which is the 230th anniversary of the burning of New London.