For Hall, art has always been inseparable from spirituality. “I believe in a higher power; I believe in art as being an expression of the divine,” she said. “I think we find our divinity within ourselves, within other people, and within the work of the hands of craftsmen who have made beautiful works of art. What [Hanna] brought into her house was a tapestry, an eclectic tapestry of different fabrics made by hand—each one had a spark of the divine.”
Although Hall considers her theatrical experience limited, recalling her first role as George in Our Town during boarding school, stepping into Hanna’s shoes felt less like acting than interpretation. Physical resemblance mattered little. Hanna, Hall laughs, was “a feisty, Irish, five-foot-tall ball of energy!”
By the time Hall welcomed visitors into Greater Light, she no longer felt she was portraying Hanna as much as inviting audiences to meet her. “By being there in the house, acting through her life and interpreting her story, I think the people get the feeling that I don’t have to look like her; I just am,” she said.
For more than a decade, Hall and her husband, David Billings, hauled props and camera equipment to Greater Light for weekly afternoon performances of the one-woman show Hanna in the Garden. Hall assembled Hanna’s wardrobe from local flea markets and thrift shops, searching for garments that echoed the fashions of her era. Among other props, a peacock chair and a vintage suitcase completed the setting, but it was Hall’s storytelling that transported audiences.
“After they see, hear or feel what I have to say about Hanna, they go home with a feeling of a living person, not just a historical site,” she said, adding: “It is something lively enough, historical enough, and quirky enough in its own way.”
