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Heath Ledger as The Joker
A young American college student has become the target of
venomous attacks for planning to stage a play titled The Last Days
of Heath Ledger.
Harry Watermeier is shocked at the fuss.
The 22-year-old drama student from the University of Indiana says
the last thing he set out to do was upset the late Australian Oscar
winner's family and friends.
If Ledger's family ask him to abandon the play, he will gladly do
it.
"I am really surprised people are taking this so seriously,"
Watermeier said.
"It is really baffling to me."
The controversy flared earlier this month after a small article
about the play Watermeier wrote, slated to open in a small theatre
in Indiana early next year, appeared on the online edition of the
university's newspaper, the Indiana Student.
The article was discovered by Ledger fans who then posted it on
various Ledger fan websites and soon after several people, claiming
to be friends and colleagues of Ledger, posted messages on the
university paper's website.
One barb accused Watermeier of sucking on the coat tails of a
wonderful man's life!
"This woman wrote that I, Harry Watermeier, make her want to vomit
because of what I'm doing," Watermeier, who grew up in Chicago,
said.
"I don't really understand why it is met with that reaction.
"The people who made the negative comments have not read the
play."
Watermeier's play is adapted from a controversial story written by
Lisa Taddeo published in the April, 2008, edition of America's
Esquire magazine.
It chronicles the last days of Ledger's life. Ledger died January
22, 2008, in New York from an accidental prescription drug
overdose.
While Taddeo undertook exhaustive research for the article, a note
at the top of the Esquire article describes the work as reported
fiction with the journalist filling in parts of the story with her
imagination.
Her story details Ledger picking up a woman at Manhattan's Beatrice Inn, a meeting in London with actor Jack Nicholson and a phone call Ledger received from Mary-Kate Olsen.
"Some of the elements are true. Others are not," Esquire
states.
Watermeier, as a devoted Ledger fan, said he was ready to be
repulsed by the Esquire article when he first picked up the
magazine last year, but found himself entranced by the story.
"I loved her prose, the sparseness of it and these great images of
London and New York and meeting movie stars in restaurants and
talking," Watermeier said.
"It was very visual."
He called Esquire, received Taddeo's approval to turn it into a
play and then set about writing the script.
"Who am I?" a bewildered Watermeier asked.
"I'm just some 22-year-old college kid putting on a small play at a
mid-west university.
"I'm not trying to make a fuss about this.
"The last thing I want to do is upset people.
"I would hope Heath Ledger's family would want to read the play and
the story before they made any decisions, but if they told me it
was inappropriate I wouldn't do it.
"I hope that doesn't happen, but I would certainly respect the
wishes of his family.
"I wouldn't want to put anyone through something difficult or
arduous."
But, if he receives a green light and the play is a success in
Indiana, he would not be against the play moving to Broadway or
being staged in Australia.
"That would be fantastic, but what I really want to happen is for
people who doubt the play or criticising its contents to come and
see it," he said.
