Watchmen for the Morning was written by Camille Hallstrom, theater professor at Covenant College.

“One day my husband single-handedly changed the history of the western world.”

“What a lot of rot.”

These are the intriguing introductory words to Watchmen for the Morning, a monologue featuring Katharina von Bora, the nun who was married to Martin Luther, the monk commonly credited with starting the Protestant Reformation.

Watchmen for the Morning was written by Camille Hallstrom, theater professor at Covenant College. She referred to it as a “mothball,” having written it during her time as a graduate student. She performed it for the St. Elmo Summer Arts Series last Friday night, Aug. 13.

The performance took place in the beautiful, old sanctuary of St. Elmo Presbyterian Church. Hallstrom bursts in from stage right, covered in a shawl and relieved to be sheltered from what must be a harsh winter night. It is 4:30 in the morning on Feb. 22, 1546. Katharina von Bora is waiting for her husband to return home, per a letter she had received earlier. Unbeknownst to her, Luther died two days earlier.

As she makes herself comfortable indoors, Katharina, fondly called Katie by her husband, addresses the audience. She begins by relating the facts of Luther’s life. But her vibrant, complex personality hardly leaves it at that. She gives her own colorful and endearingly human commentary upon each subject.

For instance, Katie and her husband were reputed to have a loving marriage. But the circumstances of their becoming married are anything but romantic. Katie was among 12 nuns who Luther helped to escape their convent. When they had reached safety, Luther arranged for each of them to be married, all except for Katie. She was attached at different times to two men, but told Martin and another man, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, that she would only marry one of the two of
them. Shortly thereafter, Katie and Luther were engaged and married on the same day.

“Not exactly what you’d call a love story, is it?” Katie says in the monologue.
And later, “Who can know if we love well or poorly? You can only do it.”

She discloses her inner life as a woman of faith. She prays to God before the audience, “Never let me curse you.”

On day-to-day life with Luther, “Nuns, you understand, do not fart.”
On the many trips which Luther took, “I’m so tired with waiting.”

On his sometimes illogical stubbornness, “He always wanted to die a martyr’s death and look what it got him — kidney stones.”

And on his death, “My husband is dead and I am as mad as the devil.”

Hallstrom, taking for her subject a woman of the 16th century and a marriage set against the backdrop of a movement that would change the world, a movement steeped in principles and ideas, finds a way to demonstrate the blood and bones humanity, the unabridged thoughts of a woman who was married to a man who no one could claim led a life of conventionality and ease.

She was, in turns, resentful, exasperated, loving, forbearing, passionate, angry, sarcastic, despairing, proud, afraid, exhausted, nostalgic, faithful, unbelieving, befuddled, and sorrowful. She was, in short, a true woman, but a woman strong enough to be married to a man as crazed as Martin Luther.

Hallstrom performed compellingly and with perfect timing. She made me love Katharina von Bora, a woman who, from her painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, looks fairly bleak and mean.

Watchmen for the Morning was the last installment of the St. Elmo Summer Arts Series. Hallstrom plans to perform the drama again either at New City Fellowship in Glenwood or at Covenant College. No specific date has been set yet. Additionally, dramas performed by Hallstrom’s students are available during the school year.

Jose Oscando is the St. Elmo community blogger for Chattanooga News.