Having the greatest historical reach of the Senior Thesis Festival productions, Rebecca Miller's '13 Amaranthine challenged audiences as it explicated one of the most famed royal marriages in history-England's King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The barely one-hour-long play, which Miller both wrote and starred in, was performed in the Spingold Theater Center's cozy Merrick Theater three times this past week, including a special midnight performance on Saturday night.

Amaranthine was quite different from the other senior thesis productions. Though it was not the only one rooted in a historical legacy, it interacted so distinctly and uniquely with this piece of history as its own entity. This was one of the greatest strengths of Amaranthine: the viewer was completely engrossed in the time, consciousness and problems of Boleyn and her quest for simultaneous love and vengeance, even from the first scene. The play began on a stark stage lit by a dim blue spotlight, with an apologetic monologue by Anne Boleyn (Miller), as she faced her execution in the 16th century. After Anne was beheaded, the play fast-forwards five centuries to the year 2036-the 500th anniversary of her death.

Here, Charlie Madison '15 takes over the stage, dressed as a dapper tour guide at the Tower of London, cracking jokes left and right and hyping up the audience with a higher, nervous energy that departs from the introductory execution scene. A recording of gusting wind plays in the background and continues throughout the rest of the play, as Madison becomes increasingly paranoid about ghosts haunting the tower. And rightly so-the ghost of Boleyn's brother George, played by Steven Kline '14, dressed in a period costume, enters the stage quietly and starts toying with the props to make eerie noises that scare the tour guide away.

Anne herself (or her ghost, that is), dressed in a beautiful, flowing, floor-length skirt topped with a tight corset and covered with a white, gauzy cloak returns to the stage, and approaches one of the few props of the entire set-a table set with an aged book, two candlesticks and a chalice. She opens the book and mockingly reads a love letter she wrote to her husband, King Henry VIII, while she was alive. Anne's character has already transformed greatly from the first time the audience saw her, and the reign of vengeance and reconciliation of wronged love begins.

After Anne and George joyfully reunite, proving that common blood is as thick as ever, even in the afterlife, Levi Squier '14, playing Henry, enters the stage and the real drama begins.

Through playful, biting, loving, emotionally volatile discourse, Anne and Henry have a conversation throughout the play about their whirlwind courtship and what ultimately went wrong between them. They don't truly figure out what tore them apart until the end of the play-their spats are repeatedly interrupted as George buzzes around Anne trying to distract her from finding out his true role in causing the couple's demise.

The historic romantic turmoil that is rehashed and resurrected in Amaranthine is broken up by comical scenes: At one point, the characters play a game of dice to decide who will be the keeper of Anne's severed head for the rest of eternity (she loses and ends up stuck with her bodily spoil). And while the audience let out a great many hearty laughs throughout the play, there were moments of equal tension as the characters captured an unrequited love that can perhaps never be repaired, which gave the audience a more genuine and complex investment in the characters.

Miller's portrayal of Anne was particularly transfixing as, the way she wrote and acted Anne's character, she was very fickle: one moment Anne would lash out at George for keeping secrets from her in life, and the next she would cleave to Henry, eagerly accepting his apology for his failure to stand up to the royal officials who condemned their marriage. Miller moved around the stage with the ease of a floating ghost, and the agency of a woman scorned.

After the play ended, the audience stayed seated for a short talkback with the cast and director, Grace Fosler '14. Miller explained her choice to explicate upon this peculiar historical niche as the topic for her senior thesis: "I'm a History minor. I've always felt that I can really identify with Anne. ... This is my love story with her."

Indeed, the production was remarkably well-researched, and each actor spent a couple rehearsal periods solely diving into documentation about the real lives of their characters, Squier said. Perhaps what audiences can take away from Amaranthine is that the most powerful and compelling love stories are not always the ones that are imagined, and not always the ones that end happily.