‘So We Can See to See’ – The Belle of Amherst

Margery Lowe as Emily Dickinson

The heading is a variation on the final line of one of Emily Dickinson’s best known poems,” I heard a Fly buzz - when I died.”  A joint production by Palm Beach Dramaworks and Actors’ Playhouse of this well known play shines a bright new light into the very soul of the enigmatic poet so we can see to see her art and Emily, the passionate human being. 

In full disclosure, I feel a personal association with everything Emily.  In college I found myself memorizing several of her poems, or even parts of ones, which opened to truths so transparent that it literally took my breath away. 

I grew up in the Northeast and so did she, although her locale was New England’s Amherst whereas mine was New York City’s Borough of Queens.  One would think they have nothing in common, but when I read the first stanza of poem 320, “There's a certain Slant of light, / Winter Afternoons –/ That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes –“ it hit me in the solar plexus.  I know that light.  I have experienced it, and to actually feel it from literature left a never ending impression and I became a reader of Emily Dickinson.  I felt she spoke to me; and the truths about life and death.  What a wise, worldly poet I initially thought, not fully knowing that her wisdom came strictly from within.

The Belle of Amherst was meticulously researched by William Luce who only recently passed away.  He wrote it in the mid 1970s inspired by the actress who would play the role on Broadway, Julie Harris, who is closely identified with the play and one can still see it on YouTube.  But when I heard Dramaworks was contemplating a filmed version of a fully realized, staged rendition staring Margery Lowe, I was intrigued.

If William Luce could see this rendition he would undoubtedly approve.  In addition to his brilliant integration of 19^th century sensibility with Dickinson’s letters and poems, this production breathes real life into the character and her setting.  One would never know there is only one woman on the stage.

Margery Lowe is not only a doppelganger for Emily; she played her in a two-hander premiere at Dramaworks in 2018, Edgar and Emily. That work was light hearted, comic in many ways, and although she was a great Emily, you really didn’t get to know her as you do in Luce’s play.  Lowe is also a “deep diver” into research and she probably knows Emily as few do.  It shows in this production.

Lowe emphasizes that aspect of Emily which is filled with life and expectations and the acceptance of her obscurity as a poet, although secretly hoping for publication.  She has her “words” and words are her life.  Yes, she must seek “the best words” and they swirl all about in her observations of nature, light, love, and the routines of living as well as the inevitability of death. 

An actor’s life can be erratic, filled with uncertainty as casting calls for ideal parts are not in their direct control, but Margery Lowe’s portrayal of Emily IS her ideal role, and although I have seen her perform in many roles over the years, this is the one I will always remember.

I think the fact that this is a one woman show might be lost on the virtual audience because of the Director’s vision.  Bill Hayes doesn’t see this Emily as a shy reclusive intellectual, but, instead, a passionate observer, almost to the point of breathlessness, her mischievous side, capturing her vivaciousness but alas her vulnerability as well.  And she’s a great cook (her own opinion)!  As such he has her moving to and fro, from her writing desk, to her bed, to the parlor, sitting on the floor with her scraps of writing and her finished poems.  And she is delivering dialog not only to the audience, and to herself, but to friends and family, one sided; of course, only she can hear the other’s reply, but the audience can divine the other side from her reaction.  Margery Lowe does all flawlessly.

Hayes and Lowe are in perfect sync, and on a magnificent stage designed by the award-winning Michael Amico.  Every detail on the stage has a purpose, the floral arrangements, the large windows upstage, perfect for lighting touches, her sacred writing desk, not much larger—perhaps smaller – than the one I had in the 1^st grade, the tea cart and service, inspired by historical accuracy.  When the view is of the entire stage, it takes on the feeling of a fine tapestry.  And the centerpiece is the trunk of her poems which she finally offers to the audience as her legacy.  “’Remembrance’ – a mighty word.”

The lighting for a streamed stage production is tricky.  When the light comes from the front, it clearly is through imagined window panes, which beautifully frame Lowe.  During a rare display of the aurora borealis, colors flood the stage from the upstage windows.  Kirk Bookman’s lighting is clearly designed for their stage, yet effectively works with the filmed production.

Indeed, light imagery is so important in her poems, illuminating her omniscience.  We’ve twice visited her home in Amherst which is now a museum and on one such visit we were lucky enough to be allowed to linger in her bedroom where her writing desk was, to be able to look out those same windows, and see the late afternoon light as she would have seen it, the very views (sans the cars) and I was acutely conscious of her imagery of light and the sparse, sometime enigmatic content of her poems.  This streamed production, captured, for me, those same moments.  Indeed “there is a certain slant of light….”

Brian O’Keefe’s costumes are stirring, not only did he masterfully design and create Emily’s signature white dress with the cinched waist and voluminous sleeves, but all the accessories, the shawls, the apron, the bonnet and cape add the finishing touches that lend such authenticity to this production. Sound designer Roger Arnold’s ominous church bells chime during a funeral, and when Emily’s normally strict, staid father sound them as the aurora borealis began.  Arnold’s sounds of a train are in perfect sync with Lowe’s gestures of the local train’s labyrinth path to Amherst.

Hayes has directed a play of enduring significance, but as it is a streamed production performed without a live audience because of Covid, it is missing some of the laughter, or a chortle, here and there.  There are many comic touches in the play but they are addressed with just the right pauses, or by Lowe’s calculating looks. 

Hayes uses the cameras to their greatest advantage in this production, full stage at times and close-ups for others.  Yet Hayes’ editing is seamless, so the production exhibits the best of two worlds, “live” theatre, but well edited and filmed.

To say this production is satisfying is an understatement.  If only it could remain on YouTube, it would be the “go to” version to view, no disparagement intended towards Julie Harris’ performance, which remains inspired in its own way.  We now have the Margery Lowe classic.

 

The Belle of Amherst -- Emily Dickinson Speaks to Us Across the Ages

  

Palm Beach Dramaworks, which is known as one of the leading regional theatres in the country, will now bring its professionalism to the world.  During the pandemic its stage has been ghost lit, limiting productions to professional Zoom readings but that is going to change with their upcoming coproduction of The Belle of Amherst. 

This has been a vision of Palm Beach Dramaworks Producing Artistic Director William Hayes and Actors’ Playhouse Artistic Director David Arisco, joining forces on a virtual coproduction of William Luce’s one-woman play based on the life of Emily Dickinson.  Margery Lowe portrays the enigmatic poet and Hayes will direct.  This fully staged, costumed show will be filmed on PBD’s main stage, without the presence of an audience, and will be streamed from April 2-6.

The sudden surfacing of popular interest in Emily Dickinson is reminiscent of decades of relative obscurity of Jane Austen, and then her gradual emergence as an important literary figure and now fully embraced by popular culture as well.  Dickinson is acknowledged as one of the most important American poets of the 19^th century with a style connecting the romantic and modern era.  The poet’s growing popularity has recently been adopted by film and TV productions depicting aspects or imagined aspects of her life. 

But first, there was William Luce’s 1976 The Belle of Amherst, in which he comingles her letters and poems and creates a moving Dickinsonian text which was in part inspired by one of the leading actors of our times, Julie Harris, who then played by her on Broadway.  It is a high bar to clear.

Luckily for us, we have one of the great actors in South Florida to perform the role, Margery Lowe, who has already portrayed “another” Emily in Joseph McDonough’s world premiere of the comic fantasia Edgar and Emily at Palm Beach Dramaworks in 2018. 

Margery Lowe as Emily Dickinson

“Margery is a lovely actress, and she has great warmth onstage,” said Arisco. “She’s an interesting combination of maturity and youthfulness in her performances, so she’s a terrific choice.” Hayes added, “Having seen Marge embody Dickinson in a very different play, and having developed a professional bond over 15 years and numerous productions, I know she has the range, the skill set, and the artistry to pull this off brilliantly.”

It also helps that she is a doppelganger for the great poet! 

This is not the first one person play which has been effectively staged by Dramaworks.  Most recently, there was the highly successful Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill by Lanie Robertson,  Equally triumphant were two more single character plays, Rob Donohoe’s portrayal of Truman Capote in Jay Presson Allen's play, Tru, and Terry Teachout’s unforgettable Satchmo at the Waldorf

As diverse as these plays are, they have one thing in common – the unique formula which makes one actor plays so compelling – intimacy.  The audience is directly engaged, the actor often breaking the fourth wall so we see them up close and personal.  The best ones are rare theatre gems– and the three mentioned are certainly among those – with Belle of Amherst in that company as well. 

The play is set in her Amherst, Massachusetts home, the playwright skillfully using Dickinson’s own diaries and letters to create her encounters with the significant people in her life.  It balances the agony of her seclusion with the brief bright moments when she was able to experience some joy.  Luce weaves her poetry throughout the script illuminating her brilliance and her humanity as well.  She basks in the sunshine of her eccentricities and enjoys playing up that part to her neighbors.

There are more than a dozen imaginary characters in the play; Emily has conversations with them all – her dear sister in law, Susan, brother Austin, her stalwart father, her sister Lavinia (“Vinnie”), her mother, with whom she was never intimate, classmates, her stern teacher. There is Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who she hopes will publish her poems, and a man she meets only twice in her life and yet she carries the torch of platonic love for him, Charles Wadsworth (“when I first laid eyes on him that Sunday morning, it was as if heaven’s own lightning struck me”).

These “conversations” are of course one sided, but the audience can figure out what Emily is hearing.  At the heart of the production is her genius and her contentment with her home being her universe.  (“You see, I’ve never had to go anywhere to find my paradise.  I found it all right here --- the only world I wanted….Paradise is no journey, because it is within. But for that very cause, it’s the most arduous of journeys.  I travel the road into my soul all the time.”)

She speaks directly to us and in today’s world of solitude and social distancing.  With the pandemic’s death toll now surpassing a stunning half a million people in the United States alone, Emily Dickinson’s preoccupation with themes of death in many of her poems resonate.  Only a gifted actress can rise above what might on the surface appear to be maudlin, making it profound and even humorous.

When asked about doing a one character play, Margery Lowe said “it's definitely daunting being the only one in the dressing room, and it sure is a lot of just my voice. Plus... oh so many words! But in an odd way, it doesn't feel alone because so much of her family is ‘on stage’ with her.”

She particularly admires the playwright: “the truth of this Emily has to come from what the author writes in the text. I think William Luce wanted to shatter the previous image of a dour recluse, and show a woman in her youth, her relationships throughout her life, her joy and brightness, her existential and introspective struggles, and her immense wit. My greatest hope is that we honor his intentions and show a real, feeling, strange, funny woman that just happened to think differently, using her words in a way that most of us can only dream of.”

It remains to be seen whether this streaming version is a template for future productions or part of a future which might give the audience the option of viewing live or online.  But as this is being professionally filmed and edited, with a Carbonell award winning team of William Hayes as Director, Set Designer, Michael Amico, and Costume Designer Brian O’Keefe collaborating on the production, it is an auspicious beginning of a real theatre season.  Kirk Bookman is the lighting designer, and Roger Arnold is the sound designer. 

Tickets are free to those who subscribed to the upcoming season of PBD or Actors’ Playhouse.  (If anyone is uncertain whether they are current subscribers or wishes to subscribe now to receive a free ticket to The Belle of Amherst, contact the respective box offices). Non subscribers can purchase the link to view the show during its streaming period of April 2 – 6 for $30.  For technical reasons, tickets can be purchased only through PBD’s website: www.palmbeachdramaworks.org or box office: 561.514.4042, x2

Hayes and Arisco are planning to announce their 2021-2022 seasons in the next few weeks. “It’s our way of saying, ‘We’re still here, we’re still creating art, and we’d love your attendance when you feel comfortable,” they said.

    The Brain – is wider than the Sky –

    For – put them side by side –

    The one the other will contain

    With ease – and You – beside –

….Emily Dickinson

 

Emily Dickinson's Home

 

Kinsmen Meet at Dramaworks’ World Premiere of Edgar and Emily by Joseph McDonough

On a snowy evening in 1864 the poet laureate of death, Emily Dickinson, is visited by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe in a world premiere play, Joseph McDonough’s Edgar and Emily at Palm Beach Dramaworks.  And indeed the play is shaped around the main theme of many of their poems (or stories): death (and its corollary, what it means to live), Emily taking a more transcendental view and Poe the ghoulish. 

Although this may seem initially distressing, this delicate but insightful play is a work of art.  Its universal truths lie between comedy and melancholy.  Throughout the play there are pratfalls or physical comedic elements to give it an absurdist twist, giving the audience permission to laugh, even though the characters are two well known poets and the subject matter is one we all generally try to avoid thinking about.

Its brevity (one act packed into 1-1/4 hours) belies its profundity.  It is like a Dickinson poem, a meaningful deliberation of what it means to live and die laid bare in but a few lines.  I kept on thinking of one of my favorite Dickinson poems “I died for beauty”* which has the phrase “as kinsmen met a night.”  In many respects, Dickinson and Poe are kinsmen.  Words intensely mattered to them, and ultimately Edgar and Emily led us there.

Those absurdist elements allow this unlikely meeting to suddenly occur fifteen years after Poe’s death. But he is very much alive, stumbling into Dickinson’s universe, her bedroom in her parent’s house in Amherst.   But wait, what is it he drags around with him?  It’s his coffin!  Naturally Emily is indignant at this man visiting her in her room, claiming to be Edgar Allan Poe, and how can this be so many years after his death?  Easy explanation, after being buried alive he was miraculously rescued by a woman in white, perhaps an angel (ironically, Dickinson is normally attired in white), with the condition he take his coffin wherever he goes.  Unfortunately, he is being chased by his doppelganger who wants to make his rigor mortis permanent.  

The play is a beautiful piece of writing, smoothly flowing from comedy, to poetry to expectation of flight, to deep philosophical discussions of what it means to live with eternity before birth and after death.  They reveal themselves to one another and in the process both are changed.  The play ultimately leads to Poe suggesting that he and Emily go out into the world together.  Her hesitation, whether she could bring her words, creates as much dramatic tension as the ominous voice of his pursuer crying out, “Poe!” 

When Gregg Weiner as Edgar Allan Poe barges into Dickinson’s bedroom, he is agitated and in great fear that he’s being followed.  He is totally indifferent to the woman in the room.  When he tells her who he is, laughter erupts as he ends up defending his own work.  The tables soon turn and he expresses a cynical dismissiveness about her claims of being a poet as well.  Weiner’s nuanced performance creates an aura of unpredictability.  His gift for comedic sarcasm is much in evidence, such as his exchange with Emily when he first reads one of her poems: “I have survived poetry that is considerably more nauseating than yours” which Emily takes as a compliment, Edgar going on to say “In fact, I will admit….I detect in your poetics, a concise resignation to morbidity that I personally find exhilarating.”

It is a joy to watch Weiner dial up those comedic elements while at the same time expressing his terrified awe surrounding the mysteries of life, his fear of death, and his struggle to resolve his present dilemma.  Here he has the help of Emily.

Margery Lowe is the veteran of fifteen appearances on the Dramaworks stage.  Her versatility as an actress shines in the part of Emily Dickinson, with shades of some zaniness juxtaposed to the gravitas of the character of Emily Dickinson.  Lowe’s Dickinson ranges from being an uncertain, sheltered woman, entirely inexperienced in the ways of the world, unlike Poe, to being a poet of unmatched greatness, her inner world immeasurable.   And if you’re looking for verisimilitude, it also helps that Lowe is about the size of Dickinson and with similar hair coloring.  Another doppelganger!

Lowe exhibits all the emotions from bewilderment, to fear, to being dismissive of Poe’s work such as The Raven (“You rhymed ‘lattice’ with ‘thereat is’? It’s no wonder someone’s trying to kill you”). She’s coy about having Poe read some of her poems, and at last amazingly tempted to leave her universe (but asking plaintively “Will I be safe from the enormity of living?”).  Lowe announces her decision as a central truth of Dickinson’s art: “I am the queen of infinite space here in my room ….I fear the rest of the world might prove tiny.”  It’s a bravo performance to pull all of this off, particularly staying grounded in comedy of which Lowe is a master such as when she breathlessly says to Edgar, “You praised my morbidity! I am so happy!”

Avoiding spoilers, the play inexorably moves to a conclusion shaped by the two characters, one most audiences will find gratifying, even breathtaking, the climax eliciting an audible gasp from the audience, a touch of magical realism, enhanced by lighting and color. 

Both must live their lives, for whatever the duration.  For all of us, “Living is shockingly brief.”  And for Poe and Dickinson, in particular, “The words are the only living, lasting things we have.”  Since Lowe and Weiner have been on the stage opposite one another several times before, their chemistry has been honed to perfection.

PBD Producing Artistic Director William Hayes directs the play and has been involved since its gestation, purposely picking local actors, Margery Lowe and Gregg Weiner to go with him and the playwright on the journey from the Dramaworkshop to the Main Stage.  He wisely concentrates on the comedic elements of the play, making sure the jokes and quirky dialogue are highlighted.  Comedy is always an audience pleaser while the dark drama of the play, the tug of war between living and dying, is always disturbing but should stimulate mindful conversation.  It is life’s one unconditional.

Hayes also relies heavily on his technical crew to bring the play to fruition.   Scenic design by Michael Amico is simply stunning, while realistically depicting what could pass as Emily Dickinson’s 19^th century bedroom, but symbolically casting that room through time and space, enveloping it in the wild world of Edgar Allan Poe.  So, like the play, there are unconventional elements.

Lighting design by Paul Black is particularly critical to the play.  Here is a room supposedly lit by candles.  As they are extinguished or lit, lighting has to gradually anticipate each action, it being jarring to just turn the spots on and off.  It all comes across so naturally, as does the shift from light to darkness during the more ominous moments in the play.  Watch the lighting at the very beginning as Emily stands at her window, the snow falling, lit like a Rembrandt portrait.  Breathtaking.

Usually sound is merely to establish mood, but here sound is more integral to the action.  Sound design by David Thomas heightens the suspenseful moments, the storm raging outside, the wind whirling when the window is blown open, the banging of the coffin as it is dragged up the stairs.  There is the terrifying crying out of Poe’s doppelganger, “Poe, Poe, Poe!”  And here and there we hear a musical interlude, particularly at the beginning, classical violin and piano to (falsely) establish just another calm night in the life of Emily Dickinson.  When Poe tells his tale of being rescued from the coffin, the sound effects of the story are like those used in movies, unusual on stage, but eerily appropriate for this production.

The one technical element which has little room for departure from reality is the magnificent costumes by Brian O’Keefe.  Emily is known for being a “lady in white” especially later in life, so O’Keefe complies with a beautiful costume, ostensibly white under the lights but actually a shade of grey, with some gold thread to counteract the grey.  The dress is slightly ethereal, as is her poetry.  Poe meanwhile, known to be usually in black, is indeed dressed in a dark jacket, but with a ruby waistcoat and pinstripe pants, depicting his once outrageously profligate and debauched lifestyle.

As Emily says, “Words endure, Mr. Poe. They endure.”  And so are those of playwright Joseph McDonough, who has already been commissioned for a new play during Dramaworks’ 2019 season.  Edgar and Emily is sure to provide gratification as well as enlightenment to those who are open to the experience of an absurdist drama about two of our most famous poets.

*Poem number 449 in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

 

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For beauty,” I replied.

“And I for truth,—the two are one;

We brethren are,” he said.

 

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

 

“I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea… Thank you for remembering me. Remembrance — mighty word”  -- Emily Dickinson

Photographs of Margery Lowe as Emily Dickinson and Gregg Weiner as Edgar Allan Poe are by Samantha Mighdoll