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The Belle of Amherst

Media Reviews

Atlanta Theatre Buzz:
Words To Which You Can Lift Your Hat
03/25/2008
There is a word
Which bears a sword
can pierce an armed man.

There is a play, a monologue, a journey into the heart and hearth of Emily Dickinson.

There is an actress, one Holly Stevenson, who, burdened with a lost voice, a half-empty house, an Easter Sunday, welcomes us into her home, her world, her love affair with words.

William Luce's The Belle of Amherst was written over thirty years ago, but, in the capable hands of Theatre in the Square, director August Staub and his design team, and, especially Holly Stevenson, it is as fresh as yesterday's sonnet, as tasty as a slice of Ms. Dickinson Black Cake (get a first row seat if you want a slice), as welcome as a visit to a well-loved, oft-missed relative.

Michael Halad's evocative set occupies the stage of Theatre in the Square, but Ms. Stevenson makes us feel like the whole room is her parlour, all of us her guests. Often wandering into the house and up the aisles (**), she sometimes singles us out, one by one, to share a story, a remembrance, a poem. But the set draws her back like a magnet, like the Homestead of Ms. Dickinson's life, like the family that dominates her memories and her conversation with us.

On Easter Sunday's performance, Ms. Stevenson not only had to deal with an expected small house (which made things more intimate for those us there), but, she was also suffering from a lost voice. Her whispers were amplified for us, and, strangely, this added something to the show. When she drinks, she smiles bashfully as her gulps echo through the sound system. It was as if she had come from her sickbed to welcome us into her home, as if even the loss of voice could not dim her passion for words, for memories, for sharing her Black Cake with us.

If combining the two acts into one paradoxically makes the evening seem longer (and a cruel strain on the actress's voice), well, I for one, do not mind. I share Ms. Dickinson's love of words, and enjoyed sharing my evening with her. Ms. Stevenson makes a plainly attractive Emily, frumped up, but vibrantly alive and appealing. That Ms. Dickinson chose seclusion as her way of life is understandable, considering her disappointments and losses. But, I can't help feeling it was a bit selfish, as if she were willfully, even spitefully, denying the world the pleasure of her company.

That Mr. Luce chose to deny her that seclusion by writing a monologue that welcomes us into her heart and home, that shares her words and poems with us, is something we should be eternally grateful.

That Ms. Stevenson chose to create this character in spite of a cold that would leave the strongest of us flat on our backs, is something we should praise and honor.

That Ms. Dickinson fell in love with words, and had the ability to arrange them in ways that strike at the heart of being alive, is something we should forever cherish.

Words are my life. I look at words as if they were entities, sacred beings. There are words to which I lift my hat when I see them sitting on a page.

** What is it about theatre-goers that makes it so difficult to turn around in their seats? I've noticed this before in other productions - when Ms. Stevenson wanders up the aisles of the house, few, if any, turn around to watch her. The preference seems to be to look at an empty stage rather than make the effort to look at her. I just don't get it.

PopSmart blog, Creative Loafing:
Plays with Food
03/25/2008
My combined review of Theatre in the Square’s The Belle of Amherst and Actor’s Express’ When Something Wonderful Ends will run next week. The two one-woman shows have a small detail in common that bears mentioning — both include sweets in a way that offers a audience participation.

On opening night of When Something Wonderful Ends, the audience was offered individually-wrapped Brach’s cinnamon hard candies while going into the theater. (I abstained, because sometimes I mistake that candy for Red Hots, so I’m gun-shy.) In the autobiographical play, Sherry Kramer (played by Vicki Ellis Gray) describes the candies as not only her favorite, but the favorite of her late mother, to whom the play pays tribute. Sharing the candy provided a way to evoke the woman’s memory through the audience’s taste buds.

Incidentally, Kramer sent a letter that director Freddie Ashley read in his curtain speech, which speaks amusingly to an important bit of theater etiquette:

“Please unwrap and enjoy the cinnamon candies now – or put them aside for after the show. Please do not unwrap them during the show, even if you do it painfully slowly, excruciatingly slowly, as if you were a deer in headlights who thinks that if he doesn’t move you can’t see him. Of course you can see him. He’s right there. It doesn’t matter how long he doesn’t move, he’s not going to disappear. It doesn’t matter how sloooowly you unwrap your candy. We can hear you. Thank you.”

The Belle of Amherst didn’t offer the entire audience an actual treat, but provided the means of preparing one later.

In the play, Emily Dickinson (Holly Stevenson) speaks to the audience like a good hostess addressing old friends. She serves her own special recipe of Black Cake (I think one or two lucky people in the front row got a taste). The program includes “Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake Recipe,” as follows:

2 pounds of flour
2 pounds of sugar
2 pounds of butter
19 eggs
5 pounds of raisins
1 ½ pounds of currants
1 ½ pounds of citron
½ pint of brandy
½ pint of molasses
2 nutmegs
5 teaspoons of cloves, mace and cinnamon
2 teaspoons of soda
1 ½ teaspoons of salt

“Just beat the butter and sugar together, add the 19 eggs, one at a time – now this is very important – without beating. Then, beat the mixture again, adding the brandy alternatively with the flour, soda, spices and salt that you’ve sifted together. Then the molasses. Now, take your five pounds of raisins and three pounds of currants and citron, and gently sprinkle all eight pounds – slowly now – as you stir. Bake it for three hours if you use cake pans. If you use a milk pan, as I do, you’d better leave it in the oven six or seven hours. Everybody loves it. I hope you will too.”

With 19 eggs, two pounds of butter and 5 pounds of raisins (not to mention a six hour baking time), Dickinson’s Black Cake evokes a more rustic, less health-conscious cooking style of yesteryear, effectively placing us in her homestead in mid-19th century Massachusetts.

The fact that both one-woman plays involve food may say something about the traditional role of women as the cooks of the household. Or maybe Dickinson and Kramer each has a sweet tooth.

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