There’s nothing easy about performing a monologue for two hours, but Joely Richardson makes it seem like the most natural thing in the world. Reclusive poet Emily Dickenson is The Belle of Amherst, at least in her girlhood daydreams. She grows up in the Homestead, as she calls her father’s house. We learned that he was a strong, undemonstrative man but much loved by his daughter. Now that he’s gone, Emily lives in the house with her sister, Lavinia; she assures us that the rumors that Lavinia, too, has remained a spinster so she could stay with Emily are untrue. In fact, it was Lavinia who became hysterical at the idea that Emily might leave. Lavinia has started to confuse things and tends to think that all occasions are the Fourth of July.
As Emily, Richardson is tall and thin, with a long neck and a bad wig. She’s charming and much cheerier than might be expected. It’s a little unclear who it is she’s addressing when she talks to the audience; after all, it’s incongruous for a woman who avoids being seen through her windows to welcome a bunch of strangers, and to speak so openly about her life, her disappointments, and her work. Richardson carries it all off with her natural grace and ease. There are some strange confessions; all of Emily’s suitors have not only been older, but they’ve all been married.
The year is 1883; Emily is in her early 50’s. She takes pleasure in being considered “half cracked” by the neighbors in her tiny, tiny world. In fact, she confides, she purposely dresses in white all year and stays on the grounds of her home to encourage such gossip. She warns us she’ll be going back and forth in time, as indeed she does. Changes are shown through fluctuation with the lighting.
The set is perfect; the cozy parlor/sitting room is comfortable without being ostentatious, and there are several different areas for Emily to use. The wallpaper is period appropriate, as are the writing table, armed brocade chair, hurricane lamp, old time clock, and proper tea service. The long, white, floor-length curtains echo Emily’s dress.
Of prime importance to Emily is the chest she keeps filled with her poetry. Richardson handily conveys the excitement of the idea of being published and the despair she feels when this doesn’t come to pass.
Kudos for pronouncing Amherst correctly “Am-erst,” no H. I would have loved to have heard just a little New England in Emily’s speech; now, it’s blandly mid-American. Dickinson’s poetry is interspersed with the script; it is nearly a seamless joining. There is humor; who would ever want to eat the super heavy cake, laden with 19 eggs, which takes six hours to cook? When Emily proudly gives us the recipe, there is a collective groan in the audience.
Whether exalting over the beauty of New England in the autumn, bringing to light the unique “love affair” Emily experiences with a preacher she has seen only twice, or confiding that “words are my life…I think of them as entities, sacred being,” Joely Richardson not only brings to life the brilliant but strange Emily Dickenson. She makes us believe that we’ve had the rare privilege of being the confidants of the brilliant, complicated woman who is now recognized as an American national treasure.
