Literary Giants Grace Gloucester Stage

"The Belle of Amherst"

Written by William Luce; directed by Eric C. Engel; production stage manager, Maureen Lane; set design by Jenna McFarland Lord; costume design by Jane Greenwood; wig design by Paul Huntley; lighting design by Russ Swift

Featuring Lindsay Crouse as Emily Dickinson

Performances: Now through August 12 in repertory with Dear Liar at Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts
Box Office: 978-281-4433 or www.gloucesterstage.org

From the moment acclaimed stage and screen actress Lindsay Crouse pours tea and shares her recipe for black cake with visitors who come all too infrequently to her modest home in Amherst, Massachusetts, we are without question transported back in time, circa mid-to-late 1800s, as guests of the reclusive, charming, and "half-cracked daughter of Squire Edward," the poetess Emily Dickinson. Dressed in Dickinson's perpetual "bridal white" and exhibiting the perfect puritan posture of the day, Crouse embodies the eccentric and mercurial writer as she meticulously wipes the silver tea service with a starched linen napkin or takes the smallest crumb of cake between her thumb and forefinger and places it delicately in the narrow opening of her mouth. As "The Belle of Amherst," Crouse is elegant and enchanting, giving a performance as finely tuned as playwright William Luce's fluid script and as precise as the words the title character sometimes agonized to put on the page.

This quietly engrossing one-woman play brilliantly weaves some of Dickinson's most evocative poetry into drawing room conversation that reveals over the course of 40 years the writer's hopes, dreams, disappointments, idiosyncrasies, sly wit and self-effacing humor. Her love of birds, used as symbols in so many of her poems, becomes a means of introducing her relationship with her sister Lavinia whose many cats Emily constantly shooed from beneath the orchard trees. Her love of words – "words are my life," she states simply – is demonstrated innumerable times, whether in joyful moments spent reveling in their sounds or when struggling to achieve the "phosphorescence" she desires in her lyrics by finding just the right word to illuminate her thoughts.

In chronicling Dickinson's life through monologue and poetry, Crouse manages to bring other prominent characters to life on stage. Early on she conjures up her dutiful sister, austere father, loving brother Austin, and close friend and sister-in-law Sue, carrying on conversations with them that are so vivid you can feel her petulance, fear, adoration, and gratitude. Later she prepares nervously for a visit by the brusque publisher T. W. Higginson whose constant belittlement and rejection of her poetry can't quell her passion for and belief in her art.

Crouse also shows the wry flippancy that got Dickinson dismissed from Mt. Holyoke Seminary as a teen when she refused to cross out the "questionable parts" when performing Shakespeare's works and earned the distinction of being branded the last of the wayward girls who were "without hope" because she didn't feel "moved to become a Christian." In the next breath, though, Crouse balances Dickinson's religious agnosticism with an abiding belief in the universality of nature as she recites "Some Keep a Sabbath Going to Church," a beautifully spiritual poem which asserts a "bobolink as chorister and orchard for a dome."

During her lifetime, only a handful of Emily Dickinson's poems were published – and those anonymously. It was only after her death at the age of 55 that her family discovered a trove of 40 hand-bound volumes containing 1,789 poems. Today, along with Walt Whitman, she is considered one of the two consummate American poets of the 19^th century.

As "The Belle of Amherst," Crouse gently informs her portrayal of Dickinson with this irony without making her character tragic. Rather, she imbues her Emily with the optimism, intelligence, and quiet confidence that is evident in her glorious poems. Like the play Crouse performs in, her Belle of Amherst is a work of art.

"Dear Liar"

Written by Jerome Kilty; directed by David Zoffoli; set design by Jenna McFarland Lord; costume design by Miranda Kau; lighting design by Russ Swift; sound design by Ben Emerson

Cast: Paul O'Brien as George Bernard Shaw and Sandra Shipley as Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Performances: Now through August 12 in repertory with The Belle of Amherst at Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts. Box Office: 978-281-4433 or www.gloucesterstage.org

As with "The Belle of Amherst," Jerome Kilty's "Dear Liar" mixes fictionalized narration with the actual writings of its literary subjects – in this case, renowned Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and acclaimed British actress Beatrice Stella (Mrs. Patrick) Campbell. Unlike William Luce's exquisitely crafted tribute to Emily Dickinson, however, "Dear Liar" fails to reach a level of true art. The author relies too heavily on the letters that Shaw and Campbell exchanged during their 40-year unconsummated love affair and neglects to create a dramatic structure that functions as anything more than a timeline.

We do get glimpses into the public and private lives of the peevish, pouting and self-aggrandizing genius playwright and the temperamental and talented – yet insecure – actress muse who inspired him to write, and later starred in, his most famous play, "Pygmalion." We also witness their on-again-off-again missive "romance" that seemed more about mutual respect and adoration than actual sexual attraction. However, we never really get swept up by their proclaimed passions for one another or by the symbiotic dependency that keeps their lives entwined despite marriages, illnesses, a World War, and diverging careers. We get hints of the games they play in teetering between flirtation and real affection, but whether or not they truly are the "dear liars" that they lovingly call each other remains unclear.

Director David Zoffoli and his talented acting duo of Paul O'Brien and Sandra Shipley make "Dear Liar" better than it is. Zoffoli often has his actors speaking their letters to each other rather than reading them as if alone in their rooms. Frequently the animated Shaw will leave his chamber or writing desk and cross into Campbell's designated acting space. She, in turn, often breaks through her invisible bedroom walls and struts as if on the London stage delivering some grand soliloquy.

Individually, O'Brien and Shipley give performances that are delightfully dramatic. Because of the confines of the play's mechanical letter-writing device, however, their interactions don't quite reach the intensity needed to make "Dear Liar" anything more than a dry history lesson.

PHOTOS: Lindsay Crouse as The Belle of Amherst; Lindsay Crouse as Emily Dickinson; Paul O'Brien as an admiring George Bernard Shaw to Sandra Shipley's Mrs. Patrick Campbell; Paul O'Brien and Sandra Shipley assume a flirtatious pose in Dear Liar