Pontine Theatre to Present NEW ENGLAND UTOPIA, 2/6-8

February 6-8, Pontine Theatre presents New England Utopia: Transcendental Communities. Performances are offered Friday @7:30pm, Saturday @4pm, and Sunday @2pm Tickets are $24 and may be purchased online at www.pontine.org. Pontine's West End Studio Theatre is located at 959 Islington Street in Portsmouth NH. Contact Pontine: info@pontine.org / 603-436-6660

This event is presented as a cafe occasion, with informal seating and featuring tasty refreshments prepared by Chef James Haller of the renowned Blue Strawbery Restaurant. The program by Pontine's artistic directors, Greg Gathers and Marguerite Mathews, features scenes from their original production exploring New England Transcendentalism and discussion centered around: Ralph Waldo Emerson and the community at Concord, Massachusetts; and the utopian experiments led by Bronson Alcott at Fruitlands and by George Ripley at Brook Farm.

New England Utopia explores the New England Transcendentalist movement of the 1830s and 1840s which is often called the first American school of philosophy. The works by its disciples, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, are still widely read today.

In compiling the original script, the company drew exclusively from primary historical sources including essays and poetry by the transcendentalists themselves, as well as excerpts from their personal correspondence and journal entries. Concord, Massachusetts was the home of the most famous Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Born in 1803, he was a Unitarian minister, educated at Harvard, who came to disagree with the church's methods. Emerson moved to Concord in 1834 where he became one of its leading citizens; he was known as "The Sage of Concord." In 1836, Emerson published his famous essay, Nature, and began meeting with other like-minded intellectuals. This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club which served as a center for the movement.

Emerson's circle of friends included Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May, who was an ardent educational reformer. The circle also included Concord's most famous native son, Henry David Thoreau. It was in Emerson's woodlot, on the shores of Walden Pond, that Thoreau built his famous cabin and wrote the essays that would become Walden.

In the spring of 1843, Bronson Alcott along with his wife and children were joined by a handful of other Transcendentalists at a newly purchased farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, which they optimistically named "Fruitlands"

Their goal was to regain access to Eden by finding the correct formula for perfect living. They were influenced by the Transcendental ideas of God as a world spirit. The members of Fruitlands believed that spiritual regeneration was linked to physical health. The Fruitlands experiment, however, ended only seven months after it began in December 1843.

While social and religious reform were a central concern for all the Transcendentalists, there was little agreement about how such reform should be approached. Emerson and Thoreau both believed that it was an individual responsibility, while Alcott felt that his community would act as a beacon and example for other utopian efforts. Another such effort was undertaken in 1841 by George and Sophia Ripley at Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

The Reverend George Ripley was a Unitarian minister who sought to build an egalitarian community with a strong educational purpose. He settled on a farm because he believed in the spiritual benefit of honest physical labor. He also established a school, because he believed that the future of reform rested on cultivating the next generation.

Ripley looked to eliminate distinctions of class at Brook Farm by engaging a broad range of people in both physical and intellectual pursuits. The idea was that the intellectuals would benefit from getting their hands dirty, while the working class members would be elevated by being engaged in conversation and debate by their more cultivated counterparts.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the original members of Brook Farm. The community grew rapidly and lasted about six years. At its peak, it had over 100 members, and was, by all accounts, an extremely pleasant place to live. There was none of the aestheticism of Alcott's "Fruitlands." There are many stories of concerts, picnics, theatrical evenings, games of charades and tableaus, and so forth. Because there were so many young people on the farm, the general atmosphere was one of gaiety, fun and adventure.

Although Brook Farm failed after six years, it was an emblem of the aspirations of the Transcendentalists and served as a prime example of the possibilities for social reform. The community was written about extensively and widely visited; one year they had over 4,000 visitors. Many members of the community went on to join other efforts at social and political reform.

Despite failures in practical application, the ideas of the Transcendentalists continue to inspire readers and thinkers. They speak to many concerns that are at the forefront of current social debate: environmentalism, industrialization, and capitalism, to name but a few.

The Transcendentalists celebrated the American experiment of individualism and self-reliance. They took progressive stands on women's rights, abolition, reform, and education. They criticized government, organized religion, laws, social institutions, and industrialization. They honored the American "state of mind" through their faith that all would be well because humans could transcend limits and reach astonishing heights.

Now celebrating its 37th season, Pontine Theatre is known throughout New England for its original works based on the culture and literature of the region. Co-Directors, Greg Gathers and Marguerite Mathews, bring history to life onstage through storytelling, puppetry, toy theatre, projected images and more. New Hampshire Magazine says, "Pontine Theatre is a small miracle. Mathews and Gathers conspire to fascinate the contemporary mind with original works based upon stories and literature of New England. There's really nothing else like it anywhere."

Photo Credit: Andrew Edgar