First Rehearsal of Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton said of ETHAN FROME, "It was the first subject I had ever approached with full confidence in its value, for my own purpose, and a relative faith in my power to render at least a part of what I saw in it." Her critics have not been as confident about what the story means -- or as literary critic Elizabeth Ammons says "IF it means." As Lionel Trilling, another Wharton critic said, stated outright (and with evident irritation): "It presents no moral issue at all." So, what is the value and importance of the tale of ETHAN FROME?
We all know this is a story of a marriage gone sour, a husband's forbidden, impossible love for a woman who is not his wife, and a young woman's yearning for a man she cannot have. It is about passion, lost opportunities, and desires unfulfilled. The book was written 100 years ago but the human struggles explored in it are timeless. We all also know this is a boa constrictor of a story that grabs you and doesn't let you go. There is a strange thrill to it, its inevitable march towards tragedy tinged oddly with delight as well as a kind of horror.
When I was planning to pitch this to Lookingglass I never thought the company would go for it because I wouldn't say exactly what it means in that nut shell kind of way. I knew what the story was exploring, but not with what I was asking the audience to walk away. But as I began to dig in on the adaptation, that began to become clear to me.
As we know, the story is told in first person by the unnamed narrator in the novel and the character I name Henry Morton in the play. Henry sees Ethan at the post office and wonders what happened to him to leave him so twisted and haunted. Instead of turning away or ridiculing Ethan, Henry imagines a deeply sympathetic story for him, and this imagining is profoundly compassionate. I find this act of empathy -- at the heart of the story --very moving and an important take-away for our audience; humanity would be much better off if we were all able to look at others, with their struggles that we can never fully know or understand, with as much sympathy, generosity and empathy as Henry Morton looks at Ethan Frome.
And in thinking about that, the power of a story to allow us to walk in the shoes of another and form an empathetic connection to their struggles couldn't feel more important or more Lookingglass. Of course, that is the act of story-telling in general, I suppose, but the journey of ETHAN FROME and how we come to care for him and what he has suffered feels connect to many stories we have told in the past -- Jurgis Rudkus of The Jungle and Winston Smith of 1984, Harun Al-Rashid in The Arabian Nights, Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times, The four Brothers Karamazov to name just a few. And so, although I didn't know it at first, ETHAN FROME feels exactly right for us to be telling and sharing with our audience.
I am very grateful to be allowed to tell this beautiful, moving, important story in the way only Lookingglass can, and to be partnered with so many genius collaborators in bring ETHAN FROME to life. And so, here we go.
