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December 14, 1863—Sidelined Civil War nurse and aspiring author Louisa May Alcott found a way to serve a good cause and indulge an enthusiasm dating back to childhood when she journeyed from the family home in Concord, Mass., to Boston for her dramatization of six “Scenes From Dickens.”
In her journal at the end of December, Alcott noted that the charity event was the “principal event of this otherwise quiet month.” Only someone of Alcott’s energetic, restless spirit might have regarded the month as “quiet,” for December also saw the release of a book of her short fiction, On Picket Duty, and Other Tales.
I came across Alcott’s diary entry while in the bookstore at Orchard House (see the photo I took that accompanies this post), the Concord museum that has preserved the home of Alcott and her family, a dwelling where they lived for 20 years, the longest in the lifespan of this furiously active but often impecunious family. It’s a wonderful site that opens a window not only into one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time, but of siblings and parents who combined philanthropic activity with artistic aspiration.
Most of all, the house springs Alcott out of the cubbyhole to which her greatest artistic success confined her: that of children’s book author (Little Women).
The story of Alcott’s amateur theatrical fascinates me for several reasons:
* The source she adapted, Dickens, was himself obsessed with theater, as the Canadian man of letters (and theater aficionado) Robertson Davies pointed out in his essay collection on music and drama, Happy Alchemy.
In her journal at the end of December, Alcott noted that the charity event was the “principal event of this otherwise quiet month.” Only someone of Alcott’s energetic, restless spirit might have regarded the month as “quiet,” for December also saw the release of a book of her short fiction, On Picket Duty, and Other Tales.
I came across Alcott’s diary entry while in the bookstore at Orchard House (see the photo I took that accompanies this post), the Concord museum that has preserved the home of Alcott and her family, a dwelling where they lived for 20 years, the longest in the lifespan of this furiously active but often impecunious family. It’s a wonderful site that opens a window not only into one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time, but of siblings and parents who combined philanthropic activity with artistic aspiration.
Most of all, the house springs Alcott out of the cubbyhole to which her greatest artistic success confined her: that of children’s book author (Little Women).
The story of Alcott’s amateur theatrical fascinates me for several reasons:
* The source she adapted, Dickens, was himself obsessed with theater, as the Canadian man of letters (and theater aficionado) Robertson Davies pointed out in his essay collection on music and drama, Happy Alchemy.
* Anyone who’s seen the various screen adaptations of Little Women knows how the March girls (stand-ins for the Alcotts) mounted their own amateur theatricals in their own home. At Orchard House, I saw how the Alcott girls used the dining room as a stage while guests-spectators watched from the adjoining parlor.
* Drama provided Louisa with an entry point into Concord society while shaping her literary technique. In 1856, just as the family was preparing for its move into Orchard House, Louisa helped to found the Concord Dramatic Union. Now, to my mind, any town with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Ellery Channing (all buried on Author’s Hill with Alcott in Concord’s Sleepy Hill Cemetery) can’t be all bad. But Louisa felt it was a pretty dull burg that her little theater troupe did much to make bearable.
* At the same time—and this might come as a surprise to those of my readers who only know of Alcott as a children’s book writer—the instinct for the dramatic that she was sharpening in these productions aided her as she wrote sensational thrillers (published under a pseudonym) that would keep her family out of penury. (One of these potboilers later found in her papers, A Long Fatal Love Chase, an eerie precursor of the stalking phenomenon, was praised by horror honcho Stephen King when it finally saw the light of day in 1995.)
* The year 1863 marked a turning point in Alcott’s life, one in which one pursuit—nursing—ended up so disastrously that it endangered her health, while another—professional writing—turned out to be unexpectedly promising. During the winter, a month’s service as a nurse at the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, Va., terminated when she contracted typhoid pneumonia. (The cure commonly prescribed in those days—calomel, a dangerously toxic mercury compound—only depleted her energy further. Though she lived another quarter century, she never regained her old vigor.)
* While Louisa recuperated, she turned her attention more seriously to fiction. From summer to the end of the year, she maintained a pace that would have staggered your humble daily blogger—Hospital Sketches, based on her recent nursing stint; thrillers (“A Pair of Eyes”), fairy tales and fantasy stories (The Rose Family).
“Sketches of Dickens” – Origins and Reception
The play began as a fundraising event for the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC), an agency that Abraham Lincoln reluctantly signed into existence at the start of the Civil War. When you consider its sponsors—a bunch of well-to-do, earnest New Yorkers whose do-gooder instincts far exceeded their experience with military health administration—you can see why the President dreaded that it was a “fifth wheel” of the war effort. In time, as he saw its results—raising $5 million in money and $15 million in donated supplies, providing a much-needed coterie of nurses, and, most important, cutting the disease rate of the Union Army in half—he came to think better of it.
Alcott was prevailed upon to write for a charity event, the Sanitary Fair, for the USSC. As a former nurse and abolitionist, she certainly felt compelled to help any way she could. Nevertheless, as a reading of her diary entry confirms, she did not leave her critical instincts at the door.
In the following passage, you can see how Alcott is already shedding the notion of writing as hobby in favor of a more professional orientation: “Things did not go well for want of a good manager and more time. Our night was not at all satisfactory to us, owing to the falling through of several scenes for want of actors.”
“Sketches of Dickens” – Origins and Reception
The play began as a fundraising event for the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC), an agency that Abraham Lincoln reluctantly signed into existence at the start of the Civil War. When you consider its sponsors—a bunch of well-to-do, earnest New Yorkers whose do-gooder instincts far exceeded their experience with military health administration—you can see why the President dreaded that it was a “fifth wheel” of the war effort. In time, as he saw its results—raising $5 million in money and $15 million in donated supplies, providing a much-needed coterie of nurses, and, most important, cutting the disease rate of the Union Army in half—he came to think better of it.
Alcott was prevailed upon to write for a charity event, the Sanitary Fair, for the USSC. As a former nurse and abolitionist, she certainly felt compelled to help any way she could. Nevertheless, as a reading of her diary entry confirms, she did not leave her critical instincts at the door.
In the following passage, you can see how Alcott is already shedding the notion of writing as hobby in favor of a more professional orientation: “Things did not go well for want of a good manager and more time. Our night was not at all satisfactory to us, owing to the falling through of several scenes for want of actors.”
You can just imagine the future author of Little Women shrugging to herself as she sat at the desk (built for her by her father) in Orchard House, noting that “people liked what there was of it” and that the show made $2,500. More indicative of where her mind was heading, however, was the figure she scribbled down at the head of this entry: “Earnings 1863, $380.”
Making Lemonade From a LemonThough Alcott eyed her involvement in this show with rather severe critical detachment, I believe that this theatrical endeavor, like virtually all writing activities, was not a total loss. Nobody likes to write in a vacuum; even the most daring writers crave readers. Gauging audience reaction honed Alcott’s crowd-pleasing instincts.
Like Dickens, Alcott never became a major playwright (in the United States in those days, particularly for women, the prospects were particularly daunting). But I can’t help but think that she learned a great deal about characterization, dialogue and pacing from her plays.
If you don’t believe me, then consider what a cinematic and theatrical warhorse that Little Women has become over the years. I’m fond of the 1933 and 1994 adaptations, starring, respectively, Katharine Hepburn and Winona Ryder as Alcott’s alter ego, family tomboy Jo. (I haven’t gotten around to the 1949 MGM version—I don’t think I can stomach June Allyson as Jo!) And Broadway theater aficionados, if they got there quickly enough, might have caught the 2005 musical with Sutton Foster as Jo and Maureen McGovern as Marmee.
But get this—that doesn’t even exhaust the possibilities for this show. How about Little Women as TV movie (1978, starring Susan Dey as Jo, Meredith Baxter Birney, Eve Plumb, and—hold onto your lasers!—William Shatner as the German professor). Ten years ago, Mark Adamo turned it into an opera. And, believe it or not, it was even adapted into Japanese anime (Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari , or “The Story of Love's Young Grass”).
So, as you channel-surf this holiday season and come across the several versions of Alcott’s most durable work, just remember their inspiration—not just her own family, who furnished her with models for the main characters, but also the love of the theater she indulged this holiday season back in 1863—then, like now, a dark time in our nation’s history.
Like Dickens, Alcott never became a major playwright (in the United States in those days, particularly for women, the prospects were particularly daunting). But I can’t help but think that she learned a great deal about characterization, dialogue and pacing from her plays.
If you don’t believe me, then consider what a cinematic and theatrical warhorse that Little Women has become over the years. I’m fond of the 1933 and 1994 adaptations, starring, respectively, Katharine Hepburn and Winona Ryder as Alcott’s alter ego, family tomboy Jo. (I haven’t gotten around to the 1949 MGM version—I don’t think I can stomach June Allyson as Jo!) And Broadway theater aficionados, if they got there quickly enough, might have caught the 2005 musical with Sutton Foster as Jo and Maureen McGovern as Marmee.
But get this—that doesn’t even exhaust the possibilities for this show. How about Little Women as TV movie (1978, starring Susan Dey as Jo, Meredith Baxter Birney, Eve Plumb, and—hold onto your lasers!—William Shatner as the German professor). Ten years ago, Mark Adamo turned it into an opera. And, believe it or not, it was even adapted into Japanese anime (Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari , or “The Story of Love's Young Grass”).
So, as you channel-surf this holiday season and come across the several versions of Alcott’s most durable work, just remember their inspiration—not just her own family, who furnished her with models for the main characters, but also the love of the theater she indulged this holiday season back in 1863—then, like now, a dark time in our nation’s history.
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