Directed by Charles S. Dubin
Julie Harris brought her sensitive portrayal of poet Emily Dickinson to Broadway’s Longacre Theatre for 116 performances from April to August of 1976, and she reprised it in this faithful television adaptation for PBS just four months after the conclusion of the New York stage run. Taped before a live audience, the video version of William Luce’s single-character monologue is essentially a recreation of the Broadway production, set in Dickinson’s Amherst, Massachusetts home, where she lived in seclusion while writing nearly 1800 poems, only seven of which were published (anonymously) during her lifetime. Harris, playing the poet at age 53, is a delight. In constant motion, she addresses both home and studio audience members as though they were her houseguests, pouring tea and serving cakes; sharing recipes; recalling friends, family members and schooldays; poignantly revealing the joys and disappointments of her reclusive life; and relishing “the game” of being the town eccentric. Playwright Luce draws incisively from Dickinson’s poetry, diaries and letters to create a fully-realized portrait, while director Charles S. Dubin’s cameras confidently follow the luminous Harris, whose familiarity with Dickinson resulted, in Luce’s words, “from years of dedicated research into her life and works.” Harris had been awarded her fifth Best Actress Tony Award for the stage production of The Belle of Amherst and in 1978 she received a Grammy for her audio recording of the play. But although her performance (as well as the entire TV production) was universally praised, she was denied Emmy recognition for the television version. However, she was undoubtedly consoled by the fact that she did receive an Emmy nomination for her other Tony-winning portrayal of a famous 19th-century American woman which also aired on PBS in 1976: that of Mary Todd Lincoln in the Hollywood Television Theatre broadcast of James Prideaux’s “The Last of Mrs. Lincoln.”
Dan Einstein
A Dome/Creative Images Production. Producers: Mike Merrick, Don Gregory. Writer: William Luce. With: Julie Harris.
Digital Betacam, color, 90 min.
Preserved from the original master videotape. Video transfer at the CBS Media Exchange.
