Word: walden
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Americana (e.g., H.L. Mencken, Ring Lardner), Classics (Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain), Contemporary Fiction (Joseph Wambaugh, Irving Stone), History and War (Alan Moorehead, Hanson Baldwin), Fiction (Louis Auchincloss, F. Scott Fitzgerald) and Travel and Adventure (James Ramsey Ullman, Joshua Slocum). Current best renter of the more than 80 available titles: Walden. B.O.T. pays authors or their estates 10% of its rental fee and calls its service, not immodestly, "the thinking...
...fresh air, to live off the land, to think, really think. You're so close to loading up your dusty backpack that the slightest nudge of encouragement would send you on your iconoclastic, transcendental way. Be forewarned then-don't go see this play. You'll meander over to Walden Pond during intermission...
Behind bars, Thoreau has the chance to reflect on his life and its direction. He retreads the path that led to Walden Pond and which will now lead away from it. These remembrances are acted out on stage giving the audience insight into the way Thoreau's mind works and the moral dilemmas he faces. Dilemmas which have remarkable bearing on society today, or more accurately, society in the United States in the days of Vietnam. Even the most hard-boiled viewer will fidget when Thoreau looks through his imaginary bars and says, "How do you know...
...knows it contains truth. As much as Thoreau hates civilization, he recognizes that seclusion is self-indulgence. This is the central theme of the play-a theme which recurs often in history especially in times of tragedy and disillusionment, during Mexicos and during Vietnams. Thoreau's decision to leave Walden and to cry out against the war is the play's climax. The Kirkland House production is imperfect but effective. Even the romantic dreamer learns that Walden Pond is not the answer...
...thrown in jail for the night. Built around the hard fact of the great woodsman's musings to the vagrant who shares his cell, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail expands into a full picture of the man more accurate, perhaps, than the picture he gives of himself in Walden. Though the other characters in Thoreau's life, included in flashbacks, help integrate the pieces of his philosophy into the play, the strength of the Kirkland House production should lie in the simple, almost rustic way it handles the funny little things that can happen to anyone. Performances...