Walden Behind Bars

LOOK, I KNOW how you feel. You're fed up with Harvard and grades and competition. You just want to say to hell with it all and take off, alone, to breathe 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.

But if you want to spend a pleasant evening watching a provocative play about a complex man-a play which tosses out all sorts of philosophical tidbits on subjects like civil disobedience, the Universal One, deism and back-to-naturism-then it may not be a bad idea to go see The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail playing at Kirkland House this weekend.

The play, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. is about Harvard's own Henry David Thoreau (played by Greg Landiss, a second year Harvard law student) and his decision to rejoin society. Thoreau has been arrested for with olding tax payments which would finance weapons used in the Mexican War. The night in jail is a turning point for Thoreau who, at age 29, is about to exchange his life of withdrawal for a life of social activism.

The play would be a smash hit if the war in Vietnam was still being fought and if Harvard students were still agonizing over decisions about whether to fight or flee to Canada as conscientious objectors. For Thoreau is jailed because he objects to a white supremacist war being carried out by a fanatic president hell-bent on conquering an innocent people for its own glorification-a war Ulysses S. Grnt called the most wicked in history, a war with striking similarities to Vietnam.

But even though the draft no longer threatens increasingly self-satisfied Harvard students, the messages Thoreau offers on the harms of unchecked technological progress and his philosophy on attaining "consciousness" make for insightful entertainment.

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 I'm not the free one? The freest man in the world! And you, out there, are chained to what you have to do tomorrow morning."

PLAYWRIGHTS Lawrence and Lee are very careful to illustrate Thoreau not as the bearded, weary-eyed man seen on postage stamps, but as a vigorous, rebellious, self-righteous contemporary-someone to connect with on a personal level.

All in all, director Don Pullum '79 and his cast produce a play worthy of the script's brilliance. Most of the characters are natural and believable, and a few are portryed superbly. Marley Clause '79, cast as a conquettish Concord girl who nearly wins Thoreau's heart, is quite professional. James Thorn '79 does a good job of playing an aging Ralph Waldo Emerson. Augustine Caimi '79, as Thoreau's cellmate, and John Newport '78, as Thoreau's brother, put on fine performances as well. But the nature of the play demands that the portrayal of Thoreau be executed with perfection-and though Landiss is very good in some scenes, his acting is far from faultless.

Landiss's main problem is that he overacts-perhps at Pullum's insistence. Certain scenes reach an emotional level which is entirely too high. The play seems to peak every five minutes, leaving the audience on a lurching roller coaster. And Landiss's method of attaining these misplaced emotional peaks is awkward. It is as though someone told him the only thing an actor can do to increase intensity is talk faster or louder or both. Landiss fails to realize that in many scenes a well-placed whisper can be more effective than an ear-shattering, rapid-fire sequence of unintelligible lines. To make matters worse, Landiss's emphatic little "umphs" run over some of the most precious and meaningful lines in the entire play.

Perhaps Thoreau was a kinetic, hyper-active, easily excited individual who bellowed at the top of his lungs at the drop of a hat and treated every other word he uttered as though it was destined to be chiseled in granite. Perhaps Landiss and Pullum have captured the essence of the man on stage, I don't know. But a calmer, more subtle, more contemplative characterization would probably be more effective in portraying the gentle man who could live by himself for nearly two years on the bank of a New England pond.

THOREAU PREACHED simplification and the advice was well-heeded by the set designers. The props and furniture are sparse and do not distract the viewer from the characters. The blocking is exceptionally good and the costumes are unpretentious.

One of the most interesting aspects of the play was Thoreau's relationship with his idol and elder, Ralph Waldo Emerson. At one point in the play, Thoreau lambasts Emerson for not taking a stand against the Mexican War. Emerson sighs and says:

Sometimes I think I invented you, Henry. Or at least I prophesied you. Because you live what I talk about. I couldn't exist the way you do, Henry; I like my warm toast and tea and soft-boiled egg brought to me on a tray in bed each morning...But I admire you, Henry, I really do.

When Thoreau continues to press influential Emerson to crusade against the war, Emerson finally turns to Thoreau and says, "And what are you doing about it young man? You pull the woods up over your head. You resign from the human race."

This accusation pierces Thoreau, for he 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.