Hawthorne & Melville: A play for two friends,

Or: The Whale

 

by Nancy Lucia Hoffman

with text from Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne,

Moira Brady Averill, and Philip Hoare’s Leviathan.

 

 

 Characters

Nathaniel Hawthorne:    48, played by a smart, funny woman

Herman Melville:            33, played by a smarter, funnier woman

Stage Directions:            any age, but by a smart woman

 

Costume Note: They might wear clothes from Hawthorne and Melville's period, but the women are not trying to pass as men. No beards. Maybe Hawthorne can have a mustache for a little while. Like three minutes.

 

Pacing: I think a healthy pace works best.

 

 

Places

Hawthorne's writing room

A ship

The ocean

A beach­

Anywhere two friends meet or wait for each other

 

 

 

 

At rise:   The stage has trappings of a sailing ship: pulleys, wooden buckets, mast, boom, rigging, etc­­. Downstage is a writing desk. Middle of stage is a tub that can hold water, upside down.

 

              The two women enter from opposite sides, meet, then face the audience.

 

HAWTHORNE

In the summer of 2015 I saw my dear friend. (to Melville) I've been reading about Nathaniel Hawthorne!

 

MELVILLE

No way, I've been reading about Herman Melville and whales. Let's go to sea!

 

HAWTHORNE

That's a strong maybe from me.

 

MELVILLE

Oh my god, it's sailing. It's amazing. Get the wind in your hair already.

 

They move to their places. Hawthorne is downstage at a writing desk, Melville upstage in the boat, making busy with sailing preparations. Hawthorne speaks.

 

HAWTHORNE

Hello, I’m Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 

PROJECTION: Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 

Hawthorne looks upstage at Melville, who's full of life and action.

 

HAWTHORNE (cont.)

My friend Herman Melville. Gone to sea. Ever more adventurous than I. I'm a landlocked, land-bound sort. I love the coast, from which I can comfortably admire the great salty sea. I dip my toes. Melville goes all in.

 

PROJECTION: Herman Melville

 

Melville swings on a rope around the mast like a tetherball, looking at Hawthorne, audience.

 

HAWTHORNE (cont.)

I’m not only landlocked, I can get myself room-locked as well. Tongue-locked. Expression-locked.

 

                             PROJECTION: blank slide

 

HAWTHORNE (cont.)

Moody, broody introvert right here. When I was nine I got hit pretty hard in the leg with a baseball - and I faked paralysis… stayed in bed for a whole year. Without Netflix. I got out of school, church, chores. I looovve staying in.

 

Melville kicks a roll of brown paper. It unscrolls all the way to Hawthorne. Hawthorne picks it up and reads.

 

PROJECTION: Envelope to Hawthorne

PROJECTION: Melville letter to Hawthorne.

 

MELVILLE

"My dear Hawthorne. You must give me the joy of a visit. Fear not that you will cause the slightest trouble. Your bed is already made, and the wood marked for your fire.

 

HAWTHORNE

(hemming)

Uh, let me look at my calendar…

 

MELVILLE

"I keep the word 'Welcome' all the time in my mouth, so as to be ready the instant you cross the threshold…We will have mulled wine with wisdom, and buttered toast with story-telling, and crack jokes and bottles from morning till night.

 

HAWTHORNE

(flipping through his calendar)

Let me see…

 

MELVILLE

"You may do what you please -- say or say not what you please. And if you feel any inclination for that sort of thing -- you may spend the period of your visit in bed, if you like -- every hour of your visit.

 

PROJECTION: Blank slide

 

HAWTHORNE

Okay, sounds good. I’ll be up in a few.

 

MELVILLE

Perfect. I was kidding about that last part. You can’t stay in bed the whole time. But come now. I really want to see you.

  

HAWTHORNE

I will. I want to see you too. I won’t stay in bed. We landsmen have no variety in our lives.

 

Hawthorne rises and packs a small bag.

 

PROJECTION: Berkshires

 

HAWTHORNE

Hawthorne and Melville met on August 5, 1850, a Monday, during a picnic and hike in the Berkshire Mountains, in western Massachusetts, with other prominent essayists and thinkers - Oliver Wendell Holmes and that crew. Hawthorne was forty-six and had recently published The Scarlett Letter. Melville was thirty-one and was known for his South Sea tales, Typee and Omoo. Each had read and reviewed the other's work positively.

 

PROJECTION: Thunderstorm approaching

 

HAWTHORNE (cont.)

During the course of the hike, a thunderstorm blew in and forced the party to take shelter on the mountainside. While the elements raged the two men talked and realized, as the poet Rumi says, "Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends." Each recognized--

 

MELVILLE

 "those deep far-away things, those occasional flashings- forth of the intuitive Truth… probing at the very axis of reality"

 

HAWTHORNE

Two days later Hawthorne wrote to a friend, "I liked Melville so much that I have asked him to spend a few days with me." This would be the first of a series of visits, letters, texts, emails, and Skype conversations.

 

PROJECTION: Envelope

 

MELVILLE

LETTER TO HAWTHORNE, JUNE 29 1851

My dear Hawthorne -- The clear air and open window invite me to write to you. …The "Whale" is only half through the press; for, wearied with the long delay of the printers, and disgusted with the heat and dust of the brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the country to feel the grass -- and end the book reclining on it, if I may. -- When I am quite free of my present engagements, I am going to treat myself to a ride and a visit to you. Have ready a bottle of brandy, because I always feel like drinking that heroic drink when we talk ontological heroics together.

 

Shall I send you a fin of the Whale by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked -- though the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this. This is the book's motto (the secret one), -- Ego non baptiso te in nomine: I do not baptize thee in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil!

 

PROJECTION: blank slide

​

Melville packs his small bag and readies for a visit.

 

HAWTHORNE

I wrote a letter back, but they don't survive. I asked all my friends to burn my letters. I didn't want private stuff to be shared after I was gone. Pissy-pants introvert. Don't look at me. (whispered) Look at me. (spoken) Don't look at me. (whispered) Look at me. But I write of our meetings in my journals: At our red farmhouse in Lenox, I wrote: "Melville and I had a talk about time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters, that lasted pretty deep into the night. . .

 

MELVILLE

Brother, come on! You're painfully slow. I can't wait to see you.

 

                   They gather their things, shoulder their bags.

 

HAWTHORNE

My friend is a genius. I do my best to keep up. I mean, I’m no slouch, but she will dazzle you.

 

They cross and meet each other in the middle, on an upside down wooden tub. Hawthorne takes out a bag of cookies, opens it, eats, offers to Melville. Now more downstage, Melville greets the audience for the first time.

 

MELVILLE

Oh my god hi, thanks for coming. You look amazing. (to Hawthorne) Are you going to feed them? It’s only polite. They’re sitting here, about to listen to our banter. If the jokes don’t land they can at least get a snack out of it. (to the audience) I apologize. She lives by herself, forgets it's good to share. Single, 48, beautiful, smart, funny, kind, good driver. She doesn't cook. Sometimes moody and a little clueless, but we all have our flaws. Any takers? Gentlemen. Sorry ladies, only her car is bi-curious. Subaru.

 

Hawthorne takes the bag of cookies and gives it to the audience, tells them to have some and pass it round.

 

MELVILLE

Do you have any popcorn?

 

Hawthorne rummages. Yes. They eat, pass to the audience.

 

HAWTHORNE

My car is awesome, and frankly, any car the lesbians approve of is precisely the car I want to drive. We fit your bike in it without taking the tire off, remember?­

 

MELVILLE

Yes and you thought I was mad at you because we hadn’t talked in four weeks. I don’t know why you’d think that.

 

HAWTHORNE

It’s good to see you, Moi.

 

MELVILLE

You too, Nancela. (to the audience) I’m Moira, she’s Nance. We’re not really Melville and Hawthorne. Obviously.

 

HAWTHORNE

We’re as awesome.

 

MELVILLE

In our minds. Sure.

 

HAWTHORNE

You have as much range and pathos as Melville. I’m moody and have the same initials as Hawthorne. We’re perfect.

 

MELVILLE

You’re older and wiser.

 

HAWTHORNE

Maybe. We're all writers. Hawthorne and I both spent time in Liverpools. Different continents, though.

 

MELVILLE

We did not meet on a picnic.

 

HAWTHORNE

No. I think it was a bar.

 

MELVILLE

We traipsed around New England.

 

HAWTHORNE

Dear God yes we did.

 

MELVILLE

I would never kill a whale. Like the Quakers. So much for non-violence.

 

HAWTHORNE

The Quakers were whalers?

 

MELVILLE

Didn’t you know that? Totally disgusting. Got rich off ruthless slaughters of whales for years. America has always shed blood for oil.

 

HAWTHORNE

The Quakers?

 

PROJECTION: Leviathan cover

 

MELVILLE

Yes. Here, read Leviathan by Philip Hoare. I don’t know how to say his last name. It won the Samuel Johnson prize for nonfiction. I'm telling you they were greedy and bloodthirsty and disgusting.

 

HAWTHORNE

Huh. Cool.

 

MELVILLE

It’s good. All about whales and Herman Melville and those asshole Quakers. What are you reading? What are you watching? Tell me a good documentary.

 

PROJECTION: Intangible Asset 82

 

HAWTHORNE

Uh, I watched uh… Intangible Asset Number 82. It’s about a drummer looking for a South Korean shaman who's a drummer and who uses his drumming to heal people and he's so astounding in his musical & healing abilities he’s been declared an intangible asset of his country.

 

MELVILLE

That’s amazing.

 

HAWTHORNE

Oh my god, and there’s this one guy they show, he’s a monk? They're exploring the way music and spirituality connect and he’s literally been living next to a waterfall in the woods for like 6 years, to learn to sing from it. He’s so fucking loud. He’s the loudest human I’ve ever heard. He’s gotten so loud in order to hear himself over the waterfall, it’s unbelievable. At one point they’re walking through the woods and they get to this beautiful vista and the loud guy, he looks at the scenery and like recognizes its beauty, then vocalizes in response to it and he’s like RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH and it fills the whole valley. It’s amazing. And you think okay six years singing by a waterfall, he’s got to be barking mad, right? But they meet him and he’s like “Hi, how are you?” It’s awesome. You’d like it.

 

MELVILLE

I love it. Yes. I’ll watch it. Okay, let’s work. I’m writing. Are you writing?

 

PROJECTION: blank slide

 

HAWTHORNE

I am. What are you working on?

 

MELVILLE

I’ve got this story about whales.

 

HAWTHORNE

Nice. You’ve got the experience.

 

MELVILLE

Yeah, it’s some about hunting whales, how the ship goes from nothing lolling about on the open sea to everything when you hear "thar she blows". The rowboats drop, everyone leaps into them, your arms become lit with fire from rowing, and you race to kill the biggest fish in the sea. You know, some myths from the Marquesas, some other sailor adventures, that kind of thing.

 

HAWTHORNE

Cool. What’s the big story of it going to be?

 

MELVILLE

What do you mean?

 

HAWTHORNE

Like, what’s the really big question behind it all? Why are you really writing it?

 

MELVILLE

Well there’s lots of cool stories in it.

 

HAWTHORNE

Why are you writing it? What do you really want to say?

 

MELVILLE

I want to write the most honest book. They won't like it. They'll say it's evil.

 

HAWTHORNE

C'mon Herm. You know what you want to say. We have to tell the truth. They'll only call it evil if it's actually truthful. Stories are fine, but… You’re writing about whales. That’s the biggest creature of all. Tell truths the size of whales. The size of all the sea they roam.

 

MELVILLE

Dear god, my friend you are right. To produce a mighty book you must choose a mighty theme.

 

HAWTHORNE

Holla that.

 

The visit is over. They stand and hug and Hawthorne goes back to his desk. Melville sits and writes intensely.

 

HAWTHORNE

That last part was an approximation of their conversation. Melville credited his talks with Hawthorne as changing the course of Moby Dick from some tales about whaling to the big sweeping soul-singing mess of a masterpiece that it is today. Remember he even dedicated that whopping tome to his pal.

 

PROJECTION:  frontispiece dedication

 

MELVILLE

In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

​

​

--end sample