Thompson and Below Present Emily

Playing Time: 50 minutes (A literary forum is held directly following the performance)
Playing Space: 4×4 meters, 12×12 feet | Genre: Narrative Drama

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, born 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is one of the most fascinating and profoundly important figures in English literature. She addresses our faith, as well as our doubts, with deep perception and complete honesty. No American poet has stimulated as many dichotomous opinions regarding their psychological behavior as Emily Dickinson. Critics and publishers alike who branded her poetry as ‘uncontrolled and spasmodic’ sought to ‘improve’ and regularize her poetry by removing all spelling, syntactical and punctual eccentricities. However, Emily said of herself, to normalize me is to miss my stature.

Kathleen Ann Thompson and Agnes von Below give us a peek into the inner world of Emily, whose poems are rare distillations of truth, clarifying the necessity for faith-the bridge between certainty and uncertainty. In this dramatic reading of her poems you will meet the woman who was known to New Englanders as “the Myth” and hear her poems in English and German set to an inspiring musical sound track.