“Revels and Revelations”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - June 2010

“Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;”

– Revelations 1:19 (KJV)

“In our modern world of Kindle and iPad I wondered what it really is that we lose when we give up that driving human obsession to document, to inscribe, to draw with ink on paper.”

– playwright & director Juliane Hiam in her Director’s Note

Evangelicals have given the Book of Revelations a bad rap over the millennia. I was pleasantly surprised when I actually read it from beginning to end a few years back. It is far less Hellfire-and-Brimstone than you may have been led to believe, and it is full of admonitions to write your stories down. This interested me and it interested Juliane Hiam, the playwright and director of this summer’s one-woman show at Ventfort Hall, so much that she put it in the title – Revels and Revelations – and makes the search for the meaning of the numbers one nineteen (a reference to the quotation from the Book of Revelations that opens this review) an integral part of the plot.

Unfortunately, this is not a play about the Book of Revelations, or about someone who felt compelled to write her story. In fact, Belle da Costa Greene, who is theoretically the subject of this play, was very interested in keeping her story a secret. She refused to allow her biography to be written and burned all of her personal papers shortly before her death.

I have always looked forward to the one woman shows at Ventfort Hall because they inevitably introduce me to a fascinating woman of the Gilded Age with ties to the Berkshires – Fanny Kemble, Morgan O-Yuki, Anna “Annie” Kneeland Haggerty Shaw, and Mary Alsop King Waddington. Women’s stories weren’t told publicly at that time, and we are only just beginning to uncover them and marvel. The purpose of this series of plays is to write these women’s stories down, and that is exactly what Hiam, author of last summer’s Paris 1890: Unlaced has failed to do.

Revels and Revelations is too short and filled with too many histrionics and not nearly enough history. The script is herky-jerky as it moves Belle back and forth in time and in states of consciousness and I was never entirely clear whether she was asleep and dreaming or awake and lucid or when the action was supposed to be set in the early 1900’s and when it was taking place the middle part of the century shortly before her death.

Actress Andi Bohs is not up to the challenge of helping the audience figure all this out, or giving us a clear picture of who Belle was (and wasn’t) which is an enormous pity because of all the women Ventfort Hall has brought to life, she was among the most intriguing to me. Allow me to introduce you in a couple of historical/biographical paragraphs:

Belle da Costa Greene, (nee Belle Marion Greener, 1883-1950) went to work for J.P. Morgan (nee John Pierpont Morgan, 1837-1913) in 1906, became his librarian, and then the Director of what is now the Morgan Library, a position she held until 1948. She was a black woman – her father, Richard Theodore Greener (1844-1922), was the first black man to graduate from Harvard in 1870 and her mother, Genevieve Ida Fleet, was a member of a prominent black family in Washington, DC, where Belle was born – but after her parents separated Belle, her mother and her siblings changed their names and began passing as white. Belle adopted the middle name da Costa and claimed a Portuguese heritage.

Her Ventfort Hall connection, which is murky in Hiam’s script, is through J.P. Morgan’s nephew, Junius Spencer Morgan (1867-1932), the son of George Hale Morgan (1840-1911) and Sarah Spencer Morgan Morgan* (1839-1896), for whom the Hall was built. Sarah was J.P. Morgan’s sister. An avid rare book collector in his own right, Junius was the associate librarian of Princeton University from 1898-1909 and Belle worked for him there prior to her employment with J.P.. It was Junius who introduced her to his uncle. Belle never visited Ventfort Hall.

Hiam contradicts herself and Belle’s history by having her say that she tried to live her life anonymously. On the contrary, Belle led an extremely public life. She was intelligent, outspoken, and an expert at bargaining with the world’s leading art buyers for rare and antique books, incunabula, manuscripts, and bindings. Her beauty and style were legendary. She was a fashion icon and is reputed to have said: “”Just because I am a librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.” She never married and led a Bohemian lifestyle. When asked if she and J.P. Morgan had had an affair she said, “We tried!” Whether or not she was Morgan’s lover, she had a long-term romance with Renaissance Italian art expert Bernard Berenson.

Now you understand what a fascinating story you are NOT being told in this play. Who cares what one nineteen signifies and what “revelations” Belle is seeking? Tell us HER story – write down the things she saw and the things she lived and the things that came after. How did she get to be such an expert in rare books? Why did she want to pass as white? What made her happy and what made her sad? Where did she travel and who did she meet?

Not only has Hiam created a distracting and distracted script, she has directed this production herself using grand expanses of the Ventfort entry hall so that Bohs is more likely to be somewhere the audience isn’t facing than she is to be on the small stage in front of them, where Carl Sprague has created a very nice little set representing the Librarian’s Office at the Morgan Library. David Edwards has designed interesting projections which appear on the curtain across the doorway behind the set.

The lighting design is uncredited, but thankfully Bohs is never in the dark as she romps around. She enters down the formidable grand staircase singing an odd song composed by “Commander Pants” (a.k.a. Steven May, who might be wise to go by the fine name his mother gave him instead of this ludicrous nickname) who has created an original score for this production.

The one thing right with this production is Bohs’ beauty and Arthur Oliver’s glorious costumes for her, which makes it all the more ridiculous when Hiam has Belle say she tried to live anonymously. One look at Bohs in her white lace gown with stunning red earring and it is impossible to imagine her entering a room unnoticed. Although Hiam and Oliver make the mistake at the very start of allowing Bohs to appear bare-armed in a corset and slip – the more skin you see the more you are aware that Bohs is a woman of color (and unfortunately all the press photos show her bare-armed) – once she is covered up and powdered, as Belle herself inevitably would have been, it is easy to understand how she could pass for white.

What Bohs can’t pass for is an expert in rare books and paper goods. She handles a few books in the course of the play, most notably an enormous old bible. Do not be fooled. Every church in the United States established before 1920 has one of those enormous old bibles stashed away. They look ancient and valuable and they’re not, which makes them excellent stage props. But Bohs has had no training in how to handle a rare book – only once does she don gloves, the bible is too big for her, and Hiam has her pick it up and walk around with it open, which is awkward and would be dangerous if the volume had any real value. I recommend a visit to the excellent librarians at the Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College for a crash course.

While Revels and Revelations has officially opened, I hope Hiam and Bohs will take the time to tighten up and refocus the production, if not do some rewrites. Belle’s story is really interesting, it should be told clearly, and Ventfort Hall is the ideal setting. Until the right play comes there, I recommend reading An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege by Heidi Ardizzone (W.W. Norton, 2007).

Revels and Revelations runs through September 5 at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum, 104 Walker Street in Lenox, MA, with performances every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. (there will be no performance on Thursday, July 29 due to a special concert with Vicens Prats, principle flutist of the Orchestre de Paris and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra).

The show runs 60 minutes with no intermission and is suitable for all ages. Tickets are $25 for adults and $7 children five or older. Reservations are highly recommended as performances often sell out. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. For further information contact Ventfort Hall at 413-637-3206 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              413-637-3206      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              413-637-3206      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              413-637-3206      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or visit www.GildedAge.org.

*There are several generations of men and women bearing the names Sarah Spencer Morgan and Junius Spencer Morgan. The fact that the Sarah Spencer Morgan of Ventfort Hall married George Hale Morgan and became Sarah Spencer Morgan Morgan makes it even more confusing. Her sister, Juliet Pierpont Morgan Morgan, followed suit and married Sarah’s husband George’s brother, the Reverend John Brainerd Morgan.

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