THE BELLE OF

AMHERST
BY WILLIAM LUCE

DRAMATISTS
PLAY SERVICE
INC.
 THE BELLE OF AMHERST
Copyright © 2015, William Luce and Don Gregory

All Rights Reserved

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2
 AUTHOR’S NOTE

I first became acquainted with Emily Dickinson’s poetry when I

was a boy in sophomore English. Years later, a friend gave me a gift
of Emily’s collected letters. When I read those letters, I saw more
clearly into the heart of the shy woman whose poems I had loved
and admired for so long. I came to know her way of balancing
richness and spareness, ecstasy and despair. There is a mystical
energy, an inner tone in her writings. Emily’s poems and letters
radiate an invisible light. It is much like looking obliquely at a star
in order to see it.
When I undertook the writing of The Belle of Amherst, it was my
hope to depict the humanity and reasonableness of Emily
Dickinson’s life. I say reasonableness because I believe that she
consciously elected to be what she was — a voluntary exile from
village provincialism, an original New England romantic, concisely
witty, heterodox in faith, alone but not lonely, “with Will to choose,
or to reject.”
“And I choose,” she said. In recent years, Emily’s choice has been
the subject of psychoanalytic studies, some of which have portrayed
her as social isolate possessed of disordered impulses and mentally
alienated from reality. The strange faces of genius are enigmatic to
the structured mind, probing for final answers. Causation seems as
elusive as “melody or witchcraft.” Emily wrote,
Much Madness is divinest Sense —
To a discerning Eye —
The essential Emily of my play is secretly saying to the audience,
“Pardon my insanity, Pardon my jubilation to Nature, my terror of
midnight, my childlike wonder at love, my white renunciation.
Nothing more do I ask than to share with you the ecstasy and
sacrament of my life.” In my play, Emily’s life is presented as a
deliberate covenant with Nature and Art, a premeditated channeling
of creative desire. With the same mind by which she exquisitely
fashioned poems of chaste brevity, Emily superbly set the timepiece
of her life. She even knew when her Coachman Death would come,
and sent to her cousins a last message just before she died: “Little
Cousins, — Called back. Emily.”

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I consider the one-person play to be uniquely suited to the telling
of Emily’s story. She was reclusive, an individualist of the highest
order. To interpolate other actors and actresses seemed unnecessary
to me. I decided that Emily alone should tell her story, sharing with
the audience the inner drama of the poet’s consciousness in an
intimate, one-to-one relationship.
I am often asked to explain the process by which I wrote The Belle of
Amherst. It was a creative effort founded on intensive methodical
research. For two years I read and reread the several biographical
studies of Emily, the three-volume collection of her letters, and the
three-volume variorum edition of her poems. During this study, I
took extensive notes, culled dramatically workable anecdotes, poems,
and excerpts from Emily’s letters; catalogued them under subject
headings; rearranged them in a chronological pattern; and interwove
them in a conversational style, blending my own words as seamlessly
as possible, and with the cadence and color of Emily’s words.
Gradually, Emily’s story emerged, as if she were telling it herself.
My colleagues — “The Emily Committee,” we called ourselves —
also pored over the Dickinson material, and their contribution to
the play was wonderfully inspiring and significant. Julie Harris,
Charles Nelson Reilly, and Timothy Helgeson are all Dickinson
students. Particularly, Julie’s familiarity with Emily resulted from
her years of dedicated research into her life and works; she also
recorded two albums of the letters and poems for Caedmon Records.
We all seemed joined together in love in this enterprise of simple
beauty. We felt it for Emily, for each other, and for the play. And we
feel it for the audiences who have taken our “Belle” to their hearts.
The Belle of Amherst is a love affair with language, a celebration of all
that is beautiful and poignant in life. As it turns out, shy Miss Emily
was writing for theater as surely as she breathed. In her every evocative
phrase there is theatrical texture. On stage, the strange ways of Emily
Dickinson become dramatic qualities in an arena large enough to
give them the look of “divinest Sense.” Thus, the theater seems a
thoroughly appropriate setting for Emily’s life and art, enabling
actress and audience to “climb the Bars of Ecstasy” together.

—William Luce

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THE BELLE OF AMHERST premiered on Broadway at the
Longacre Theatre, opening on April 28, 1976. It was directed by
Charles Nelson Reilly; the scenic and lighting designs were by H.
R. Poindexter; the costume design was by Theoni V. Aldredge;
and the production stage manager was George Eckert. Emily
Dickinson was played by Julie Harris.

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 CHARACTERS

EMILY DICKINSON

PLACE

The Dickinson household

in Amherst, Massachusetts.

TIME

1845–1886.

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Me — come! My dazzled face
In such a shining place!
Me — hear! My foreign Ear
The sounds of Welcome — there!

The Saints forget

Our bashful feel —

My Holiday, shall be
That They — remember me —
My Paradise — the fame
That They — pronounce my name —

—Emily Dickinson
THE BELLE OF AMHERST
ACT ONE

The curtain is always up. The entire action of the play takes
place in the Dickinson household in Amherst, Massachusetts,
1845–1886. The stage suggests two rooms. Stage right is Emily
Dickinson’s bedroom. It contains a narrow iron bed with
railings at the head and foot. At the end of the bed is a trunk. By
a window seat, a doll sits on the floor. Downstage area: a small
square table and chair, at which Emily does her writing. A
kerosene lamp is on the table. On the floor beside the table is a
carved box or chest containing Emily’s finished poems. Stage
left is the Dickinson parlor. It has a square piano of the 1850
period, settee, chair books, table, pictures, low chest, tea cart,
and hall tree.

It is 1883. Emily Dickinson enters from stage left. She is fifty-

three years old. Her hair is auburn, parted in the center and
pulled back. She is dressed in a simple full-length white dress
with an apron over it. She enters carrying the teapot and calling
back over her shoulder.

EMILY. Yes, Vinnie, I have the tea, dear. (Places the tea on the
teacart, then looks up wide-eyed at the audience. Slowly picks up a plate
with slices of dark cake on it, walks shyly downstage, and extends it to
the audience.) This is my introduction. Black cake. It’s my own special
recipe.
Forgive me if I’m frightened. I never see strangers, and hardly
know what I say. My sister Lavinia — she’s younger than I — says
I tend to wander back and forth in time. So you must bear with me.
I was born December tenth, 1830, which makes me — fifty-three?

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 Welcome to Amherst. My name is Emily Elizabeth Dickinson.
Elizabeth is for my Aunt Elizabeth Dickinson Currier. She’s my
father’s sister. Oh, how the trees stand up straight, when they hear
Aunt Libbie’s little boots come thumping into Amherst! She’s the
only male relative on the female side. Dear Aunt Libbie. She’d look
perfectly at home in a Greek chorus.
But I don’t use my middle name anymore, since I became a poet.
Professor Higginson, the literary critic, doesn’t think my poems are —
well, no matter. I have had seven poems published — anonymously, to
be sure. So you see why I prefer to introduce myself to you as a poet.
Here in Amherst, I’m known as Squire Edward Dickinson’s half-
cracked daughter. Well, I am. The neighbors can’t figure me out. I
don’t cross my father’s ground to any house or town. I haven’t left the
house in years. When the census taker asked my occupation, I just
said, “At home.”
The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door.
(Turns to the window, still holding the cake.) Why should I socialize with
village gossips? Oh, there goes one of them now! Henrietta Sweetser.
Everyone knows Henny. She’d even intimidate the Antichrist. Look at
her. She looks more like a jar of sweetmeats every day. Now, she’s strolling
by the house, trying to catch a glimpse of me. Would you like that?
So I give them something to talk about. I dress in white all year
round, even in winter. “Bridal white,” Henny calls it. (Imitating Henny.)
“Dear, dear! Dresses in bridal white, she does, every day of the blessed
year. Year in, year out. Disappointed in love as a girl, so I hear. Poor
creature. All so very sad. And her sister Lavinia, a spinster too. Didn’t
you know? Oh yes. Stayed unmarried just to be at home and take care
of Miss Emily. Two old maids in that big house. What a lonely life, to
shut yourself away from good people like us.” Indeed!
You should see them come to the door, bearing gifts, craning their
necks, trying to see over Vinnie’s shoulder. But I’m too fast for them.
I’ve already run upstairs two steps at a time. And I hide there until they
leave. You can imagine what they make of that! One old lady came to
the door the other day to get a peek inside. I surprised her by answering
the door myself. She stammered something about looking for a house
to buy. (Mischievously.) To spare the expense of moving, I directed her
to the cemetery. (Suddenly realizes she is still holding the cake.)
Oh, the cake! I do all the baking here at Homestead. I even banged
the spice for this cake. My father always raved about my baking. He

10
would eat no cake or bread but mine. (Sampling it.) Lovely. (Pause.)
No, no — it’s easy to make. (Pause.) The recipe is really very simple. I’ll
go slowly. (Places the cake on the teacart.)
Black cake: two pounds of flour, two pounds of sugar, two pounds
of butter, nineteen eggs, five pounds of raisins, one and a half pounds
of currants, one and a half pounds of citron, one half-pint of brandy
— I never use Father’s best — one half-pint of molasses, two nutmegs,
five teaspoons of cloves, mace, and cinnamon, and — oh, yes, two
teaspoons of soda, and one and a half teaspoons of salt. (Pause.)
I’m sorry, am I going too fast?
(Removing her apron.) Just beat butter and sugar together, add the
nineteen eggs, one at a time — now this is very important — without
beating. Then beat the mixture again, adding the brandy alternately
with the flour, soda, spices and salt that you’ve sifted together. Then the
molasses. Now! Take your five pounds of raisins, and three pounds of
currants and citron, and gently sprinkle in all eight pounds — slowly
now — as you stir. Bake it for three hours if you use cake pans. If you
use a milk pan, as I do, you’d better leave it in the oven for six or seven
hours. Everybody loves it. I hope you will. (Hangs her apron on the back
of the chair. Then sits down and pours tea.)
Sometimes I bake one for a neighbor, and I enclose a short note
that is usually so obscure no one can understand it. I hear my little
notes are becoming collector’s items in the village. People compare
them to see who has the strangest one. Excuse me.
(Writing note.) “We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes
its egg.” That’ll keep them guessing. Oh, that reminds me. I must
send a note to Mrs. Hills. She’s just been admitted to the Maplewood
Infirmary. (Reads aloud as she writes.)
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife:
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit — Life!
That’ll cheer her up.
I’m told one woman in Amherst is imitating me now. Probably
Clarissa Cartwright. Just what Amherst needs — another eccentric.
Oh, I do have fun with them. My menagerie. I guess people in small
towns must have their local characters. And for Amherst, that’s what I
am. But do you know something? (Confidently.) I enjoy the game. I’ve
never said this to anyone before, but I’ll tell you. I do it on purpose.
The white dress, the seclusion. It’s all deliberate.

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 (Moves downstage and sits on a low chest.) But my brother, Austin
— he knows. He says, “Emily, stop your posing!” Austin knows me
through and through, as no one else does. Father and Mother never
understood me. And Vinnie — Vinnie doesn’t know me, either. Austin
and I are unlike most everyone, and are therefore more dependent on
each other for delight. But I do think sometimes the stories about me
distress him.
In a way, the stories are true. Oh, I believe in truth. But I think it
can be slanted just a little. Do you know what I’m saying?
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
(Moves to the parlor chair.) Words are my life. I look at words as if
they were entities, sacred beings. There are words to which I lift my
hat when I see them sitting on a page. Sometime I write one —
(Writes “Circumference” on a page and holds it up.) “Circum-
ference” — and I look at its outlines until it starts to glow brighter
than any sapphire. I hesitate which word to take when I write a
poem. A poet can choose but a few words, and they have to be the
chiefest words, the best words.
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
If I read Keats, Shelly, Shakespeare, Mrs. Browning, Emily Brontë —
oh, what an afternoon for heaven, when Brontë entered there! — and
they make my whole body so cold, no fire can ever warm me, I know
that is poetry. Have you ever felt that way?
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know
that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
My friend, Helen Hunt Jackson — oh, you’d love her — she’s

12
moved to Colorado — Helen is a fine scholar of words and a well-
known writer. You may have read her book, Ramona. She has the
facts, but not the phosphorescence. Oh phosphorescence. Now there’s
a word to lift your hat to. Can you spell it.
(Writes.) To find that phosphorescence, that light within — is
the genius behind poetry. We have an Irish girl who’s been with us
for a long time. I was here yesterday at tea, when she asked me how
to spell “genius.” (Conversing.) Why do you ask, Maggie? No, leave
the tray dear. (Pause.) Oh, writing to your brother, I see. And who
are you describing? (Pause.) Me? Oh, Maggie! (Long pause.)
G-E-N-I-U-S. Genius. (Pause.) Oh, don’t ask me that. I don’t
know what it means. But wait. (Opening dictionary.) Let’s see what
Mr. Webster says. (Reading.) “Genius. Tutelary spirit of a person,
place, et cetera; opposed spirits seeking one’s salvation or damnation;
persons influencing one powerfully for good or evil.” (Closing book.)
He doesn’t know. Either. No one knows that, Maggie. No one.
Thank you, dear.
(Rises and addresses the audience.) Do you know that every one of
you is, to me, a poem? You, and you — each one, a rare creation. I
suppose that’s why I love you and you love me, whether we realize it or
not. I discovered that secret a long time ago about the souls of people.
(Comes downstage.) And I thought that being a poem oneself
precluded the writing of poems, but I saw my mistake.
The Poets light but Lamps —
Themselves — go out —
But the light goes on and on. Essences are marked for — no, that’s
not the best word. Labeled. That’s better. Essences are labeled for
immortality.
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
People find it hard to believe that I had a normal childhood. They
visualize instead a miniature version of me as I am now, a pint-sized
little Emily, dressed all in white, lisping riddles and aphorisms in

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 THE BELLE OF AMHERST
by William Luce
1W

In her Amherst, Massachusetts home, the reclusive nineteenth-century poet Emily Dickinson
recollects her past through her work, her diaries and letters, and a few encounters with significant
people in her life. William Luce’s classic play shows us both the pain and the joy of Dickinson’s
secluded life.

“The text is marvelously comprehensive, emotional and revealing. Mr. Luce has woven it in graphic
portrait without playing any literary tricks.” —Brooks Atkinson

“The play has been skillfully crafted by William Luce … An unforgettable playgoing experience.”
—Variety

“Should be seen in every state of Emily’s America.” —Newsweek

“Playwright William Luce has chiseled a perfectly detailed cameo. … By some interior kind of magic,
Luce has avoided all the pitfalls associated with literary figures brought to life onstage. He has made an
Emily so warm, human, loving and lovable that her ultimate vulnerability will break your heart.”
—The Boston Globe

“A drama of the spirit.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Adroitly fashioned by William Luce, so emotionally varied, so cumulatively riveting that it functions
just as a full-fledged play does. … Vivacious, vigorous, teasingly honest.” —The New York Times

“ … magnificent … An arresting, riveting experience unlike any I’ve known. … An overwhelming,

meticulous adventure full of passion and poetry and heart. William Luce’s text is like poetry itself.”
—New York Daily News

“A fine miniature done with the smallest brushes on pure, clean linen, THE BELLE OF AMHERST
is an enthralling evening.” —The Washington Post

“William Luce is every inch a playwright — there is not a false line, not a single awkward transition in the
evening that he has provided for Emily Dickinson.” —The National Observer

“Around this deeply paradoxical figure, William Luce has woven his absorbing and moving one-
woman play.” —The Evening News (London)

Also by William Luce

LILLIAN

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