-
Stuck on the Border
Re: Walden Woods
Don Henley is a fine man!!!!
-
Administrator
Re: Walden Woods
I recently bought a DVD called Walden: Ballad of Thoreau thinking I might be able to use it as a teaching tool. It is a two-act play where Thoreau has a conversation with Emerson about why he is living in a cabin in the woods, isolated.
While the playwright is earnest, the play was a disappointment. The writing is amateurish and anachronistic (much is said about "hugging trees"), the relation of Thoreau's ideas is diluted to a great degree by largely unsuccessful attempts at humor (way too much time is spent talking about how lonely he was and how he needed a girlfriend - it got laughs each time it was repeated but it was not very edifying), and the representation of Emerson as a foil who doesn't understand Thoreau's wish to preserve nature - the Emerson character even argues here that nature's destruction is "progress" - is completely inaccurate. Emerson was a founder of the Transcendentalist movement and served as a mentor to Thoreau! The land belonged to Emerson, he was the one who encouraged Thoreau to write, yet here in this play he mocks Thoreau's philosophy and efforts?! Things like that really piss me off, so I won't be using it.
The reason I bring it up here is that there are a couple lines where the Thoreau character tells Emerson that he has a vision of the woods being in danger "many years from now" but they would be "suddenly saved by the song of a great Eagle!" Emerson repeats in astonishment "saved at the hand of a singing Eagle?!" LOL! Not exactly a subtle integration of Henley into the play, but I guess it's the thought that counts.
(Just in case any viewers might not get it, though, the narrator helpfully tells us in the introduction that "you'll hear a reference made to musician Don Henley of the rock group 'The Eagles.' He helped Tom Blanding and others save Walden Woods from developers in the 1990s").
Always in our hearts, Never forgotten
-
Stuck on the Border
Re: Walden Woods
LOL - Wonder if Don has seen that Soda?
I do like the basic plot of the play, too bad it is not good. And it does sound like the playwright does not understand the characters or their beliefs.
-
Border Rebel
-
-
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules