This weekend, area residents will have the chance to attend the premier reading of the one-act play, “Discord in Concord,” written by — and co-starring, along with Woodstock artist Judith Taylor — local fixture and part-time Vermonter Peter Rousmaniere. The play has just two characters and is only 30 minutes long, but it packs into those minutes a riveting debate between the New England Transcendentalist thinkers and activists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. While the fictional debate takes place in Emerson’s private study in the year 1876, its tensions and themes are intended to resonate in our current sociopolitical moment.
This event will take place at Woodstock’s North Chapel at noon this Sunday.
Reached by the Standard earlier this week, Rousmaniere spoke at length about the play’s inspiration, as well as his intentions beyond the page. “I had read a lot of the Concord circle before,” said Rousmaniere, “and I had tried to understand Emerson’s sense of self-reliance, which is one of mental self-reliance of the mind, which means being empathetic, observant, and reflective and curious, and I felt that is a part of dealing with a democratic crisis.” In terms of a democratic crisis — which Rousmaniere says he believes the U.S. is experiencing currently — he adds another, crucial element to self-reflection: “taking action.” He synthesized these two ingredients for dealing with a democratic crisis when he added, “I believe that a balanced approach toward dealing with the crisis of democracy is to be both thoughtful and very much engaged in action.”
Audiences will be pleased to know that this double-pronged approach to democratic crisis will be something they get to experience firsthand — as both attendees and participants. Before the play, each audience member will be handed a one-page synopsis of the historical era and biographies of each character. The play itself is less a typical stage performance and more of a “concert reading,” which itself is a kind of literary tradition in the U.S., including in the Upper Valley, according to Rousmaniere. Both Rousmaniere and Taylor will rely on the written script, as well as their expressiveness and verbal inflection, in order to bring the words on the page to life. After the 30-minute dramatic reading, audience members will be invited to speak with the actors and each other about the play and all the issues it raises. Lively debate is welcome.
For more on this, please see our September 11 edition of the Vermont Standard.
