“Most people know of Ernest Hemingway, and many have read at least one book, The Old Man and the Sea, taught in most schools in the United States,” says playwright Robert Pushkar. “But not many know the importance of his four wives and the other women who shaped his life by providing inspiration, support, and love.”
The performance reading of The Four Mrs. Hemingways, an original play with music by Wakefield writer, photographer and playwright Pushkar and produced by HarborSide Films of Boston will be held on Sunday, June 2, 2:00-5:00 p.m. at the Armenian Cultural Foundation, 441 Mystic Ave, Arlington MA.
President of HarborSide Films and producer Paul T. Boghosian believes “Hemingway was so much more than today’s public image of him. He had a roguish personality, and he could be endlessly charming. He was extraordinarily handsome and manly — especially as a younger man, and he was the brilliant pathbreaking writer of the 20th century. Women loved to be in his company. Both idiosyncratic and charismatic, he always was interesting and compelling to both men and women.
“I’ve been working with Robert Pushkar on this project for a number of years, and we feel we have cracked the Hemingway code. The play outlines the unique relationship he had with his accomplished wives. Independent thinkers, each had her own agenda and her own reasons for staying in love and married to him — until she couldn’t any further. Most interestingly and amusingly with wit and insight, the play showcases how the wives interacted with each other and revealed the true nature of the love of life they shared, and how Hemingway fit into it.”
In the play, Hemingway’s wives — Hadley, Pauline, Martha, and Mary — meet in an imagined dream space, each confronting her own past, fears, regrets, hopes, and unresolved conflicts, while individually interpreting her marriage to the same man. Each was an accomplished and independent woman in her own era, reflected in the cultural expectations and social mores of womanhood at the time. Three were journalists. Hadley was an accomplished pianist, though not a practicing one.
Fantastic, unsettling, and creatively imagined sequences are juxtaposed among realistic settings, which capture characters’ emotional truths. Marlene Dietrich, with whom the writer had a 27-year intimate correspondence, adds theatrical flourishes with songs which provide further narrative commentary.
