When playwright Sarah Ruhl was on bed-rest, pregnant with twins, she received a book of poetry and letters, “Words in Air,” chronologing a thirty year friendship and deeply personal relationship between the poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. That book would profoundly change Ruhl’s life as the more than 450 letters dramatically and lyrically channel the course of their lives, when they were together but even more so when they endured long separations.
Sarah Ruhl’s play “Dear Elizabeth” is being given a lovely airing at the New Haven Theater Company until November 16 at the EBM Vintage Market at 839 Chapel Street in New Haven and if you are a devotee of poetry and love a sensitive story of enduring friendship, do not miss this offering. In today's world, letter writing is a lost art, where few take a pen to paper and put words on heavy vanilla cream vellum. In a rush to communicate, we now rely on instant messaging, emails, tweets and texts, abbreviating our thoughts to send them swiftly and succinctly. Not so Robert and Elizabeth. They indulge their feelings, relishing in the written word and they are masters at their craft. Both are gifted in their own right, he having won a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Book Award and both earning a Pulitzer and both serving as the equivalent of what would be Poet Laureate today. Their paths crossed often but more likely they were at opposite sides of the globe. He suffered from bi-polar depression and she from alcoholism, asthma and depression.
Over the years they sent each other letters, postcards, manuscripts, telegrams, hundreds of which survive, They met in 1947 and continued their correspondence until Lowell died of a heart attack in 1977. At one point they almost married. Ralph Buonocore and Sandra E. Rodriguez bring Robert and Elizabeth to sensitive life, with Abby Klein as Brigit acting as a facilitator, under J.Kevin Smith’s sterling direction.
For tickets ($25), contact the theater at newhaventheatercompany.com. Performances are Thursday at 7:30 p.m , Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m.
Follow their tender memories, their tragic losses, as they mastered the art of communication, establishing an enduring friendship, hinting at what might have been and securing what was to be all they ultimately had.
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