Tennessee Shakespeare Company will explore the popular Southern Gothic/realism writer Carson McCullers (1917-1967). A rare multi-form fiction writer, she penned characters who were usually in physical, psychological, and spiritual isolation. Feelings, no doubt, within her own life.
Her music studies were abandoned after losing Juilliard tuition money on the subway. Her romantic life was tragic, complicated by physical pain, addiction, and illnesses. Plagued by strokes, she was ultimately confined to a wheelchair due to partial paralysis. She described her writing as “a search for God.”
The performance will be directed by Stephanie Shine who will be joined on stage by fellow TSC actors Cara McHugh Geissler, Jasmine Robertson, John Ross Graham, Michael Khanlarian, and Irene Keeney.
“Carson writes with all of her questions about life and love guiding her pen,” says Shine. “Her singular ability to conjure characters of rich complexity, and sometimes surprising duplicity, makes her a great humanist. Her people breathe, and we breathe with them because of their haunting humanity. Rarely has a writer been able to capture detail that both clarifies and entices as she does. Even more inviting, Carson’s words are thrilling when spoken out loud.”
Excerpts will be featured from McCullers’ play, A Member of the Wedding, and major works, including The Ballad of the Sad Café and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Excerpts will also be read from her first published work when she was 19 years old — the short story “Wunderkind” — as well as two of her poems.
The Hunting Heart: Carson McCullers, online from Tennessee Shakespeare Company, tnshakespeare.org, Sunday, Jan. 24, 3 p.m., $15.
