Cities and Skies: The Solitary World of Edward Hopper

In a mostly empty bedroom, a woman sits, gently holding her legs as she stares out a soaring window. On the wall beside her, the rising sun’s warm light streaks into the room in a boxy shape, contrasting with the otherwise cool room. Identical windows in a neighboring building line the sky outside. Bathed in the morning glow, the woman points her gaze forward, though whether focused on the morning view or perhaps glossed over in thought is unclear. Is she forlorn in her solitude? Is she sad? Is she lonely? Or is she thrilled? Is she at peace? Is she merely lost in the groggy thoughts of morning? Much like the reason behind Mona Lisa’s smile, that’s up to you.

Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun, one of the inspirations for the title of Simon Stephens’s play, follows the lead of his other paintings, using light and shadows to create moody worlds with isolated subjects in busy cities. If Hopper’s world of work could be summed up in one word, that would be it: isolation.

Take his most famous painting, Nighthawks, for example. Three patrons in an almost empty diner, communicating neither with each other nor the lone server. Fluorescent light floods the empty street outside, giving the painting an eerie and almost disquieting feel. Each subject is lost in their own thoughts, in their own solitude despite being amongst others.

Though Morning Sun and Nighthawks are opposites in almost every way (a single subject versus multiple, natural light versus artificial, morning versus night, private versus public, the sky versus the street), they both epitomize the common themes and tools of Hopper’s art and the world he both saw and created.

Hopper explored the contrast between our inner and outer worlds, like living in a bustling city yet being met with stillness and solitude. Most of his work is set in New York City, where he lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment for decades (just like the characters in our play). The streets and restaurants of his paintings should be full of people, but instead, they reflect the stillness of the artist’s and the subjects’ states of mind. Even in his earlier work focusing on the light and architecture of New England, homes are painted by themselves, enshrouded in silence, rather than surrounded by neighboring houses and streets.

It's rare to see Hopper’s figures engaged with each other. Even in pieces with multiple subjects, they’re disconnected, absorbed in their own worlds. In some pieces, like Nighthawks, this feels incredibly lonely. In others, it could be interpreted as a respite. In either case, Hopper painted the alienation of industrialization and living in urban areas. Though isolation is the recurring motif of Hopper’s work, he himself said that “the loneliness thing is overdone,” meaning we can’t quite equate the two. Instead, at least some of the alienation of Hopper’s world is a source of contemplative peace.

Nighthawks, 1942

Hopper is also celebrated for evoking the moods of different times of day through his use of light. Whether featuring natural light or the artificial glow of fluorescent interiors, you can expect to find harsh shadows that add a certain desperation to both his scenes and their subjects. His cropped compositions add to the emptiness of his spaces—the door to the diner in Nighthawks has been cut out, and we only glimpse a fraction of what the woman sees through her window in Morning Sun

If isolation is the theme of Hopper’s work, contrast and conflict are how he achieves it: the contrast between light and dark; the old and the new; progress and tradition; alienation and urbanization; the outer and the inner. Even Hopper’s style served as a sort of contrast to the world around him. His realism directly contradicted the abstract art movements of the 1940s and ‘50s, and he offered a sort of cynicism and eeriness that challenged the optimism of postwar America.

So what do you see through Hopper’s windows? Is our subject in pink reveling in a morning city view? Is she at peace in a rare moment of quiet and calm? Is she overwhelmed by the loneliness of a big city? Or is she simply lost in thoughts we’ll never know?

CHRISTINE DYE (Claudette McBride & Others) (she/her) is delighted to be back at Ensemble Theatre after an absence of four years, having last appeared in A Doll’s House, Part 2. She has added three film credits to her résumé in that time and continues to be the spokesperson for Miami Valley Gaming. Christine would like to extend her gratitude to D. Lynn Meyers, who is not only instrumental in her successes in film, but also for this chance to perform on stage again. She extends love and admiration to her castmates Annie and Becca and to the beautiful words of playwright Simon Stephens.

ANNIE FITZPATRICK (Charley McBride) (she/her) last appeared at Ensemble Theatre in The Wolves, and some of her favorite credits include Luna Gale, Hands on a Hardbody, Next Fall, Rabbit Hole, and String of Pearls. She recently appeared in Steel Magnolias at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Indiana Repertory Theatre. She has worked with various regional theatres including American Stage, Indiana Repertory Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Geva Theatre, Florida Stage, and Florida Studio. Her TV and film credits include Chicago P.D., Those Who Kill, Army Wives, White Noise, Dark Waters, The Old Man and the Gun, Fun Size, and Milk Money. She is deeply grateful to her family, friends, the Cincinnati theater community, and her Secret Support System for helping her through a difficult year.

BECCA HOWELL (Tessa McBride & Others) (she/her) is delighted to return to the Ensemble Theatre stage, where she was last seen in The Wolves, as well as Red Velvet, The Humans, and Bloomsday. After receiving her BFA from Northern Kentucky University, she completed ETC’s Professional Acting Internship Program. She has also performed locally in Macbeth with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Poor Behavior, Yankee Tavern, and Prelude to a Kiss with Falcon Theatre. Becca would like to thank her wonderful friends and family for their constant love and encouragement. Thank you for being here!

Materials inspired by Morning Sun courtesy of The Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. Visit CinLib.org/morning-sun for more!

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by Mark Haddon

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

by Claire Jimenez

MUSIC Court and Spark

by Joni Mitchell

Postcards from the Edge

The Joy Luck Club

The Sweet Spot by

Amy Poeppel

I Almost Forgot About You

by Terry McMillan

Borrow these materials online or at your nearest library branch.