with freedom and intimacy. Mark Twain was telling Margaret Mitchell about his friend, Big Jim, and Mrs. Mitchell was telling him about Big Sam, their overseer at Tara. Will Shakespeare and Dame Agatha were having a terribly civilized debate, the way the English are wont to do, about which of them was the actual best-selling author in literary history. Zelda Fitzgerald was a solitary figure on the patio in the moonlight, dancing the Charleston solo. Her husband, Scott, tried to explain to James Boyd that the music was in her head, to which Boyd replied, “I only hear Drums.” Hemingway was telling the Brontë sisters about his brilliant editor, Max Perkins, whom he shared with North Carolina’s own brooding Thomas Wolfe, and how maybe the resourceful Perkins could get their books published in America. Across the table Oscar Wilde and Edith Wharton were admiring one another’s jewelry. Virginia Woolf was about to ask for some water when into the silence came The Voice. “Ladies and gentlemen! Silence, please!” Everyone fell silent. They looked round — at each other. Who was speaking? The voice went on — And then a small, dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time: a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small, dry voice through the keyhole. “Dylan, is that you?” Agatha cried out. But it was Epiphany and Dylan Thomas was having A Child’s Christmas in Wales with his family. The Voice went on — a high clear voice. You are charged with the following indictments: Dame Agatha Christie, that you are actually Mary Westmacott and are guilty of publishing six romance novels under that pseudonym. Emily Jane Brontë, that you did, upon the year 1847, publish your only novel, Wuthering Heights, under the male pen-name Ellis Bell, thus masking your true identity. Charlotte Brontë, that you published Jane Eyre, under the male pen-name Currer Bell, thus likewise misleading your readers. Ernest Hemingway, that you are guilty of being called “Papa” and by the way, that blonde who’s with you is about to become your third ex-wife. F. Scott Fitzgerald, that you deliberately shortened your name from Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda Fitzgerald, that you are guilty of not suppressing feelings about being known as Scott’s wife rather than yourself. James Boyd, you are accused of being called Jimmy by your inner circle, the Free Company of Players, which makes its home at yours, Weymouth. Margaret Mitchell, that you deceived everyone into thinking that you were Scarlett O’Hara when in fact you have been called Peggy since childhood. William Shakespeare, that you are guilty of actually being Sir Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Essex, or Christopher Marlowe, or the Earl of Derby, or the Earl of Rutland, or the Earl of Oxford or even Queen Elizabeth. Mark Twain, that you are guilty of taking your literary name from the riverboat measurement “two fathoms” and that you are really Samuel Clemens.
MARK TWAIN Played by Fenton Wilkinson The dry-humored, wild-haired, bushy-mustachioed ex-riverboat pilot tried to pass himself off as America’s greatest author and humorist, but when the game was up he amused himself by suspecting everyone else’s motives. “I’m your Huckleberry,” he announced as he sat down to dinner. What did he mean by that, everyone wondered?
OSCAR WILDE Played by Rook Meacham The Anglo-Irish playwright glanced under his arched eyebrow at the doomed group sitting around the table. He felt it a queer business indeed — they seemed such a high-brow, intelligent lot. “I wonder,” he contemplated gaily, “whether Papa really understands The Importance of Being Ernest?”
PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2016
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