| Author: | Diane Baia Hale | EMail: | DianeBaia@hotmail.com | ICWP Member?: | Yes | Nearest Large City: | Chicago | Country: | United States | Play Title: | THE MARBLE MUSE | Runtime: | 91-120 minutes | Synopsis: | Rome, Italy—1858: Defying convention, Louisa Lander, a young American from Salem, Massachusetts, is struggling to establish a career in sculpture—of all the arts, traditionally viewed as the most masculine—and to overcome the resentment of the male Anglo-American sculpting community in Rome at her attempts to break into their world. But her luck appears to change when another native of Salem, famed author Nathaniel Hawthorne, comes to visit the Eternal City with his family and agrees to sit for her. The art establishment is shocked that such an important commission should go to a relative unknown—and a woman at that—but Hawthorne is motivated by more than admiration for Lander’s talent: he has been captivated by her uncanny resemblance to Hester Prynne, the heroine of his finest novel, The Scarlet Letter. Now middle-aged and his writing career stagnant, Hawthorne sees in Lander a sign that she is perhaps meant to be his muse for a new literary endeavor. Inspired, he embarks upon a book, The Marble Faun, with sculpture at its heart and with a female protagonist modeled upon Lander. Thus, the two encircle each other, Lander sculpting Hawthorne in clay, he sculpting her in words, each of them intent on capturing the other in a masterpiece, until they, like characters from one of his own novels, gradually fall into forbidden love. But not even the sunny skies of Italy can dispel the shadows of Salem, and the Anglo-Americans in Rome are watching, especially William Wetmore Story, a rival sculptor also from the old Massachusetts witch town, who feels that the Hawthorne commission should have gone to him instead and whose jealousy towards Lander sends him in search of a way to destroy her.
THE MARBLE MUSE is a tale of how rumors can utterly destroy not only a life, but a legacy, and how great art—especially by women—too often never gets to see the light of day. Based on a true story.
| Male: | 2 | Female: | 4 | Max. Cast: | 6 | Min. Cast: | 6 | Media: | Stage | Genre: | Drama | Theme: | | Web Page: | http://www.dianebaia.com | First Name: | Diane | Last Name: | Baia Hale | Notes: | 3rd Prize: 84th Annual Writers Digest Magazine Writing Competition, Stage Play Category Finalist: Boomerang Theatre Company, First Flight Festival Semi-Finalist: Eugene O'Neill Theater Center 2015 National Playwrights Conference Honorable Mention: The Ohio State University 4th Annual Playwriting Contest-2015 |
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