Are You Now or Have You Ever Been at Guthrie Theater

The year is 1953 in the Harlem apartment of Negro writer Langston Hughes. Unable to sleep he gets up and begins to write a poem, but finds his living space somehow inhabited by his readers. Exposed, guilt-ridden and fearful of the coming day he confesses how he intends to answer McCarthy's accusations on being a communist. He implores his readers not to abandon him no matter what they read or hear. His confession is intermittently interrupted by flashes of inspiration, seen in projected texts and images, of a word or line for his poem. As he tells the story of what he's written and why, and of his difficult and wonderful life as a writer, the poem continues to grow and clarify as a thing with a life of its own, and together they reveal a portrait of an artist faced with his fears and regrets before the greatest ordeal of his life.

Authors

• Eric Bentley