Review: Davis Shines as THE BELLE OF AMHERST

Caroline Davis' tour-de-force performance as American poet Emily Dickinson distinguishes the current production of William Luce's The Belle of Amherst - onstage through November 22 at The Filming Station Downtown, in a delightful revival helmed by veteran director Melissa Carrelli - and, clearly, is reason enough to make seeing the show an absolute must for theater devotees.

But it's also the play's history, its very pedigree to be exact, that should prompt a visit to the home of Demetria Kalodimas' production company over the next three weekends. Opening on Broadway in 1976 and ensuring the luminous Julie Harris one of her Tony Award wins, The Belle of Amherst is exquisitely written, certain to make even the most anti-intellectual audience member fall at least a little bit in love with the famously reclusive and guarded Dickinson.

Dickinson is 53 at curtain (after a fashion, since there is no curtain in the intimate confines of The Filling Station - which also housed In Another Life and Maverick Entertainment Partners' debut production of Chambers Stevens' Twain and Shaw Do Lunch a year ago) and with the expert guidance of Luce's script, which attentively and lovingly focuses on her life, we are taken on an adventurous journey, getting to know the very real and genuine woman behind the English classroom icon we supposed her to be for most of our lives.

Luce reveals the realities of Dickinson's life, employing the poetry for which she is now known and revered (only seven of her works were published during her lifetime, denying her the fame that she may have craved), thus creating a rather mysterious milieu of literary what-might-have-been to surround her life's story. The play doesn't follow a linear timeline, but rather in the best way of storytelling to engage its audience, is told in the way anyone would remember the events of her life, moving backward and forward with intriguing possibility.

Thus, Davis has her work cut out from her from the start: She must captivate and mesmerize her audience in order to hold their attention so that Dickinson's story fully comes to life for them. She does so with impeccable timing and stage presence to spare. Her confident performance as Dickinson almost immediately grabs your attention and holds onto it, with grace and grit, for the two hours of the one-woman show.

The solo performance, however, never seems singular, static or staid. Rather, Davis artfully brings all the various characters of Dickinson's hometown of Amherst (circa 1845-1883) to life with aplomb, alacrity and a notable sense of community. From the town gossip to her beloved sister Vinny, brother Austin, her dour and commanding father, her somewhat cold and detached mother, Davis plays them all - sometimes for just the briefest of moments - to populate the stage with many more people from the poet's life.

By turns taciturn and expressive, Davis' Dickinson is charming and generous, almost puritanically reserved and gleefully girlish, consummately private and extraordinarily open, easily conveying the tumult of a creative mind stifled by the constraints of the society in which she lived. With the aid of Luce's script to guide her journey and the deft and understated direction of Carrelli, Davis at one moment is heartbreakingly genuine and bereft as she remembers the loss of a loved one, breaking the spell of sadness with an altogether joyous respite when she falls back onto the ground to tell us she would like nothing better than to become a blade of grass.

Luce's play is filled with such moments, from which Emily rises from the depths of despair and disappointment in order to show us some simple pleasure that surely kept her a vibrant and unflinching icon of steely American womanhood. That Davis so seamlessly moves from one story to the next, with only the high-pitched "bing!" of a bell or the more mournful notes from a church belfry to augment her lovely performance, is testament to the production's unerring ability to transform the time and place of its setting and to transport its audience with a warmly inviting sense of magic.

You may leave The Belle of Amherst lamenting a still-existent love/hate relationship with Dickinson's poetry - she's never been a favorite of mine, I must admit - but you will find your way home buoyant having been in the presence of artistic achievement, so very grateful that you were able to see Davis in a stellar performance. Brava!

• The Belle of Amherst. By William Luce. Directed by Melissa Carrelli. Presented by In Another Life and Maverick Entertainment Partners LLC, at The Filming Station, 501 8th Avenue North, Nashville. Through November 22. Running time: 2 hours (with one 10-minute intermission).

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