The BAD BOY Comes Home to Strawbery Banke Museum, 3/31 - 4/9

Pontine Theatre presents its original staging of The Story of a Bad Boy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. This classic story of a boy's adventures takes place in the semi-fictional town of Rivermouth (Portsmouth NH). The production is underwritten by Optima Bank & Trust. Performances take place at Strawbery Banke Museum (14 Hancock Street) on Friday March 31 @7pm, Saturday April 1 & 8 @4pm, and Sunday April 2 & 9 @2pm. Tickets ($24) may be purchased online at www.pontine.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the door a half-hour prior to each show, based on availability. With an innovative use of puppetry and projected images, Pontine Co-Artistic Directors, Greg Gathers and Marguerite Mathews, tell the autobiographical story of a lively boy and his companions in mid-19th century Portsmouth, where Aldrich was sent to live under the watchful eyes of his grandfather. Aldrich's boyhood home, now part of Strawbery Banke Museum, will be open to audience members following each performance.

The Story of a Bad Boy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich was a groundbreaking work in 1869 when it was published. Still in print, the memoir brought Aldrich international renown. Hailed as the first realistic depiction of childhood in American fiction, it is considered an inspiration for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Aldrich's friend Mark Twain.

In one adventure, Tom and his friends discover an abandoned wharf filled with old rusted cannons discarded after the end of the War of 1812. The boys decide to clean them up, charge them with gun powder and fire them all off - the whole battery - in the middle of the night. "Half the population was in the streets. Some thought the town was under bombardment, others that the world was coming to an end. Confusion reigned everywhere!"

On the fourth of July the boys steal a broken-down stagecoach from Ezra Wingate's barn to feed the celebratory bonfire in the middle of the town Square. Although the boys are arrested for this prank the "miscreants" manage to escape from jail leaving "no clue as to their identity."

So, is there any truth to these high tales? While there is some fictionalization and exaggeration, all the stories are believed to be based in fact. The book is a memoir of Aldrich's own childhood. Aldrich certainly participated in some of the adventures he describes, but it's likely he also included others that he heard about during his years growing up in Portsmouth.

The memoirs come from the time Aldrich lived with his Grandfather Bailey on Court Street. The Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial, established in 1908 and now part of Strawbery Banke Museum, is the oldest house museum in the the city. Following each performance, audience members are invited to take a tour of the Aldrich memorial led by a member of the museum's curatorial staff.

One of the most moving stories in the book features a young boy, Binny Wallace, who is tragically lost to the sea. The story is believed to be based on an actual event that happened in Portsmouth when a Sunday School class sailed away to a small island in the harbor for a summer picnic.

Another touching scene is about an old sailor, Benjamin Watson. Sailor Ben turns out to be the long lost husband of a woman who has been living the sad life of a mourning widow. Happiness is restored when her long-lost husband turns up and he tells the incredible tale of his disappearance.

The action is enhanced by piano music composed by New Hampshire native, Edward McDowell (1860 - 1908) performed and recorded for Pontine's production by Seacoast musician Catherine York.

ABOUT ALDRICH
Strawbery Banke Museum
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born in 1836 in Portsmouth just a short distance down Court Street from the home of his grandfather, Thomas D. Bailey. Most of his youth was spent elsewhere, first in the South where his father had business, and later in New York City where he reached manhood. Between these two periods, Aldrich returned to Portsmouth to live for several years, from 1849 to 1852, with his grandfather in this house facing Court Street.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich married Lilian Woodman in 1865, and they moved to Boston the same year. Aldrich became friends with such literary notables as William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, James T. Fields (another Portsmouth son), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell. He was recognized as a man of ability and accomplishment, and in time he succeeded Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, the most important literary magazine of the time.

It was shortly after the move to Boston that Aldrich, aware of approaching fatherhood, began to record some thoughts on his own child hood. The result was The Story of a Bad Boy, a fictionalized recollection of adventures and impressions of his years spent in Portsmouth at his grandfather's house on Court Street.

Aldrich's idea for this children's story was new. While others wrote to instruct, his purpose was to entertain. "Tom Bailey" as he called himself, was no "faultless young gentleman," but rather "a real human boy such as you may meet anywhere." Among their exuberant adventures Tom and his friends set off some old cannons on the wharf at midnight, rousing the entire town, stole an old mail coach and pushed it into the Fourth of July bonfire, and spent a night "shipwrecked" on a river island.

Aldrich's Bad Boy is significant as the first realistic treatment of a boy in American literature. It had great influence on other writers including the author's close friend Mark Twain, who six years later wrote a similar story about a similar boy, also named Tom.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich died in 1907 at the age of 70. The house had passed out of the family by then and in the 1880s served as Portsmouth's first hospital. It was repurchased by the Aldrich family and under the direction of Lilian Aldrich, the author's widow, the home was restored as a memorial to him. This was the first "historic house museum" in Portsmouth and one of the first in the country to be restored to a specific period in its past. Mark Twain was among those who journeyed to Portsmouth for the dedication. The house remained an independent house museum for 71 years, until 1979, when it became part of Strawbery Banke.

Pontine Theatre Co-Artistic Directors, Marguerite Mathews & Greg Gathers, performing a scene from their original staging of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy featuring bunraku-style puppets created by Mr. Gathers.

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