Thunderclap Productions Explores Melville & Hawthorne Between the Lines

Playwright Adi Teodoru hopes that seeing her play, Melville & Hawthorne, just might make you want to dig up a copy of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

If you do, one of the first things you might notice is that Melville dedicated his book to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville met the author of The Scarlet Letter in 1850, and the two spent more than a year living just a mile from each other in the Berkshires. The time the two spent together deeply affected Melville as he developed Moby Dick, and we know this from letters the two exchanged, but they don’t tell the whole story.

“These two are generally considered to be the peak of American literary canon, and many people tend to read Moby Dick, myself included, not realizing that the book is dedicated to Hawthorne. But even those that do, I don’t think, ever consider it beyond two authors that lived next to each other and inspired each other.”

While studying at the University of Houston, Teodoru first encountered Melville’s letters to Hawthorne, which she says “read quite amorous for a relationship at that time.” Further research revealed that following Hawthorne’s death in 1864, his son, Julian, began writing a biography about his father and approached Melville, asking for the letters Hawthorne sent the man. Melville, however, stated that he burned the letters because they were too personal.

“It immediately became a mystery that I wanted to solve,” says Teodoru.

In 2008, Teodoru set out to fill in the missing pieces of their story, and this weekend, Thunderclap Productions will present the result when they open the world premiere of Melville & Hawthorne as part of their John Steven Kellett Memorial Series.

The series seeks to produce a play focusing on equality and LGBTQ+ themes annually.

Teodoru’s play is rooted in fact, so much so that she says her favorite part of the play may be “people coming out of it and researching everything that happens in it and realizing that it’s, I would say, 99% true.”

According to Teodoru, “the thread of the show” is Melville’s writing of Moby Dick, a standard in high school English classes across the country that most everyone has either read or at least knows from “the CliffsNotes version so that we can get through the test,” jokes Teodoru. But the focus, she says, tends to be on the whale-obsessed Ahab as opposed to the fact that almost all of the characters in the book are people of color or the romance between Ishmael and Queequeg, which is “in the text.”

“Melville had some very specific opinions in this book about equality and people being equal in a time where that kind of idea was really innovative,” adds Teodoru, noting that the book written in 1850 and 1851, a time when the country was heading into a civil war. “[Ishmael’s] love for Queequeg transcends not only Queequeg’s race and ethnicity but also the fact that it would have been forbidden, which is probably why Moby Dick did not do well during Melville’s lifetime.”

Though he may have held innovative ideas, with Teodoru describing him as “a man out of time,” Melville was also known to be abusive, someone described by his family as “a monster or a beast.” He was also disliked by society. Partly, Teodoru says, because of his ideas, and partly because of the way his personality was molded by a life spent in poverty and working on the sea as a whaler.

“I had in my mind this idea of the romantic hero and then I came up against the hard wall of reality. I had to readjust my thinking, not just about him, but about the progression of the plot; how do we start off thinking about Melville and how do we end the play thinking about Melville,” says Teodoru. “The play is as much about Melville’s relationship with Hawthorne as it is ours [the audience’s] relationship to Melville as a person.”

Since Teodoru started writing Melville & Hawthorne in 2008, there have been several iterations, with Teodoru saying that each reflected her development not only as a writer, but as a person. However, she points to the influence of current events, and specifically the events of 2020, on the play.

“It was mind-boggling to me the parallels between the time Melville was living in and what we’re living through now,” says Teodoru. “In 1851 to 1852, this nation was essentially drawing the lines of the two-party system and people were choosing sides. This was really the first time the nation decided there are two sides to our views and those two sides have continued to combat each other throughout our history and, of course, we still do that today.”

Despite featuring modern themes like social justice, racial equality, and sexual liberation, one subject you will not see is homophobia. For this reason, Teodoru calls the play “a safe space” for audiences.

“I always wanted this story to be about love, a period love story for queer audiences, which you almost never get to see on stage. You have all your Pride and Prejudices and your Bridgertons – which, of course, I’m obsessed with – but we don’t get to see a lot of it on stage and feel [a sense of] comfort,” says Teodoru, who adds that audiences should feel safe to “come and fall in love and have your heart broken.”

While Teodoru is hesitant to reveal too much about the show, she does acknowledge that “we know history says they did not end up together, and I did not change that. I did want it to be realistic.” Regardless, Teodoru hopes that audiences will still enjoy the story whether they’re there “to see a queer story or just a story about two authors and the writing of a book.”

“I think this story has a little bit for everybody,” says Teodoru. “I’m just hoping that people will come and find something to relate to in the story and then go out and read The Blithedale Romance and Moby Dick and the American canon.” 

Performances of Melville & Hawthorne are scheduled from August 1 through August 10 at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and August 3, 5 and 8; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, August 4; and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 10 at the MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, visit thunderclapproductions.com. $15-$25.