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Rat & The Devil: Journal Letters of F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney
They met in 1924 - a middle aged artist and a promising young graduate student. Their loving relationship lasted for twenty years, ended only by one partner's death. The artist was the talented Russell Cheney and the student was F. O. Mattheissen, who would become one of America's foremost literary historians and critics. From over 3.000 of their letters, editor Louis Hyde has selected those which fully reconstruct this fascinating story of two great men in love.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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April 26, 2010
It's true - some books really can change your life. I was so utterly stunned by these letters, and their unfolding story, that I immediately thought, "I need to transform these into a play." And so I did. I wrote to the trust that held the rights to the letters and was granted one-time rights to use the published material. This all occurred shortly after my partner, Paul Daniel Illies' death in 1991; this play would be my tribute to his life. The play opened at Minneapolis' Unicorn Theatre on the one year anniversary of his death and ran for three weeks!
The play is entitled, "Devil & Rat in Love," a full-length production in two acts. My amazing director, Marc Crowell, decided to have six actors portray the characters of Russell Cheney and F.O. Matthiessen, and so we chose two women and four men. Alan, one of our actors, was nearing the end of his life and died just two weeks after the show closed - he brought an amazing poignancy to the gradual disintegration of Matthison's brilliant mind.
The letters are a glimpse into the minds of two brilliant men in American Arts and Letters: the Maine artist, Russell Cheney, and the Harvard professor of American Literature, F.O. Matthiessen. Sad that they had to keep their love a secret from the world - but what a brilliant gift they left behind in this collection of their wonderful ordinariness.
The play is entitled, "Devil & Rat in Love," a full-length production in two acts. My amazing director, Marc Crowell, decided to have six actors portray the characters of Russell Cheney and F.O. Matthiessen, and so we chose two women and four men. Alan, one of our actors, was nearing the end of his life and died just two weeks after the show closed - he brought an amazing poignancy to the gradual disintegration of Matthison's brilliant mind.
The letters are a glimpse into the minds of two brilliant men in American Arts and Letters: the Maine artist, Russell Cheney, and the Harvard professor of American Literature, F.O. Matthiessen. Sad that they had to keep their love a secret from the world - but what a brilliant gift they left behind in this collection of their wonderful ordinariness.
Displaying 1 of 1 review