• Overview
• Staging information
• Translations
• Sample translations
• Production history

Scene

The play is divided into two parts and twenty-one short acts. The parts and acts have the following titles:

PART ONE: In September Still

• ACT ONE: Farewell at the port, September 27, 1849, early hours of the morning
• ACT TWO: Disembarkation in Baltimore, September 29, 7.00pm
• ACT THREE: At the railroad station in Baltimore, September 29, 8.15pm
• ACT FOUR: The street and the cypress trees, September 29, 10.30pm
• ACT FIVE: The Red Cypress-Tree Tavern, September 29, 11.00pm
• ACT SIX: A shipwreck in the night, September 29, midnight
• ACT SEVEN: Electioneering, September 30, 10.00am
• ACT EIGHT: It’s not this way, September 30, 3.00pm
• ACT NINE: Round in circles, September 30, 6.30pm
• ACT TEN: At the festival, September 30, 8.00pm
• ACT ELEVEN: Inside the terror. An unspecified time, ending at midnight

PART TWO: Now in October

• ACT TWELVE: Autobiography, October 1, 6.00am
• ACT THIRTEEN: On the train, October 1, 1.00pm
• ACT FOURTEEN: The ticket collector, October 2, 1.00am
• ACT FIFTEEN: In Baltimore station once more, October 2, 11.00am
• ACT SIXTEEN: In a park, October 2, 1.00pm
• ACT SEVENTEEN: In the Red Cypress-Tree Tavern once more, October 2, 3.00pm
• ACT EIGHTEEN: The hospital, October 2, midnight
• ACT NINETEEN: Delirium tremens, from October 3 at 4.00am until October 7 at 7.30pm
• ACT TWENTY: The morgue, 11.50pm
• ACT TWENTY-ONE: The cemetery, October 9, 8.00am

Staging

The play is set in Baltimore, Maryland, although it begins at a port in Richmond, Virginia. It is a play that contains a number of notable staging elements, as Eddy experiences the sights and sounds of Baltimore and suffers from hallucinations.

Notable staging elements

• Citizens at the party wear masks and there are a large number of drunks. In act 12 the playwright suggests that directors use realistic-looking dolls to add to the number of vagrants lying around on stage.
• As Eddy wanders the town drunk, his delirium leads him to experience hallucinations. In act 4, for example, Eddy walks through the streets of Baltimore. As he does so gas lamps turn into cypress tress so that it looks like he is walking through a tree-lined cemetery.
• In act 4, Eddy encounters the Red Cypress-Tree Tavern for the first time. Initially, the tavern looks like Ulalume’s tomb, then becomes the entrance to the Red Cypress-Tree Tavern.
• At the end of Part One, Eddy and other drunks are driven away from the election party in the park in a cart. The directions suggest that, after they have gone, the party gets livelier, perhaps including a dance.
• In act 19, Eddy experiences delirium tremens while in the care of Doctor Snodgrass. The playwright gives a detailed description of delirium tremens in the stage directions, accompanied by medical accounts, but notes that it is up to each director to decide how to represent Eddy’s suffering on stage.

Sound

• The sound of a train whistle is heard frequently, particularly at midnight. This is the time that Eddy was supposed to leave Baltimore on the train.
• As Eddy stands outside the Red Cypress-Tree Tavern in act 4 he hears a mysterious voice reciting verses from his poem Ulalume.

Music

At several points in the play, a brass band plays in celebration of the election festival.

Cast number

Minimum	Maximum
2 males	20 males
1 female	5 females
3 (total)	25 (total)

Cast information

Sastre suggests that the same actor could play around ten male roles, while one actress could play all the female roles. In fact, the play has been performed to great acclaim using just two male actors and one female.

Characters

• ELMIRA
• EDDY, or EDDIE (the playwright suggests the spelling EDDY)
• A MAN NAMED BILLY
• A MULTIPLE RAILWAYMAN
• A MAN WITH A RED BEARD
• AN ELECTION AGENT
• A METICULOUS CITIZEN
• A VAGRANT PASSING BY (JIMMY)
• A LAMPLIGHTER
• A BEER SELLER
• A WOMAN WEARING A PIG MASK
• A DWARF
• A STRONGMAN
• A TICKET COLLECTOR ON THE TRAIN
• ANOTHER PASSER-BY
• A WAITRESS
• DOCTOR SNODGRASS
• A NURSE
• MRS CLEMM (MUDDIE)
• TWO GRAVE-DIGGERS
• A PRIEST
• OTHER PEOPLE: DRUNKS, VAGABONDS,
• CHARACTERS IN EDDY’S DELIRIUM, A BRASS BAND

Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 6 June 2011.

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment. Please log in or sign up for a free account.