Monuments

In July of 1872, Ralph Waldo Emerson's house in Concord, Massachusetts, caught fire. His many friends and admirers raised money for repairs, and to send him on a journey across the ocean while those repairs were being made.




At the time of this voyage, Emerson was one the most famous Americans, and likely the most famous American intellectual since Franklin. Everywhere he went he was invited to speak and read from his works. No longer capable of traveling alone, his daughter accompanied him and managed the trip. Monuments imagines Emerson on that voyage, sailing down the Nile, struggling with memory yet suffused in Memories.




This volume contains both the original and the extended version of the play. The running time for the original version is approximately 30 minutes. The running time for the extended version is 70-80 minutes. There is no intermission.