Theatre in Review: The Belle of Amherst (Westside Theatre)Theatre in Review: The Belle of Amherst (Westside Theatre) The Belle of Amherst was one of the great triumphs of Julie Harris' career and I'm sorry that she ever did it. William Luce's piece about Emily Dickinson was on the front line of the one-person plays that invaded Broadway in the 1970s - others included Henry Fonda as Clarence Darrow and James Whitmore as both Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt - and convinced parsimonious producers that all you needed was a famous personage and a star to play him or her, and the box office would rattle like a slot machine dispensing jackpots. Before long, we were up to our necks in such dubious offerings, each of them featuring a great name from history or literature, sitting in his or her parlor, telling the story of his or her life to the wall. The Belle of Amherst profoundly altered Harris' career, as she went from one solo play to another, appearing as Charlotte Brontë, Isak Dinesen, and Countess Sophia Tolstoy, among others. Although she told interviewers that she loved her "literary ladies," it's hard to believe that this was the best use of one of the greatest American stage actresses when still in her prime. I mean, she could have been doing plays. I saw Harris do The Belle of Amherst in 1979, and although she was as incandescent as the history books say, I was still a little bit bored. The format of Luce's play, a kind of afternoon at home with Emily, offered practically nothing in the way of drama and not much of significance to say about a woman now regarded as one of the greatest American poets. It was rather like taking tea with a maiden aunt, one who likes to chatter on about her favorite poets. It never occurred to me then, or later, after Harris died, that we would ever see anyone tackle the role of Emily Dickinson again. But here we are in 2014, and Don Gregory, who produced The Belle of Amherst with Harris, has set up shop with it once more, this time at the Westside Arts with the lovely and talented Joely Richardson. I promise you: A sleepier evening in the theatre is not to be found in New York at the present time. Richardson, an actress with plenty of technical wiles, a fine speaking voice, eyes alive with mischief, and charm for days, enters as Dickinson, offering her recipe for black cake, a frightening concoction that involves pounds of flour, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, and God knows what else, plus a snootful of brandy, which is then left in the oven for six hours. Having got our attention, she makes an impression with some agreeably tart observations, noting that her dragon aunt is "the one man on the female side of the family," commenting that her neighbors have written her off as "Squire Edward Dickinson's half-cracked daughter," and dismissing the institution of marriage, saying "the path of duty doesn't look very attractive." She is friendly, full of stories, and firmly insistent that she found so much bliss in her own backyard that she never needed to look anywhere else. She even admits she prefers the love of nature to the practice of religion, saying, "In the name of the bee, and the breeze, and the butterfly, amen!" All of this is fine, as far as it goes. But is this twinkle-eyed, laughing creature the woman who withdrew into her family's house for decades, shunning visitors, wearing nothing but white, and suffering periods of depression, sitting up nights and turning out hundreds of poems, of which perhaps half a dozen were published in her lifetime? The very idea that Luce's Emily is so delighted to see us and leaps at the opportunity to tell everything about herself is inimical to the woman recorded in literary history. From the very first discussion of cake recipes, The Belle of Amherst rings false. Then there is the little matter of drama, so conspicuously lacking in Luce's script. We get a more or less potted history of Dickinson's life - her decision to leave school and live at home, the men she admired, her hopes of being published, which here are presented as being thwarted by Thomas Higginson, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, with whom she corresponded for years. But really, there is no point of conflict, no decision to be made. There is just dear old Emily, a charmingly batty middle-aged lady, gossiping about townsfolk, remembering family stories, occasionally slipping into a poem. "People find it hard to believe I had a normal childhood," she says at one point. Watching this thoroughly well-adjusted lady holding forth at center stage, I had no doubt of it whatsoever. About those poems: We get most of Emily's greatest hits, including "I'm nobody! Who are you?" and "Hope is the thing with feathers," and Richardson is at her best deploying them to reveal their author's independent turn of mind. But if it is possible to be too charming, the lady has managed it. Harris, in so many of her performances, seemed to have a direct hotline to her characters' deep-in-the-bone eccentricities, and her Dickinson burned bright with a quiet inner madness. Richardson lacks that inner glow; she is merely a skilled actress doing her technical best with a text that doesn't really reward her hard work. The production, which, bizarrely, has been directed by Steve Cosson, of the Civilians - what could have attracted him to this material? - has been nicely fitted out. Antje Ellermann's tasteful Victorian parlor setting is a testament to the housekeeping skills of Emily and her sister, Lavinia, and David Weiner has provided a number of sun-washed lighting looks. William Ivey Long has dressed Emily in a lovely white frock. Daniel Kluger's sound design provides a number of ambient effects. This is not a blanket condemnation of this theatrical genre. A couple of seasons ago, Bette Midler made something theatrical out of Sue Mengers' scalding observations in I'll Eat You Last, and, last season at the Westside Arts, Becoming Dr. Ruth, about the highly dramatic life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, made for gripping theatre. Surely, Dickinson's life must have been filled with conflict, but you won't find out about it here. Everything about The Belle of Amherst is nice, neat, and thoroughly professional, and I'm sorry to say that it makes for a remarkably pointless experience. If you want to know Emily Dickinson, read her poems - their shortened lines, tricky meter, eccentric punctuation, and sometimes very dark insights will introduce you to a far more complicated woman than the one appearing nightly at the Westside Arts.-David Barbour 
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