About
On 4th July 1845, Henry David Thoreau walked into the woods near his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts and decided to stay. He found a spot next to a lake called Walden Pond and built a hut. For the next two years he attempted to live entirely by his own resources.
Walden, Thoreau’s account of his ‘experiment in simple living’, is one of the most extraordinary and unclassifiable books ever written. Magnetic North’s adaptation - a collaboration between director Nicholas Bone and environmental arts practice Sans façon - is a beautiful, simple distillation of this classic meditation on self-sufficiency, the individual’s relationship with the environment and the desire to ‘live deliberately’.
The production was originally created at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh (Best Design nomination, 2008 CATS awards). It toured in 2009 and 2010 and has now been performed more than 70 times, most recently at the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh in 2016.
The playscript is published (ISBN 978-0956205414) - you can buy direct from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or order from other retailers.
Walden was developed through Rough Mix, Tron Lab and CCA Creative Lab.
Images
Photos by David Grinly (2008) and Maria Falconer (2010)
Resources
The original Walden
Henry David Thoreau published Walden or Life in the Woods in 1854. It chronicles the two years and two months he spent living in a hut he built by the shores of Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts, USA. It is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Thoreau called his time at Walden an experiment in simple living - he did not go into the woods to become a hermit, but to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it.
The book is widely available - the cheapest edition is published by Dover Books (ISBN 0-486-28495-6), though it doesn't have any notes. Other editions are published by OUP (ISBN 0-192-83921-7) and Princeton University Press (ISBN 0-691-09612-0) which includes an introduction by John Updike. You can also read Updike's introduction here.
There is a 4CD audiobook published by Naxos.
There are also a number of on-line versions of the text available:
http://www.transcendentalists.com/walden.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/205
There are many articles about the book on-line, the following is just a selection:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/walden/
http://www.stevencscheer.com/thoreau.htm
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/BluePete/Thoreau.htm is a fairly in-depth analysis of the book.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in July 1817. As a boy, he developed an early love of solitude and nature. He graduated from Harvard in 1837, and worked as a schoolteacher and tutor. He took over the management of Concord Academy in 1838 and introduced Bronson Alcott's progressive principles of education where physical punishments were abandoned and pupils were encouraged to participate in classroom discussion.
In 1839, a canoe trip convinced Thoreau that he should not pursue a schoolteacher's career but should instead aim to become established as a poet of nature. From 1841 to 1843 Thoreau lived in the home of the essayist and transcendental philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. During this time Thoreau contributed as a gardener and handyman but also had access to Emerson's library and opinions. This library included works on German, English, French,Indian and Chinese philosophy as well as classical and English literature. Through his connection with Emerson and New England Transcendentalism, through lectures in the Concord Lyceum and through articles in The Dial Thoreau met other transcendentalists such as Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Ripley.
Thoreau felt that he needed time and space to apply himself as a writer and on July 4th 1845 he moved to a hut that he had built himself using second-hand materials, on land recently purchased by Emerson alongside the northern shore of Walden Pond. He lived there until September 1847, writing about the experience in Walden, published in 1854. Walden has been translated into some fifty languages and is said to have been an inspiration to Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King among others, besides being an inspiration for environmentalism across the world.
While living at Walden, he was arrested for non-payment of the poll tax, which was associated with the Mexican-American War to which Thoreau was opposed. He spent a night in jail but was released the next day after a relative paid what was owed. Thoreau clarified his position in perhaps his most famous essay, Civil Disobedience (1849), now widely referred to by its original title, Resistance to Civil Government. In this essay, Thoreau discussed passive resistance as a method of protest. The essay drew heavily on a belief in the reliability of the human conscience that was a fundamental Transcendentalist principle. This belief was based on a conviction of the immanence, or in-dwelling, of God in the soul of the individual.
Thoreau was deeply affected by the death from tetanus of his older brother John in 1842. He set out to write a work in memory of his brother by attempting to set down something of their experiences in their canoe trip of 1839. This work, titled A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, became Thoreau's first published full-length work in 1849.
Thoreau again lived in Emerson's house after he left Walden in September 1847. He also became more fully involved in the Thoreau family business of lead pencil manufacture. Thoreau pencils were very highly regarded for their quality. Thoreau spent the years from 1849 with his parents and sister in Concord. With the introduction of electrotyping printing processes in the 1850s, the Thoreau family business diversified into supplying raw materials for this trade. Thoreau eventually ran the company after his father's death in 1859 but his involvement in the sometimes dusty production of lead pencils did serious damage to his lungs. The major portion of Thoreau's time was however devoted to study, meditation and conversation.
Although he had little involvement in politics, Thoreau supported the abolitionist cause and delivered several lectures in opposition to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. It is thought that Thoreau helped several fugitive slaves by hiding them in the family home, and then organising relocation to Canada. In October 1859, after the abolitionist Captain John Brown raided the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Thoreau spoke in defence of Brown's character - the first person in America to do so. His essay A Plea for Capt. John Brown was published and widely circulated in The New York Tribune.
Thoreau was only forty five years old when he died from tuberculosis in 1862. His remains are buried in the family plot in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord.
Where is Walden?
Walden Pond is a mile or so south-west of the town of Concord, Massachusetts, USA. It is about 20 miles north-east from Boston. Thoreau describes the pond very beautifully in the book. You can see an aerial picture of the pond here if you have Google Earth. There are many pictures of Walden available on-line - a search under "Walden Pond" at Google Images produces good results.
Magnetic North's adaptation
You can read about the development of the production on our blog.
Reviews
"Its revival for The Hidden Door Festival is a treat, combining idealism with an austere and questing approach to theatre and philosophy." Gareth Vile full review
“a hugely compelling production. A must-see for any theatre-lover.” ***** Thom Dibdin, Edinburgh Evening News
“a tremendously timely piece of theatre; an hour-long contemplative pool of stillness tucked into a corner of modern city life” **** The Scotsman
“A righteous and humble poetry of the soul” **** The Herald
“a passionate, positive call to us all just to stop, and breathe” **** The List
“easily one of the best performances currently in Edinburgh” **** The Skinny
“This play about a singular, thoughtful man is a singular, thought-provoking experience.” **** Edinburgh Guide
“Walden is an unforgettable experience which deserves to run and run.” Northings
What audiences said:
“Beautiful and profound - I found the simplicity of it all quite moving.”
“Superb, beautiful production.”
“Enthralling - the air of contemplation was brilliantly achieved … as I left, I found my own hearing enhanced to listen to the sounds of the city into which I was re-emerging.”
“Compelling and thoughtful performance.”
“Excellent, engaging, moving performance.“
“Lovingly done and quite enchanting.”
“Articulate, thoughtful, clear.”
“Loved it. Beautiful and simple. Crisp and clear and human.”
