“[Even] Beth's stage-struck!”: Theatrical <em>Little Women</em>

Abstract

"[Even] Beth's stage-struck!":Theatrical Little Women Anne K. Phillips In chapter 2 of Little Women, the March sisters stage a Christmas theatrical. Meg, whom Jo identifies as "the best actress we've got," is in her element as Hagar, the witch, and the foreboding Don Pedro (14). Jo, in her prized russet boots, stalks and blusters as both Hugo, the villain, and Roderigo, the hero. Amy plays an airy sprite and also Roderigo's love interest, Zara, while Beth swells the crowd as an "imp," a "stout little retainer" (24), and Ferdinando, a "minion" (25). Despite a catastrophe wrought by Zara's train (of course Amy would be at fault), the production's quality is nonetheless evident in details such as the real steam that issues from Hagar's cauldron and the "several quarts of tin money [that] shower down upon the stage" (25). These young women make the most of their resources. When tumultuous applause collapses the arranged seating, the actors fly to rescue the dozen audience members who after this appearance are not alluded to again. (Perhaps they are Alcott's tribute to the rare friends that she and her sisters made following the Fruitlands debacle.) Lest readers disapprove of American girls behaving in this fashion, and on Christmas, the narrator attests that theatricals were "excellent drill for their memories, a harmless amusement, and employed many hours which otherwise would have been idle, lonely, or spent in less profitable society" (23). Some contemporary readers did disapprove: as Roberts Brothers editor Thomas Niles fumed in an 1882 letter to Alcott, Sunday school librarians regarded her as "wholly bad" well into the 1880s (qtd. in Alcott 426). The March sisters' antics famously reflect select Alcott experiences. Louisa, along with her sister Anna, might have pursued acting as a career but for the disapproval of unnamed relatives. Both participated in family and community performances in Walpole, Boston, and, of course, Concord, where Anna was wooed on- and offstage by her future husband, John Pratt. Throughout their lives, the Alcott sisters cherished memories of their theatrical affinities. In the final March volume, Jo's Boys (1886), Louisa depicted Meg returning to the stage while heralding the opportunity of Meg's youngest daughter, Josie, to legitimately pursue an acting career. Anna subsequently published Comic Tragedies (1893), a volume of plays that she and her sisters performed in their youth. [End Page 91] Having read Little Women in fourth grade, and nurturing my own thespian instincts, I have journeyed along the March sisters' path. In sixth grade I directed and acted in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In college I spent a semester working as a USO entertainer, and I taught municipal theater classes for children and adolescents while completing degrees in English and theater. An English professor specializing in children's and adolescent literature, I now channel my theatricality within my preferred performance space, the classroom. Lacking russet boots, I nonetheless continue to emulate and admire the inventive, artistic March sisters as well as their real-life inspirations. [End Page 92] Anne K. Phillips Kansas State University Copyright © 2019 University of Nebraska Press