Monuments

Monuments is a play in one act exploring the tragic life and remarkable mind of America’s greatest philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In July of 1872, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house in Concord, Massachusetts, caught fire. His many admirers raised money for repairs, and sent the aging sage 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. With his memory failing, his daughter Ellen accompanied him and managed the trip. Monuments imagines Emerson on the final part of that that voyage, sailing down the Nile river, struggling with memory yet confronted by memories of his first wife Ellen (for whom his daughter was named), his second wife Lidian, his protégé Henry David Thoreau, and his young neighbor Louisa May Alcott.

This volume contains both the original 30-minute and the full-length version of the play.