Special Performance Comes to Library Friday

Please join us at the on Friday, June 22, for a free 6:30 p.m. performance adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables," written and presented by Pontine Theatre co-directors Greg Gathers & Marguerite Mathews.

Set in Salem, Massachusetts, the story follows several generations of the ill-fated Pyncheon family, bowed under a curse dating from the famous witch trials, and trapped in the once magnificent, but now decrepit, House of the Seven Gables. Based on Hawthorne’s experience of growing up in Salem, and interwoven with incidents from the history of the Hawthorne family, The House of the Seven Gables was an instant success, and remains a great American classic.

The House of the Seven Gables is, as Hawthorne puts it, a "history of retribution for the sins of long ago". Or, one might say it is an prefiguring of Faulkner's line that, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The saga starts in the 17th century, when Colonel Pyncheon, covets the land of one Matthew Maule. Colonel Pyncheon uses his influence to have Matthew Maule tried for witchcraft. As the convicted Maule stands on the gallows, he pronounces a curse on Pyncheon: "God will give you blood to drink!” It is the working-out of this curse, through future generations of Pyncheon family that forms the essence of The House of the Seven Gables.

Pontine’s original works are devised entirely of dramatic elements drawn from New England history. To create these works, Pontine’s co-directors undertake months of intensive research, traveling to libraries and museums throughout the region, mining letters, diaries, newspapers, ephemera and other period writings for text which forms the dramatic works’ spoken component. Pontine does not “script” its works in the conventional sense; its actors speak found text exclusively, and interpret those words through lyric and dramatic movement. Unique to Pontine, this artistic choice creates readily accessible works of extraordinary authenticity and immediacy.

The performance is free and open to the public, with light refreshments available beforehand. The Lane Memorial Library is located at 2 Academy Ave. in Hampton, and more information is available by telephone at (603) 926-3368.