re: the girl in the laughing man
Jacob Hauber (jhauber@uclink4.berkeley.edu)
Mon, 07 Jul 1997 23:08:48 -0700
>What I want to know is why The Laughing Man keeps haunting me. What a
>fascinating little story. I keep thinking about the girl, who is drawn in
>such small and devastating sketches. Reminds me of this play (which I still
>haven't found, if anyone can help) I heard about, these two Roman gentlemen
>are sitting, and the midnight moon is on the riverside, they're drinking up
>and talking, feeling very satisfied with their own particular stations and
>situations in the empire they help rule. And it isn't until the very end of
>the play that they discuss a crucifixion that occurred a few days ago, and
>you realize that if it weren't for this person who isn't even a character
>in the play, but is briefly mentioned as a detail to a normal days work way
>back then, but has had more effect on not only the world they inhabited
>(whose presence, or lack thereof morelike, would rally the empire into a
>"holiness" not soon after and would have a historic breadth that stretched
>for ages and epochs and eons and then some), but the world two thousand
>years since they both shuffled off this mortal coil, yet whom they probably
>never gave a passing thought to for all the rest of their days. Nor would
>have needed to.
This is my first time, practically, e-mailing to anyone or -thing, so this
may not even go through. I think I have figured it out , though, at least
enough to work.
I may know of the play, but only if you heard of it wrong, or misremembered
its description. It is very short, written by Ernest Hemingway, and found
in the complete short stories and, I suppose, *The First Forty-nine*. I
sort of doubt that it is your play, and now, more and more and more, its
relevance to this mailing list. The plays, if "they" are not
one-and-the-same, are so similar that Hemingway's could even be a parody of
yours. (Or vice-versa?) In any case, you may be interested in reading it
for the reason above, if you haven't already.
Kevin Watson