‘At a remarkable altitude’
D. H. Lawrence’s unfinished play is presented as part of centenary celebrations in honor of his arrival in Taos
Seized with the enthusiasm of creating “the new mystic we are bringing into the world,” the guests of Mabel Dodge Luhan gather for breakfast at her house in Taos, circa 1924. The cook hasn’t come and the group of artists has to figure out how to make coffee and slice bacon. Mary [Austin, the author and feminist] declares grandly to her intellectual friends: ‘Brains and dreams won’t start a stove.’ ”
They are, indeed, “a group of more or less remarkable people, in a remarkable place, at a remarkable altitude,” asserts Mabel, who enters the kitchen and starts ordering everyone around. She allows them cream only on Sundays and likes her coffee strong, her bacon sliced thin and cooked “dry.”
Mabel insists Clarence (Thompson) remove his rose-colored trousers before going down to the Plaza because “people will jeer — and then talk.” And a young character named Elizabeth cannot get Spud (Johnson) to go riding with her because he abhors fun and falling in love and any hint of marriage. Not much else happens in this curious sketch, but author D.H. Lawrence’s powers of observation are much in
1969 DOCUMENTARY Friday (Sept. 16) at 7 p.m.
by Canadian videographer Peter Davis will be shown in the auditorium at the Harwood Museum. The 43-minute film, “D.H. Lawrence in Taos,” features Lawrence’s contemporaries and early biographers in conversation about the author’s life and legacy in New Mexico. The event is free and open to the public. evidence.
Lawrence wrote “Altitude” with no intention to present it on the public stage, according to University of Nottingham professor James Moran, who has organized the current staging at the TCA on Saturday (Sept. 17) at 5 p.m. It was a sketch that Lawrence “started writing on the back of a candy box one evening and that he wanted to be seen by his close friends and acquaintances in Taos,” explains Moran. Lawrence arrived in Taos at age 37 in 1922 at the behest of Dodge Luhan and stayed, along with his wife, Frieda, for about 15 months at the Kiowa Ranch in San Cristóbal.
The play is a hilarious sendup of a fairly naïve coterie of idealistic but practically challenged transplants — others being sculptor Ida Rauh and Alice Sprague — who come off feebly in comparison to their “vital American” Taos Pueblo neighbors, including Mabel’s husband, Tony. Moreover, some ugly cultural and sexist stereotypes undergird the assumptions of these characters, such as the disapproval of supposedly gay behavior — Clarence’s wearing of “rose-colored trousers” along with Spud’s “queer” attitude about girls.
Despite white wealthy characters like Mabel and Mary extolling the “marvelous American rhythm … that white people haven’t got,” their feverish embrace of Native American causes questions “whether support might sometimes disguise hypocrisy and exploitation,” explains Moran. Another important theme Lawrence sounds, as it resonates in his other work, is the status of women in society — women as creative spirit, hearth keeper and life maker. “The next Redeemer will probably, almost certainly, be a woman,” Mary thunders.
As one component of this weekend’s centenary celebrations, Moran and company will be presenting “Altitude” in a “coterie performance” thanks to help by Sharon Oard Warner, of the University of New Mexico and co-chair for the D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives, and Charlotte Keefe and her Taos Onstage troupe. The reading is free and open to all.
“It feels like it is finally coming home to have the play put on stage in this location,” notes Moran.
Another event to celebrate Lawrence’s arrival in Taos 100 years ago is a
POETS BRUNCH FUNDRAISER FOR THE LAWRENCE RANCH
Saturday (Sept. 17) at 11 a.m. at the Taos Country Club. Participating poets are Stephen Benz, Joshua K. Concha, Max Early, Veronica Golos, Catherine Strisik and Diane Thiel. They share their affinity for Law-rence’s work and read some choice poems, either his or their own.
As a young person in the 1960s, Golos (“Girl”) admired Lawrence’s “breaking of boundaries.” She explains: “His working-class background, and his understanding of class differences, were something I responded to. Read during the ‘60s when he influenced writers away from the ‘50s strict codes, Lawrence’s novels and his poetry changed what was permissible.” The poems about Northern New Mexico she will read hold “the double sense of being home and being a stranger.”
Strisik (“Thousand-Cricket Song”) will be reading Lawrence’s poem “Autumn in Taos,” among her own work. She has a “fondness,” she writes, “not only for his emotionally alive and vivid writings of both poetry and fiction, but also for his highly provocative paintings that I first viewed in the early ‘80s when I moved to Taos.” She often visited the Lawrence Ranch when she lived nearby, she adds, “for inspiration, prayer, maybe a hopeful camaraderie with spirit.”
Thiel (“Questions from Outer Space”) was moved to write a poem about the tree outside the Lawrence cabin — depicted famously by Georgia O’Keeffe. Thiel reflects that her own work “grapples with our technological age in the way Lawrence reflected his concerns with the industrial developments of his time.” And Early (“Ears of Corn: Listen”) is plunging into Lawrence’s considerable poetic oeuvre for inspiration.
Cost for the brunch is $40 per person and reservations are required. Email samcallister@unm.edu for more information.
AUDRA BELLMORE
Saturday (Sept. 17) at the Harwood Museum after 2 p.m.
Associate professor of Museum Studies at UNM and curator of the John Gaw Meem Archives of Southwestern Architecture, and architect Shawn Evans will present in the Harwood Auditorium “Frieda Lost and Found: Uncovering Treasures at the D. H. Lawrence Ranch.” Charles McKinley’s painting of Frieda will be on display all weekend at the Harwood. Admission is free, but space is limited. Reserve tickets at the Harwood Events Calendar, harwoodmuseum.org.
The Harwood Museum is located at 238 Ledoux Street in Taos. Call 575-758-9826.