Pringle - (died August 12th, 1828) Submitted for you approval - It is through my fault that Darwin came to be -
Why empire required their labors and the task at hand in the Southern Seas
on board ship “crossing this great ocean” - even shadows cannot catch a man’s mind moving onward
the tale of Jemmy Button - missionary zeal - preparation for, and why a second journey
reprise response to Darwin’s growing evolutionary position - let me tell you about the flood
Darwin - nearly missed the boat - uncle convinces father to let him go
the journey on board the beagle - a geologist and naturalist
What do these rocks tell me - doubts and discovery
Wallace a working class collector and naturalist goes up river “Irawadi”
“I am going to be someone someday “
advice from home - stick to what you know best - stop theorizing
his response - “specialization is for insects”
return journey - sinking of the ‘Helen’, “steamboat” - arrival home...
Act 2 Scene 2 Broadway Monkey’s
Monkeys Chaos Anarchy Fratricide - death of order
Wallace reprise - now that you have returned without specimens or notebooks or money
What will you do next? I think I will go to Malaysia...
Intermission
Act 3 Scene 1 Darwin - powerpoint presentation
(late 1850’s)
Given in response to the issue of his expertise, Darwin with screen and projections, lectures on his eight years studying Barnacles, their unusual reproductive strategies and the drift to Speciation
afterwards he is exhausted and must rest... an office couch is sufficient
Act 3 Scene 2 Emma's Lament- cease to be...
Emma... ‘he is sick again... expressing her concerns about his growing atheism,
she sings “I am going to heaven and I fear that you will cease to be..”
It is similar in function to ‘Goodnight my sweetheart/Lyda Rose’ from ‘The Music Man’
though here, ‘Gregor Mendel and the Monks’ accompany her doubts and fears with
“why the characteristics of auspicious variations are not diluted back into the greater population”
A haunting - Long after the fact -
elaborating on how Charles almost missed the message of the Enchantatas - the enchanted islands of the Galapagos
a dream of destiny - Darwin asleep - like Lewis Carrols “Walrus and the Carpenter” (stuck on the island) the monks are now the ‘Galapaghosts’ - iguanas in white face - Darwin takes part in the dream...
“dear Mr. Darwin I am writing to inquire” - postal communication - letters from around the corner and around the world - vignettes - head shots - a web of connections
matters mundane and progressively religious finally approaching the absurdity of coarse superstition as the crowd gets ugly...
Act 3 subscene 4b Malarial Malthus
In a hut in the Malayan jungle -carried on simultaneously or as a ‘freeze frame’ - Wallace and Malthus - malaria and the theory revealed “drop upon drop” as Wallace realizes the implications of population pressures on speciation and writes the essay ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type’; sending it along to Charles Darwin for his approval, and as an intermediary, possible presentation to his colleague the eminent geologist Charles Lyell.
Upon reception of the manuscript Darwin laments“I have lost my place in history”
re-examines his choices - I could have listened to my father... I would not be in this mess today - (escapist nostalgic)
While he is ‘out of it’, his colleagues come to an arrangement to ‘make it all better’
Act 4 Scene 1 the Presentation
the Linnean Society - July 1st, 1858 response stunned - is it time for cigars and drinks yet?
Lyell and Hooker attending - Hooker reads extracts from 1844 sketch of manuscript and the September1857 letter to Asa Gray - this is followed by Wallace’s polished and fluent
“On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type”
this is amplified by a growing chorus of Darwin working furiously, in a Gilbert and Sullivan style, to produce
On the Origin of Species by Way of Natural Selection and the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
- unable to attend Darwin is at son’s funeral “as I lay another child to rest”
presentation at Oxford - Huxley and Wilberforce - pandemonium and chaos
essentially a reprise of Broadway Monkeys
(mid 1880’s
- Darwin (b. February 12th, 1809 d. April 19th,1882 - 73 years of age)
and Fitzroy (b. July 5th, 1805 d. April 30th,1865 - 60 years of age) are no more
Wallace brings everyone back for ‘Why can’t we all just get along’
Perhaps Lincoln -same birthday to the day is called up by mistake because Darwin is still too shy to show up,
to expound on how we don’t have to like one another or even agree, but that we must ultimately all get along
The End
Possible Cast:
Charles Darwin – cautious and obsessive – retiring with a tenacious avoidance
Chronically sick… descent into atheism – shyly but resolutely holding views
Wallace – working class scientist – Lord Jim type world class collector from Amazon to Indonesia
Unpretentious, naïve, hopeful, grateful ascent to spiritualism – conservation
Consistency is the bane of small minds” Alice Eastwood 1877
Fitzroy – Captain of the Beagle - Let me tell you about the flood
Emma – worries about her husbands soul
Annie – Their daughter…
God/Nature - themselves
Chorus: Sailors, townspeople, spectators, scientists, correspondents...
The Scientists:
Supporters and Advocates:
Henslow his professor
Lyell – urged publication (Geology - evolution of earth forms gradually over enormous time frames
Hooker – Botanist , friend
Huxley – proselytizer
Foes
Owen – paleontologist
Clergy:
Samuel Wilberforce – slippery sam – confrontation with Huxley
Scenes:
Sea (seize) the World Carpe Mundo
Islands
Tierra Del Fueggo
Galapaghosts
Down House
Library of the Linnean Society
A hut on the Malay Archipelego
Thomas Scott Nelson ©
last modified
May 25, 2021