On the planet of kid prodigies, novelists are the rarest breed. Barbara Newhall Follett, born in Hanover, N.H., in 1914, match the invoice. By the point she was 9 years-old she had accomplished her first novel, a subsequent draft of which was revealed by Knopf when she was 12. Two years after that, she launched her second novel. Each had been met with crucial acclaim, and Newhall grew to become a star within the publishing world.
Almost a decade later, after a battle together with her adulterous husband, the 25-year-old Follett left her condominium in Brookline, Mass., with $30 in her pocket and a pocket book. She was by no means seen or heard from once more. The thriller of the vanished former little one genius has pulled on the public creativeness ever since, leading to quite a few books and articles about her life and disappearance, together with a 2019 essay within the Los Angeles Overview of Books speculating that Newhall had dedicated suicide by ingesting barbiturates.
Barbara Follett, a toddler literary prodigy, is the topic of a brand new musical titled “Perfect World.”
(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)
A world-premiere musical can now be added to the rising record of Newhall-themed explorations. “Perfect World,” written by Alan Edmunds and composed by Richard Winzeler, with lyrics by each males, opens Saturday on the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood, working via Nov. 9.
The mission marks Edmunds’ debut as a librettist. The retired psychologist — who specialised in gifted kids — come across the thought of making a musical about Follett’s life after a deep dive into her archives at Columbia College virtually 15 years in the past.
“As I’m reading through this, I start to feel the tragedy of what really happened to her,” Edmunds stated throughout an interview on the theater over the pounding of hammers and the buzzing of drills because the detailed set was put collectively. “I thought this is the hero’s journey. Unfortunately, it’s not a happy ending.”
Edmunds was so impressed by the 15 containers of archival materials, together with a whole lot of hand-typed letters that Follett wrote to dozens of family members and acquaintances, and countless lyrical descriptions of the imaginary world of Farksolia on the coronary heart of her debut novel, “The House Without Windows,” that he drafted his preliminary define for the musical on his knee whereas taking the subway from Columbia to Broadway to see “La Cage aux Folles.”
The present’s crew took inventive license within the retelling of Follett’s story, however for probably the most half Edmunds adhered to the broad strokes of her quick, vibrant life. The musical hops backwards and forwards between two story traces: Follett’s experiences up till her disappearance, and the nationwide investigation that unfolded afterward, led by the dogged Capt. Stahl and perpetually pushed ahead by her grieving mom, Helen Thomas Follett.
Follett’s childhood was marked by unhappiness, Edmunds stated, noting that Helen, who wrote for a industrial transport firm, and Follett’s father, a Knopf literary editor named Wilson Follett, fought typically.
“They were at each other hammer and tongs,” Edmunds stated. “And even when they wrote about Barbara, subsequently, you could feel the animosity between them.”
This made sense as a result of a couple of yr after the publication of Barbara Follett’s first ebook, Wilson left Helen for a a lot youthful girl, shifting in together with her in Greenwhich Village. Her father’s desertion dealt a crushing blow to Barbara, who adored him. She subsequently launched into a crusing journey with Helen from New York to Barbados after which on via the Panama Canal. Barbara grew to become critically in poor health in the course of the journey — the results of nerves and melancholy, Helen thought.
Barbara Follett, a toddler literary prodigy, is the topic of a brand new musical titled “Perfect World.”
(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)
Round that point, Follett met and fell in love with a 25-year-old sailor named Edward Anderson. Helen didn’t approve, and Edmunds stated she conspired to get Anderson fired from his place as second mate. The lack of Anderson was the second main blow in Follett’s life, Edmunds stated, and it’s a thread that runs via the musical, resulting in Follett’s assembly with a latest Dartmouth graduate named Nickerson Rogers — the person who would grow to be her husband, and who would finally depart her after having an affair together with her finest childhood pal.
The couple shared a love of nature, and earlier than they had been married, spent months climbing and tenting collectively alongside the Appalachian Path. Photographs from the early Thirties present a slender, bare-legged Follett with short-cropped hair, sitting beside an open hearth with a cooking pan and an outdated tin espresso pot.
Follett’s life was full of crushing disappointment and near-constant stress, however nature offered a launch. That is seemingly why she conjured up the right world of Farksolia at such a younger age. It was an escape, and Follett packed it with as a lot element as attainable, together with its personal system of arithmetic, its personal language — Farksoo — and its personal alphabet.
The heroine of “The House Without Windows” is a younger woman named Eepersip who runs away from house to reside contentedly together with her animal associates within the woods. If it sounds easy, it was. However that was additionally its genius.
Critics liked it and it offered greater than 20,000 copies upon its preliminary printing.
“I can safely promise joy to any reader of ‘The House Without Windows.’ Perfection,” wrote the English writer of youngsters’s books, Eleanor Farjeon, in a evaluate.
Barbara Follett, a toddler literary prodigy, is the topic of a brand new musical titled “Perfect World.”
(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)
There are numerous theories about what occurred to the adventurous and headstrong younger girl after she vanished, together with that she was killed by her husband, who had demanded she cease writing and didn’t report her lacking till two weeks after she left. Others suppose she merely moved far-off, modified her title and continued to put in writing below a pseudonym. Then there’s the not too long ago surfaced concept that she went to a family-owned cottage within the woods and swallowed sufficient barbiturates to finish her life. That idea holds {that a} physique found within the late Nineteen Forties was misidentified as one other girl, when it was really Follett.
Edmunds has given the matter intensive thought and believes that Follett liked life an excessive amount of to kill herself. The concept appeals to him probably the most comes from a crumb of a clue in Follett’s archives — a letter from the sailor Anderson that Follett obtained a short while earlier than her disappearance. It may very well be surmised from her letters that she by no means stopped loving Anderson. Might or not it’s that she went to seek out him when her husband’s affair grew to become identified to her?
Edmunds finally determined to not go down the rabbit gap of hypothesis about Follett’s demise, opting as a substitute to focus the musical on Follett’s life, “What she did, how she rescued herself, how she was so engaged and connected to nature, and how she wanted people to take care of each other and be good to each other,” Edmunds stated. “How we could have a better world.”
‘Excellent World’
The place: El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North HollywoodWhen: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday via Friday, 2 p.m. and seven:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: Begin at $22Contact: perfectworldthemusical.comRunning time: 2 hours, quarter-hour
