A recent night out to the theatre in Montreal left John Hemingway with decidedly mixed emotions.
The new play, Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway, written by Stéphane Brulotte and running at Montreal’s Théâtre Jean-Duceppe, is an evocative look back at a moment in the decline of a then aging literary legend, Ernest Hemingway.
The play depicts Hemingway in Cuba in 1950 as he weathered disastrous reviews for his latest book and longed to have an affair with an Italian countess, something that couldn’t happen. It depicts the famous writer at a distinctly low point in his life and career.
“It’s a very moving play,” says John Hemingway. “It’s very entertaining, but I also found it sad. Stéphane has gotten at the essence of who Ernest Hemingway was, as an artist and person, not as an icon.”
That’s high praise, especially coming from this man. John Hemingway is the grandson of Ernest and author of Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir, an unblinking examination of growing up with such a renowned last name. Hemingway, 51, now Montreal-based, earned strong reviews for the 2007 book, in which he detailed his own forthright analysis of the complex clan’s litany of mental-health issues and their fallout.
When the playwright Brulotte learned his subject’s grandson was living in Montreal, he asked John Hemingway to serve as a consultant on his play to help knock down any romantic notions Brulotte may have carried about the celebrated scribe known as “Papa.”
In fact, the young Hemingway has no memory of his grandfather, as he was 11 months old when Ernest died in 1961. But his father suffered through a series of strikingly similar mental-health challenges, including depression and alcoholism. John grew up the son of Gregory, a bipolar physician, and his wife, who was schizophrenic. Gregory was also a cross-dresser who had been wearing women’s clothing since the age of 11; in his later years, Gregory had a sex-change operation and transitioned to Gloria. She died in a Miami prison cell in 2001, after being arrested for indecent exposure and resisting arrest.
(Ernest and his son Gregory became permanently estranged in 1952. The novelist said Gregory had “the biggest dark side in the family except me.”)
It is through this prism that John Hemingway views his grandfather’s tortured personal life, as well as his father’s. “The mythic image of my grandfather is a powerful one – the macho avenger. The hunter, the fisherman, the war hero, the conqueror of women, married four times, plenty of affairs – in fact, he was far more complicated than that. He had a lesbian mentor, Gertrude Stein. He was a far more fragile person than people think. He was also interested in the entire spectrum of human sexuality, about the intersection that could happen between men and women. There was far more ambiguity to him than people realize.”
It is this complexity that Hemingway feels has been captured beautifully in Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway. “I’ve seen many interpretations of Ernest, and this is the most touching. [Actor] Michel Dumont does a tremendous job. You see the man who is struggling with his various demons – alcoholism and depression. He longs to have an affair with an Italian woman, but realizes he is too old and wouldn’t be able to satisfy her. Nor can he leave his last wife.”
After finishing a degree in history at UCLA, Hemingway “fled North America” and travelled in Europe, eventually settling in Italy where he worked for more than 20 years as a teacher and translator. Four years ago, he settled in Montreal to work as a lecturer and writer with his Canadian wife, whom he had met in Italy (they have since separated), and their two children. He says there was “tremendous insecurity” in being brought up in a household so rife with mental illness. While Ernest Hemingway’s suicide is famous, Ernest’s father and two of his siblings took their own lives as well; John’s cousin, the model and actress Margaux Hemingway, also committed suicide in 1996 when she took an overdose.
Luckily, John Hemingway says he “has skipped that.” But he also concedes that being a writer in a family of famous scribes presented its own unique challenges. “I grew up with those experiences and those parents – you are that person and your work is a reflection of that experience. It seems obvious, but it took me a long time to deal with. You can only write in your own voice.”
Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway runs until Dec. 3 at Théâtre Jean-Duceppe in Montreal’s Place des Arts (514-842-2112, pda.qc.ca).
Special to The Globe and Mail
