“An Evening with Walt Whitman”

“An Evening with Walt Whitman” August 5 at the Camden Public Library

Actor Stephen Collins will present “An Evening with Walt Whitman” at the Camden Public Library on Tuesday, August 5, at 7:00 pm. The performance will be part of the library’s “Maine and the Civil War” series. Since the late 1990s, Collins’s performances have captured the attention of the press. It is not just the stunning resemblance to Walt Whitman himself, which many in the audience notice, but the portrayal of the character and the essence that he brings within arm’s reach that makes the poet come to life.

“An Evening With Walt Whitman” opens with the elderly Whitman on the evening of his seventieth birthday. The audience is a visitor in his room as he prepares for his birthday celebration. Whitman begins to reminisce and to question his success as a man and a poet. He tells us his work has proved to be “less than a failure.” He remembers a mystical experience he had in his thirty-seventh year that inspired him to write poetry.

During the telling, Whitman transforms into his young vibrant self and we begin to trace back along with him the experiences that led to the creation of Leaves Of Grass, his lifetime work. The first part of the performance explores Whitman’s preoccupation with the self and his resolve to write with “free and brave thought.” We revel with him as he celebrates his body and himself and are confidants as he shares his struggle with his sexual self.

In the second part of the performance, Whitman’s life is changed forever by the impact of the Civil War. It is here that he finds “the most important work of my life,” nursing the wounded soldiers in the hospitals. Through poetry and readings of actual letters, we experience Whitman’s movement from selfishness to selflessness, and his growth into a mature artist who is at peace about “himself, God, and death.”

Collins performed at the Camden library several years ago. “What kept the audience enraptured by the performance is that Collins’s illusion is complete. The suspension of disbelief is absolute. The actor disappeared, and we accepted that we were in the presence of Walt Whitman. There’s magic for you!” said Marsha Sloan, the program director at the time.