Read: Lives of the Lost Generation

 

MAPPING THE PLAY

By Anna Alison Brenner, Artistic Fellow

 

World War I left a generation of young Americans disori­ented and disillusioned. Unable to reconcile traditional American values with wartime atrocities, some fled to Europe and its promise of an indulgent, debaucherous lifestyle. Dubbed the “Lost Generation” by Gertrude Stein, these young men and women created vibrant expatriate communities, most notably in Paris, where distinguished authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerland, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway called home. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway distills his experiences in Paris and Pamplona, Spain into a narrative that exemplifies not only the decadent and damaged nature of his “lost” genera­tion, but also its resilience and strength.

Although the following figures were but a few members of the expatriate community in 1920s Paris, they are immor­talized today through the characters they inspired:

 

1. ERNEST HEMINGWAY

(Jake Barnes)

Hemingway lived in Paris with his first wife HADLEY RICHARDSON (#4 in photo) throughout the 1920s. On one of many trips to Pamplona, they were accompanied by authors Donald Ogden Stewart and Harold Loeb, as well as Lady Duff Twysden and her lover Pat Guthrie. Tensions between Hemingway and Loeb were high—both were also romantically involved with Twysden. By the end of the week the two physically fought over her affections.

 

2. HAROLD LOEB

(Robert Cohn)

Born into a wealthy Jewish family in New York City, Loeb graduated from Princeton and worked in Canada before moving to Europe in 1921. In Paris, he wrote two novels and was a founding editor of Broom, an art and literary magazine. Lady Twysden was his mistress.

 

3. MARY DUFF STIRLING, LADY TWYSDEN

(Lady Brett Ashley)

This British socialite divorced her second hus­band before traveling to Pamplona with Pat Guthrie and Hemingway’s group. Twysden ultimately married artist Clinton King and died of tuberculosis in Santa Fe at 45.

 

4. DONALD OGDEN STEWART

(Bill Gorton)

Best known as the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Philadelphia Story, this American author began his career as a play­wright and parodist in the 1920s. Stewart was a good friend of Hemingway’s and traveled to Pamplona with him twice.

 

5. PATRICK GUTHRIE

(Mike Campbell)

The son of British banker and politician Walter Murray Guthrie, Pat was a socialite and companion of Lady Twysden. In The Sun Also Rises, Mike is Brett’s fiancé; in reality, Pat and Duff never married.