Performance Series
Wallace Nutting's Old America
Pontine explores the Colonial Revival Movement
The newest work of Pontine Theatre, “Wallace Nutting’s Old America,” evokes the millennial nostalgia of the early 20th century with a fascinating look at the romantic notions, eccentric characters and homespun pride that sparked the Colonial Revival Movement.
The pioneers of historic preservation in New England, reacting against the excesses of Victorian tastes and the rise of urbanism and industrialization, looked to Colonial architecture and artifacts as priceless symbols of American virtue --as well as valuable commodities to draw in cultural tourists.
Wallace Nutting became a prominent figure in the preservation movement when, in the years just before World War I, he opened his “Colonial Chain of Picture Houses,” a group of five fully restored and furnished Colonial homes in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They included Portsmouth, NH’s historic Wentworth-Gardner House.
But even before he acquired the historic houses, Nutting had helped shape a nostalgic image of Old America with his popular, hand-tinted photographs of New England pastorals and Colonial interiors.
Strength and beauty
Born in Deadbottom, Mass., in 1861, and raised in Industry, Maine, Nutting started out as a preacher. But after a nervous breakdown at age 41, he left the ministry of God and began preaching “the Gospel of beauty,” enshrined in Nature and in the past. “I love the earliest forms,” he wrote, “ because they embody the strength and beauty in the character of the leaders of American settlement.”
His photos, often featuring a slim young woman posed by the hearth, or the spinning wheel, or the spinet, were sold nationally in retail stores and via catalogs. Nutting estimated that 10 million of them hung in American homes. Their sales supported his other enterprises. These included reproduction furniture, ironware, hooked rugs and textiles; as well as the hosues that served as stage sets for his photos.
Known as an authority on authentic Colonial furniture, he sold his extensive collection to J.P. Morgan who gave it to the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford where it still occupies an entire gallery. Nutting was also a prolific writer and publisher of furniture catalogues, photography books, travel guides – his “States Beautiful” series – and an entertainingly eccentric autobiography.
A literary touch
To build the play, “Wallace Nutting’s Old America,” Pontine drew directly from Nutting’s correspondence, autobiography and published writings, especially those involving the Wentworth-Gardner House.
Pontine widens the picture, portraying other events of the preservation movement in Portsmouth -- the dedication of the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial in honor of Portsmouth’s most famous author and the establishment of the Portsmouth Historical Society at the John Paul Jones House.
Pontine’s Co-artistic Directors M. Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers have also woven in four stories by area authors that evoke the Colonial Revival spirit -- “The Codfish Ghost” by Elizabeth Perkins of York, Maine; and three stories by South Berwick author, Sarah Orne Jewett: “An Autumn Ride,” “River Driftwood,” and “The Tory Lover.”
“Wallace Nutting’s Old America” will premiere at Pontine Theatre’s West End Studio Theatre April 27 through May 13. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are $20. Purchase tickets online.
The production is underwritten by Lincoln Financial Group Foundation and supported by grants from the New Hampshire Charitable Fund Piscataqua Region, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.