Arthur D. Kahn
In the mid-1950s I arranged with the Guatemalan government to travel to the country to gather material for a book describing the much belated social, economic and cultural reforms being introduced by the Arbenz administration. I devoted many months to preparing myself for my visit and took intensive private lessons to improve my command of Spanish.
Alarmed at the democratic policies that threatened the power and influence of the local oligarchs as well as of the United Fruit Company, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, warned of a “communist threat” in Central America, and the CIA staged a coup and overthrew the regime. There followed decades of repression and of mass murder of the indigenous Indian population.
I, of course, called off my visit to Guatemala.
Several months later, browsing in a second-hand bookstore, I found a book published in 1829 and entitled History of the Greek Revolution. In an appendix to the book was an account of “The Last Days of Lord Byron.” I read these pages, standing in the store, and exclaimed to myself, “This is a story as dramatic as Joan of Arc’s.” This play is the result of the encounter.
Arthur D. Kahn, a retired distinguished Classics professor as well as a Byron specialist, is the author of eight books, including The Education of Julius Caesar, Writer and Critic (a translation of essays by the literary critic Gyorgy Lukacs) and Experiment in Occupation: Witness to the Turnabout, Anti-Nazi to Cold War, 1944-1946.
SYNOPSIS
The action of the play is divided between Genoa, Cephalonia in the British-ruled Ionian Islands off the Adriatic coast of Greece and, on the Greek mainland, Missolonghi, a nearby guerrilla camp and Athens.
ACT ONE
Scene 1: Byron’s mansion, Genoa, May l823
Scene 2: Zante, the island of Cephalonia, four months later
Scene 3: Zante, some days later
Scene 4: Zante, some weeks later
Scene 5: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, Orthodox Christmas Day, January l824
Scene 6: Missolonghi, some weeks later
Scene 7: Missolonghi, some days later
Scene 8: Missolonghi, Stanhope’s room, some days later
Scene 9: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, a few days later
ACT TWO
Scene 1: Colocotrones’ guerrilla camp, several days later
Scene 2: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, the street outside, a few days later
Scene 3: Athens, a week later (early March l824)
Scene 4: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, about ten days later
Scene 5: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, late March l824
Scene 6: Colocotrones’ guerrilla camp, immediately afterwards
Scene 7: A street in Missolonghi that evening
Scene 8: Missolonghi, Byron’s room, the morning of Easter Sunday, April l824
