“Brain Hemingway”, premiering at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, narrates the internal conflict between Erin Murray Quinlan and one of America’s greatest writers.
Hemingway fan Erin Murray Quinlan is opening her brand-new musical comedy Brain Hemingway, where you “might learn a thing or two about him”, at Greenside @ Infirmary Street from 5 to 20 August 2022 (not 14).
Hemingway has always been a controversial figure: seen by many as the quintessential macho writer, and by others as a misogynist in his depiction of women. Scholars now argue that Hemingway depicted women with real complexity in his novels, something we are only now beginning to appreciate, just as the #MeToo movement and the overturning of women’s legal rights are making headline news.
In Brain Hemingway, composer and playwright Erin Murray Quinlan’s version of Hemingway is as a negative voice inside her head. He reminds her of previous bad reviews, lowers her self-esteem, stops her from completing tasks, and cripples her with dread. Erin’s husband Evan plays the spirit of Hemingway, bringing to life this entertaining power struggle between writers.
Although notoriously melancholic, Hemingway enjoyed affectionate relationships with several of his four wives, some of whom became friends. Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn and Mary Welsh all married this complicated man, describing their fellow wives as graduates of ‘the Hemingway University’.
“You can less expect the fishing/drinking version of Hemingway, and more the version that recites my bad reviews and berates me for watching reality TV,” says Murray Quinlan, “He’s become a penny on the tracks to my train of thought.”
Erin Murray Quinlan is a published playwright and composer, whose off-Broadway credits include God Save Queen Pam. She is an alumna of Berklee College of Music, the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Institute in Paris, University of Oxford, and the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theater Workshop.
Evan Quinlan was a member of Boston’s 11:11 Theatre Company, performing in productions such as The Seagull, The Great Heathersby Heist, and Poe: A Fever Dream. Evan originated the role of Digby in the off-Broadway production of God Save Queen Pam.
Whatever people’s opinion of Hemingway, he’s currently an unwelcome and toxic mishmash in the brain of Erin Quinlan, who, through word and song helps us (and herself) realise, with sharp wit and timely insight, that behind every great man is an equally great woman.
Greenside @ Infirmary Street (Ivy Studio). 5-20 Aug 2022 (not 14), 17:15 (50 minutes), £8 (‘2 for 1’ on 8 and 9 Aug)
16+
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