Wellfleet Preservation Hall
Join us for an afternoon solo performance from actress Jarice Hanson as she portrays one of the greatest investigative war reporters of all time.
Martha Gellhorn was a writer who became a war correspondent known for her focus on the real people of a nation at war. A true “20th century woman,” she eschewed social conventions to carve her own path to creating a record of truth “so that in the future, nobody can lie about it.”
This performance begins with the lines: “I covered 12 major wars. Thirteen, if you count my marriage to Ernest Hemingway.”
Drawing from “Marty” Gellhorn’s own writings from news articles, novels, play, and letters to friends and family, Jarice Hanson portrays a picture of the acerbic Gellhorn who, on the eve of covering the war in Panama (1989), reflects on what it was like to be accused of being a communist by the FBI, her initial romance with Hemingway, and, despite having no press credentials, ended up being the only woman reporter on the beach at Normandy for D-Day. She will talk about what it was like to attend the liberation of Dachau, being thrown out of Vietnam, and a nomadic life that brought her into contact with people like Marlena Dietrich and Leonard Bernstein. After the 40 minute monolog, audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions of both “Gellhorn” and Hanson.
Actress Jarice Hanson is Professor Emerita at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and a professional actor on stage, television, and film. She resides in Harwich and western Massachusetts.