Native Minnesotan and 'Lou Grant' star Linda Kelsey brings beloved play to Minneapolis

When Linda Kelsey performed "The Belle of Amherst" 16 years ago, the one-woman play was a mountain.

Her character, Emily Dickinson, is on stage for its entirety. That was in her mind when she contemplated playing the poet again, but then came an "incredible" surprise: She remembered the whole play.

"I had said the play every Monday for one year because I wanted to see if I could get it into my long-term memory," said Kelsey, a Minneapolis native who lived in California for years and then moved to St. Paul with her husband and daughters in 1996. "When Kevin Winge asked us to do it at the Woman's Club in this short little run, I thought, 'It's too many words to learn.' But then I realized I knew it well enough to fix it in the few places that needed fixing."

That's not always the case. Kelsey has committed bits of roles to memory because she loved the language. But, she says, like most actors she is "notorious for two weeks after doing a play, not being able to remember a word of it."

Based on Dickinson's poems and letters, "Belle" is written as if the writer, who died in 1886, has invited guests into her home. So it'll take place not on the stage of the venue but in its parlor. The show at Woman's Club of Minneapolis runs Friday through Sunday.

A five-time Emmy nominee for the "Lou Grant" TV series and a memorable "Mary Tyler Moore Show" guest star in an episode in which she tried to "All About Eve" Sue Ann Nivens, Kelsey most recently appeared in this winter's "The Boys Room" at Gremlin Theatre. The Star Tribune asked her about revisiting a character she adores.

Q: What is it about Dickinson that transfixes you?
A: The letters are just as interesting and incredible to read as the poems, if not more so, because she was talking directly to people in her life. She had a way of grappling with ideas that just astonishes me. It's delightful to imagine the kind of brain that woman owned. I get to climb inside her head — not to say I'm the ultimate interpreter of Emily Dickinson at all, but I find it amazing to think about her. She's funny and energetic. It's clear from the letters how much she loved life. She's known for poems about death and stuff but she was interested in so much else.

Q: Even though she was a recluse?
A: She had a conduit to the natural world through her garden that I think is unparalleled. She says in the play, "Father's house and my garden, this is my world. This is my paradise. I've never had to go looking for anything else." She saw so much in a flower, a butterfly, a bird flying past that it was an entire universe for her. I think she may have had — I think it's called synesthesia — the condition where words have a sound and color. All of her senses are combined somehow and she was vibrating on this level that very few of us understand.

Q: Has your understanding of Dickinson changed over the years?
A: She has matured with me. I'm a different person. I've lived longer. She experienced a lot of loss of loved ones and in the play she talks about that. Since the last time I did it, I have lost many people in my family and loved ones. So I have a very different relationship to it. Also, I have grandchildren I didn't have. She talks about her nephews and nieces with such affection and I get that in a different way now. So it's fun. I feel like I'm in a better place to do it than I ever was.

Q: Does anything surprise you about her this time?
A: When I say something and [director Craig Johnson] laughs, I go, "Oh, yeah. She's really funny." She was famous in her town for her ability to mimic everyone, so I'm having fun doing the voices as she talks about various people and becomes them. So that surprises me: how much fun it is to hear the laughs and recognition of her.

Q: What do you hope audiences take away from the play?
A: We're not dusting off some dry, scholarly thing. We are bringing people on an adventure with a really fun person who's got a brilliant mind. When I first did it, people would say, "I had no idea she was this interesting. I want to go read her poetry now."

Q: Given her life, those poems could be especially relevant now, right?
A: Craig said a marvelous thing when we first talked about doing this: After what we've all been through, we understand someone who's maybe one of the most famous recluses in the world, who never left her house for the last 20 or 30 years of her life. We know what it means to be isolated. So the longing to be understood, to be heard, to say, "This is who I am, this is my life as I see it," is strong in all of us. We were so isolated from each other, so it's kind of wonderful to be invited into the home of someone who never came out of hers.

'The Belle of Amherst'

Who: By William Luce. Directed by Craig Johnson.

When: 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. Sun.

Where: Woman's Club of Minneapolis, 410 Oak Grove St., Mpls.

Tickets: $30, womansclub.org.