Pontine Theatre
October 11 - 27, 2019
Fridays 7pm, Saturdays 3pm, Sundays 2pm
Pontine Theatre’s Co-Artistic Directors, Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers present an original adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of the Seven Gables.”
Set in Salem, Massachusetts, the story follows several generations of the ill-fated Pyncheon family, bowed under a curse dating from the famous witch trials, and trapped in the once magnificent, but now decrepit, House of the Seven Gables. Based on Hawthorne’s experience of growing up in Salem, and interwoven with incidents from the history of the Hawthorne family, "The House of the Seven Gables" was an instant success, and remains a great American classic.
"The House of the Seven Gables" is, as Hawthorne puts it, a “history of retribution for the sins of long ago.” The saga starts in the 17th century, when Colonel Pyncheon covets the land of one Matthew Maule. Colonel Pyncheon uses his influence to have Maule tried for witchcraft. As the convicted Maule stands on the gallows, he pronounces a curse on Pyncheon: “God will give you blood to drink!.”
It is the working-out of this curse, through future generations of Pyncheon family that forms the essence of "The House of the Seven Gables.”