“Walden” is a book by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. It’s about Thoreau’s reflecting on the simple living he enjoyed for two years while he lived in a little cabin beside Walden Pond in Massachusetts. In it, he examines the things about the society in which he lived, including individualism and nature, with self-reliance also in the forefront of his mind. It has become a symbol for retreat and reflection.
This “Walden,” by Amy Berryman, making its Philadelphia premiere at InterAct Theatre, also takes place at a remote cabin in the woods, It is a few years in the future and the very planet Earth is in danger. A tsunami has just killed a million people while hot climates and pollution are threatening lives everywhere- except in places like this cabin in the woods and in other remote places where the air is still good. That’s where Stella (Alice Yorke) has been living with her lover, Bryan (Newton Buchanan) for the past year, living a most natural life.
Stella had worked for NASA along with her twin sister, Cassie (Campbell O’Hare), a botanist, for eight years, both hoping to follow in their astronaut father’s footsteps and become astronauts themselves. She was even in a relationship with one of her NASA coworkers until she was told that she would not be selected to go into space and left the program while her sister was selected to go to the moon for a year to find if she could grow food there. After not communicating for a year, Stella has invited her sister to their cabin.
There are two things that follow which create the core of Amy Berryman’s play. The obvious one is the future of the world. Should exploring places like the moon and the planet Mars be a priority for government spending or should the money be used to improve life on Earth as Bryan believes? Cassie is scheduled to begin training for her flight to Mars with 20 others (on the previous journey to the planet, all the astronauts perished) to create a world there for people to eventually migrate to before the Earth disintegrates. Stella, on the other hand, is committed to life with her partner Brian, who she met in a group therapy. He is an Earth Advocate (EA) who seeks to live without the benefits of modern technology including electricity and modern plumbing. They are in love. And though the sisters love each other, they are constantly bickering.
This finely crafted play about the Earth is so much more as it delves into the lives of the twins. How will the sisters reconcile? Will Stella succumb to Cassie’s urging that she leave Brian and return to the space program? Will Cassie try to control Stella’s decisions? But most of all, is either sister truly happy or have they just succumbed to the idea that they have some destiny that must be fulfilled? What is destiny anyway? So much struggle within the souls of each.
All three actors were so passionately real in presenting this profound drama. And Director Seth Rozin has done a superb job in bringing this unusual play to the InterAct stage.
As for why the play is called Walden, we learn that it was their father’s favorite book. And when Stella was working at NASA as an architect, she named the resettlement plan she had devised for the colonization of other planets, Walden.
While on the surface, the play deals with the decision to create a place in space to flee to, there is so much sub story, filled with ambivalence, questions, and family relationships in this powerful play.
“Walden”” by Amy Berryman at InterAct Theatre Company at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, 215-568-8079 interacttheatre.org Thru November 23, 2025
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 