Homage to Henry: A Dramatization of John Berryman's The Dream Songs

John Berryman's masterpiece, The Dream Songs, has been described as containing a "wild mixture of high lyricism and low comedy [which] plumbed the extreme reaches of a human soul and psyche." But its "wrenched syntax, scrambled diction, [and] extraordinary leps of language and tone" can confound readers. Homage to Henry transforms the poems into a more accessible play and brings to the stage the unforgettable character of Henry, as he encounters wine and women; faculty meetings, fame, and family, growing old and searching for God. Poet Paul Mariani, Berryman's biographer, calls Homage to Henry a "sad and very human story, as stark in its way as anything in Samuel Beckett."