Don Rease, Act One: "The Double Leo"
(Scene: Donald Pease, professor of English, who came to Dartmouth directly after receivinghis Ph.D.from.from the University ofChicago in 1973. He has earned Dartmouth'sDistinguished Teaching Award, an NEH Fellowship, two NEH Directorships, aGuggenheim, and the Geisel Chair. The current Avalon Professor ofthe Humanities,he is 51 years old. He is well-dressed in a tweed blazer. Like always, he exudes a boyishenergy. He seems to he constantly on the go, taking the steps two at a time, striding twosteps ahead. Today he catch him in the Wren Room of Sanborn House He has just finished avery complex lecture 'on Eugene O'Neill called "Waiting for O'Neill."
PEASE: Brilliant playwright. O'Neill, thatis. I wrote plays for a time, too. Had several produced. It's difficult, though, when you've made your life one of literary criticism and then suddenly you're writing a little creative literature. There are more than a few colleagues lined up to let you have it. (He laughs.) So I believe I'll stick to teaching. It's been good to me.
Dartmouth was my first teaching position, and a fine one. To my mind it's a job completely suited to my personality. But I didn't always want to be a professor.
I dreamed of being a psychiatrist. I was 11 years old—I loved to read even then. The neighbor across the street in Wilmington, Delaware, was a psychoanalyst. I admired and wanted to emulate his remarkable insight. I sought all of the works that he recommended.
He introduced me to Freud, and I read all I could get my hands on that summer. When I returned to my parochial school in the fall several of the priests thought I had been possessed by a demon. (He laughs in a loud, boomingway.) I had a very different construal of what counted as analysis than what was managed at confessionals. (Hegrins, remembering.) It is marvelous stuff. I found a quiet, peaceful way of thinking about my world.
(He takes off bis blazer and hangs it neatly cm a banger on the doorknob.)
After 24 years in Hanover, you wouldn't guess I was once thoroughly immersed in hippie life. Bell-bottoms, long hair, traveling the country. I joined one of the more radical communes in San Francisco. It was my great rebellion. There I was, high school valedictorian—sla ted to attend a Jesu it college nearby... Instead I became a scholar-gypsy.
Five years later I had my degree in English and my life had settled down. I'll tell you how I finally cured myself of ever wanting to be a psychiatrist. I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and I worked the night shift at a mental institution to pay my rent. There was a very full moon. Someone had scissors and an apocalyptic fantasy. I still walk with a limp. It's very true!
(He stretches.) My earlier life continues to have its effect on me.
I meditate every day. For me, mental energy springs from a unique source, it replenishes itself with each classroom discovery. Teaching never tires me. But meditation helps me physically. I shut myself in here in the Wren Room and I refresh myselfwithyoga for the second half of my day. I need my strength, I'm a double Leo.
(Another booming laugh.) I suppose if Dartmouth ever kicks me out I can go back to selling astrological charts.
(He winks at the notion.) I'm quite good at it.
