Press release

Hemingway on Stage: The Road to Freedom Part IV: The Man-Eaters

Ernest Hemingway, it has been said, never left a wife until he had another woman waiting. Looking for writing privacy that Key West could no longer offer, and an escape from Pauline, Hemingway took his fishing boat, Pilar, to Cuba, where the other woman lived.
Man-eaters, he often called the women in his life and the lives of his friends, especially when the women dominated over the men, as his mother dominated his father. However, the man-eaters often gave the writer background material for his short stories and novels.
Jane Mason, the other woman and wife of Grant Mason, founder of Pan American Airlines, collected writers as well as their books. She offered Hemingway everything Pauline didn’t. She had a passion for fishing and hunting and she could hold her booze. And, she lived in Cuba, a safe 90 miles from Key West and Pauline.
Jane Mason was the woman that convinced Hemingway to plan an African safari. It must have reminded Hemingway, as he sat in his $2-a-night room at the Hotel Ambos Mundos, in Havana, of his skiing trips with Hadley, the first Mrs. Hemingway, and Pauline, when they lived in Paris.
The safari was planned, but Hemingway lost interest in Mason when she was involved in a car accident with his sons, Jack and Patrick, riding along. The day after the accident Mason fell off the balcony of her Havana home. Some say it was attempted suicide, after Hemingway called off their relationship.
Hemingway went with Pauline on the safari and two of his most famous short stories came from that trip, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Both stories featured strong women who dominated over their husbands.
When the Spanish Civil War began, Hemingway left the safety of Key West and Havana for the Spain of his youth, of bullfighting and fiestas. What he found was Madrid under a fascist siege. He traveled to report on the civil war, condemning non-fascists countries for not helping put a stop to Hitler and Mussolini’s atrocities in Spain. The failure to stop fascism in Spain, Hemingway predicted, would result in a larger war in the future.
Hemingway saw many brave men die defending Madrid and soon his term “man-eaters” was used to express his feelings on the civil war. Fascism, he said, was a man-eater.
The fascist man-eaters, like the women, led Hemingway to write and it resulted in “For Whom the Bells Toll,” his novel on the atrocities and brutalities of the Spanish Civil War.
Irish-Canadian actor-writer, Brian Gordon Sinclair brings these facts and many others to breathtaking life at the Waterfront Playhouse, as he presents “Hemingway on Stage: The Road to Freedom, Part IV: The Man-Eaters.” The play will be held from July 18-21, with an opening reception at the Custom House, immediately following the 7:00 pm performance on July 18th. July 19-21 there will be matinee performances only, at 2 p.m. The play is set to coincide with Key West’s Hemingway Day Festival that celebrates Hemingway’s 107 birthday, July 21. The Hemingway exhibit at the Custom House, next door to the playhouse, remains open and popular all year long with Hemingway aficionados.

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