Interest in Rawlings still strong

Conference, play show interest in Rawlings still strong.

By Christina Locke

It has been more than 70 years since her novel The Yearling won the Pulitzer Prize, but interest in the life and work of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings shows no signs of fading. This month, she is the focus of a two-day conference and an original play.

Rawlings, who died in 1953, often wrote about her life in the rural Florida town of Cross Creek in Alachua County, a world away from her upbringing in Washington, D.C. It is Rawlings’ depiction of the nature and people of Florida that attract so many fans, said Dr. Anna Lillios, an associate professor of English at the University of Central Florida and Executive Director of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society.

“I think it’s the human dimension in her work,” Lillios said. “The characters come alive and people can relate to them. I think she worked really hard on that aspect.”

The MKR Society is hosting its 23rd annual conference April 16-17 at the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine. Rawlings owned a home at Crescent Beach and she and her second husband, Norton Baskin, owned a hotel in St. Augustine, in the building that is now occupied by the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! museum, Lillios said.

The two-day event features presentations of scholarly research as well as interactive events such as a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings tour of St. Augustine. On-site registration for the conference will be available, which costs $50 for society members and $80 for non-members. Details are available at http://rawlingssociety.org.

Lillios calls the Society an “eclectic group” of academics, doctors, lawyers, history buffs and nature lovers. “She was really an expert at nature,” Lillios said of Rawlings, who sought out local residents to teach her about the Florida “scrub,” even trying her hand at bear hunting.

The keynote speaker for the conference will be Sandra Birnhak, producer of the 1994 film version of The Yearling, starring Jean Smart and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Birnhak, a longtime film industry executive, moved to Federal Point a little over a year ago from New York City.

”I became much more tuned into what Marjorie Rawlings had attempted over at Cross Creek, the lifestyle she attempted for herself outside of a large city,” Birnhak said of her own transition from Central Park to a 100-year-old farmhouse in East Palatka. When Birnhak bought the film rights to The Yearling in the 1980s, she didn’t know much about Cross Creek and couldn’t have imagined that her life would later parallel Rawlings.

Birnhak worked for 12 years to bring a new version of The Yearling to life (the first film adaptation of the novel in 1946 starred Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman). She attributes the success of the remake to the memories of many people who grew up reading the novel about a boy and his pet fawn. “Sometimes you have to modernize it and make it more accessible to people,” Birnhak said.

Birnhak will speak on Friday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Casa Monica Hotel, 95 Cordova St.

Another dramatic work featured at the conference is based on both Rawlings’ life and work. Retired University of Florida Professor Michael Gannon’s play “My Friend Zelma: The Trial of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings,” draws on the lawsuit filed against Rawlings by her friend Zelma Cason. Cason objected to her portrayal in Rawlings’ autobiographical novel Cross Creek.

“The play is from transcripts from the trial, excerpts from Cross Creek, and things of that nature,” Jean Rahner, who is producing the play for A Classic Theatre, Inc., said. The play features a cast of 20 actors who portray attorneys and witnesses at the trial, which took place at the Alachua County Courthouse in 1946.

“All the cast has done a lot of research about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, so they know a great deal about her,” Rahner said. “They love her!”

The court case, Cason v. Baskin, was later heard by the Florida Supreme Court and established the right to sue for invasion of privacy in Florida.

Although scenes from “My Friend Zelma” will be performed as part of the MKR Society conference, the play will be performed in its entirety during its current run at the Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Ave., St. Augustine. The final performance of “My Friend Zelma” is scheduled for April 20 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20, with discounts available for seniors, students, military and groups.

Christina Locke is a former reporter and current graduate student at the University of Florida College of Journalism.