Childe Byron

But none can be so rapt in thee.” When Linney re-read these words in preparation for the play, he recalled "My daughter Laura, the actress... her mother and I were separated and divorced when she was a baby, so these lines just laid me out.

Six other actors play a diverse range of characters as she observes scenes from Byron's life, including his youthful incestuous relations with his sister, his homosexual adventures, his foolish marriage, and the causes of his disapprobation by British society.

Author Linney is known for his strong female characters, from Esther Dudley and Mrs. Madeline Lee in his Democracy to Lucy Lake in The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks.

Beginning with a deeply negative perception of her absent father, yet driven to understand his contradictions, Ada challenges his spirit remorselessly.

"[6] In the end of Childe Byron, a compromising reconciliation between daughter and sire is reached—providing a freshly intimate view of the major Romantic poet of the early 19th century.

“The perils of the state as patron of the arts” was the headline of a Washington Post editorial criticizing the Virginia Museum’s reaction to its own theater's premiere of Childe Byron.

[7] In his commentary, staff writer Paul G. Edwards noted that America’s tradition of free speech and first amendment prohibition on governmental interference with public expression were challenged anew by the Virginia Museum trustees’ “obnoxious” attempts to censor the play that had been commissioned by their own artistic director.

Interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered," Fowler said that he stood by author Linney's script despite the museum director's threat to close the show.

Theater goers have a right to assume that the art they pay to hear and see reflects the genius and biases of the playwright, players and play director, not the government.

"[8] Local letter writers noted ironically that the sense of scandal that accompanied Byron in his lifetime seemed reflected in the new storm attending his stage debut.

[12] Citing a dramatist's guild contract that protects a playwright's text, director Fowler prevailed, and the show remained intact throughout its run—although the artistic victory was to prove costly.

[21] Its New York premiere was in 1981 in a production by Circle Repertory Company, directed by Marshall W. Mason and starring William Hurt as Byron and Lindsay Crouse as Ada.