The Task of Resurrecting Historic Plays by Women

THE INTERVAL: In 1944, journalist Martha Gellhorn hid in the bathroom of a hospital ship crossing the English Channel and became the only woman to land on Normandy Beach. In 1945, she was one of the first journalists—male or female—to visit and report from the newly liberated Dachau concentration camp. In 1946, she, along with journalist Virginia Cowles, wrote the play Love Goes to Press, which was characterized by The New York Times during a recent revival as a romantic comedy. How one goes from reporting on D-Day to writing a comedic play in two years, I have no idea. A basic Google search doesn’t provide much information, but then again, the Martha Gellhorn Wikipedia entry only dedicates three sentences to Normandy Beach and Dachau under the section heading, “War in Europe and marriage to Hemingway” (oh right—she was married to Ernest Hemingway for five years).