Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
The major late collection that best contextualizes these shorter reflections.
Read our take
The Theatre and Other Pieces
by Henry Miller
Seven short works—essay, letter, memory, fiction, and meditation—issued as the eleventh number of Irving Stettner’s Stroker.
- 1979
- 32
- Melancholy
- Wry
- Elegiac
- episodic
- experimental
- autobiographical
About Henry Miller
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe Theatre and Other Pieces is not a standalone Miller play. It is the thirty-two-page eleventh issue of Irving Stettner’s magazine Stroker, published in 1979 and devoted to seven Miller works: “The Theatre,” “A Letter to Gaston Criel,” “Melpo,” “The Painting Lesson,” “On Death,” “Letter to an Editor,” and “Memory and Forgettery.” Miller’s own lithographs and drawings accompany the prose. The issue was limited to five hundred copies, including a signed numbered group.
The story, in more detail
The contents resist a single genre. The title piece considers theatre; two pieces preserve correspondence; “Melpo” and “The Painting Lesson” move through more narrative or portrait-like territory; “On Death” and “Memory and Forgettery” turn toward late-life reflection. Treating the booklet as a play erases precisely the mixture Stroker assembled.
The Library of Congress-derived record supplies the contents, pagination, series number, and five-hundred-copy limit. Bibliographic descriptions also record Miller’s cover lithograph and interior illustrations. The issue is both a prose collection and a small art object.
Themes and analysis
The seven pieces
The Theatre and Other Pieces contains seven prose works: The Theatre, A Letter to Gaston Criel, Melpo, The Painting Lesson, On Death, Letter to an Editor, and Memory and Forgettery. The title names the opening piece rather than describing the whole book as a play.
The contents move among recollection, letters, and short reflection. Theatre and painting sit beside death and the unreliability of memory. This mixed arrangement gives the book the character of a magazine issue devoted to one writer, which is precisely how it first appeared.
Irving Stettner and Stroker
The collection was published in New York in 1979 as number eleven of Stroker, the magazine edited by Irving Stettner. It runs to thirty-two pages and was limited to five hundred copies. Miller’s own illustrations accompany the writing.
Stettner was an important outlet for Miller’s late work. Their association also produced the letters, drawings, and prose collected after Miller’s death in From Your Capricorn Friend. That later book is related, but it should not be treated as an identical reprint of this seven-piece issue.
How the forms change the reading
A letter begins with a particular recipient and an occasion. A reflection on memory or death makes a more general address. Keeping those forms visible helps explain why a small book can change direction so often without developing a continuous story.
The Painting Lesson also belongs to a larger group of Miller publications about making pictures. Readers interested in that part of his work can place it beside To Paint Is to Love Again and The Waters Reglitterized. The individual piece remains part of this collection, even when its subject overlaps with those books.
How it differs from Miller’s dramatic writing
Just Wild About Harry is Miller’s seven-scene play. Scenario is his experiment in a film scenario inspired by Anaïs Nin. Neither description fits The Theatre and Other Pieces, whose contents include letters and prose reflections rather than a single script.
For readers choosing an edition, the Stroker issue number and 1979 publication date identify this volume more reliably than the word theatre alone. Its small size suits reading the individual pieces separately, with their original forms and occasions in mind.
Why we recommend it
Seven modes in thirty-two pages
The compact issue shows Miller moving among criticism, correspondence, narrative, memory, and death.
A Stroker collaboration
Irving Stettner’s magazine gives the prose a deliberately handmade setting alongside Miller’s images.
What this book explores
Timeline
1979
Stroker devotes its eleventh issue to seven Miller pieces and his illustrations.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Stroker
- 1979
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Henry Miller Miscellanea
An earlier limited collection whose mixed form anticipates this one.
Read our takeThe Theatre and Other Pieces: frequently asked questions
Is The Theatre and Other Pieces a play?
No. It is a mixed seven-piece collection; only the title may suggest drama, and the complete contents include essays, letters, narrative prose, and reflection.
What does it contain?
“The Theatre,” “A Letter to Gaston Criel,” “Melpo,” “The Painting Lesson,” “On Death,” “Letter to an Editor,” and “Memory and Forgettery.”
How was it published?
As Stroker no. 11 in 1979, in a total edition of five hundred copies.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document The Theatre and Other Pieces, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1The Theatre and Other Pieces
EssaysHenry Miller, 1979Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2The Theatre & Other Pieces — 1979 edition
WebsiteArgosy Book StoreUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the The Theatre and Other Pieces page.
3The Theatre & Other Pieces — 1979 edition record
Official recordOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
4Henry Miller — author page and selected bibliography
Official recordGrove AtlanticUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
5The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller
BiographySimon & Schuster, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to The Theatre and Other Pieces.
6Henry Miller: A Life
BiographyW. W. Norton, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to The Theatre and Other Pieces.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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