The Anatomy of Melancholy

Four hundred years ago, Robert Burton spent his life alone in a library trying to solve the problem of human sadness. The result—an epic encyclopedia called The Anatomy of Melancholy—was one of the best-selling books in English for nearly a century. Today, almost nobody remembers its author’s name. From the Eno River Players, The Anatomy of Melancholy is a new comedy that brings Burton back, to face the question he never escaped: why are we so sad, and what are we supposed to do about it?

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Burton first published his Anatomy in 1621 and obsessively expanded it until he died. Drawing on thousands of books and his own solitary life, he presented every cause and cure of melancholy he could find, ranging from "mirth and merry company" to "suppositories of Castilian soap." Four centuries later, we’ve become convinced that our era is uniquely depressed and broken. Robert Burton would like to have a word with us.

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In Charlie Mayhew and Leo Egger’s play, three figures haunt the edges of Burton's unquiet mind—a doctor, a reverend, and a kid named Bobby. They have spent four hundred years in purgatory, reading over our shoulders, still trying to find the root of human misery. Tonight is their last chance to get it right before they’re forgotten forever. But their mission keeps slipping away from them: they're pulled into memories of the lives Burton lived and read, wandering from the battlefield of Troy to the Little Prince’s asteroid, chasing a sadness they've never been able to name. Before they vanish, they need to know: what was any of it for?

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