‘Dickinson’ aligns poet’s world with our own, dresses modern issues in old fashion

Much like her poem, possibilities are once again endless for Emily Dickinson as Apple TV+ brings her story to life for a modern audience.

“Dickinson” premieres today alongside the launch of Apple’s new video-streaming service. The show, starring Hailee Steinfeld, was created by Alena Smith, with UCLA alumnus Silas Howard directing the series’ fifth and sixth episodes. Smith read a number of Dickinson biographies in her early 20s and drew from that material when initially envisioning the show. What resulted was a project that uses the 1850s as a mirror for issues of today, Smith said.

“Something I would say in the writer’s room is, ‘If it’s not about today, it doesn’t belong in the show,'” Smith said.

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This mantra became the guideline for many of the scenes and the humor in the first season. For Howard, who came into the show midseason, this mantra provided a baseline to work with as he established the modernized tone of the show mixed with 1850s dress.

Howard said the modernized telling of Dickinson’s life depended on matching artistic factors like music choice with commentary on the issues found in 1850s America that people still confront today. For Dickinson in the show, that battle was with Civil War-era misogyny. But Howard said, as someone who came of age in the ’90s queer scene, he connects personally with how younger people in the show struggle against social norms.

However, confronted with the heaviness of these topics, Howard said he sat down with Smith and the main actors of his episodes prior to shooting in order to discuss the exact timing of certain jokes and quips.

“I wanted to make sure we understood the stakes of the episodes even though there were moments of levity,” Howard said. “It’s about managing that swinging pendulum.”

For Adrian Enscoe, who portrays Dickinson’s brother Austin Dickinson, that pendulum was evident from some of his very first lines. Enscoe said in one of his scenes in which he rides up on horseback to greet his sister Emily, the first thing he says is, “What’s up, sis?” That moment came to define Enscoe’s interpretation of the world of “Dickinson.”

With the episodes Howard directed, Enscoe said the show increasingly grew to touch on issues of representation and white attitudes toward minorities. He said Howard guided him through these tougher scenes, one in particular being when Enscoe’s character portrayed a woman and dressed in the feminine fashion of the 19th century. Enscoe said it’s moments like these that work to define the personality of the show.

“We’re not telling a ‘periodized’ television show,” Enscoe said. “We’re telling a 21st century story in the context of 19th century characters.”

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But despite the historical framing of the show, Smith said Dickinson on her own, as a woman who was unappreciated in her own time, is already someone modern audiences can relate to. Dickinson wrote brilliant poems that no one ever saw, and Smith said the poet’s ability to pack large, complex questions into small, brief works is also part of what inspired her to pursue the half-hour television format.

And as the show continues to run on Apple TV+, Smith hopes audiences are able to connect to the uncanny parallels between Dickinson’s life and the lives people are living now.

“She’s a female artist who has something to say but is born into a society that isn’t necessarily ready to hear it,” Smith said. “I hope audiences can invest themselves in her story.”