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By BOB KEYES, Staff Writer Sunday, February 18, 2007

Three times in his life, Daniel Noel has cried tears of joy.

First, when he debuted on Broadway. Second, when his daughter was born. And third, just two years ago when he won a commission from Portland Stage Company to craft a play about the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Noel, a Portland actor and playwright, reveres Longfellow, and views the opportunity to write a play about the Portland native as an honor. He also feels humbled, given the respect he holds for Longfellow's core goodness and the way the literary titan treated other people.

"It's his humanity that draws me to him," Noel said. "I try real hard to be a decent person, and it's always not so easy. But he did, and he was. He has made me genuinely look at my life and what my priorities are."

Noel is in the final stages of drafting his play, called "Longfellow: A Life In Words."

An early version of the play debuted last spring at Portland Stage's annual Little Festival of the Unexpected, which serves as an incubator for new work. The final version likely will appear at Portland Stage later this year or early next.

Noel has devoted much of his recent life to Longfellow.

He relates to the writer's dedication to the arts and the artistic lifestyle, as well as his compassion for others, especially those in less fortunate circumstances.

In his life, Noel tries to not judge people and to be kind to those he associates with. He's made a special effort to treat Portland's homeless and underprivileged people with dignity -- an act of kindness he said he learned from reading about Longfellow.

"He didn't judge people at all. If you were a good human being, he liked you. I am trying to adopt that as my credo, too," Noel said.

He also appreciates the way Longfellow rose above personal tragedy. Noel often uses Longfellow as a model for overcoming personal setbacks.

"He has affected my acting and affected me as a person," said Noel. "I relate to his tragedy, but I relate to his kindness most of all."

Noel sets his play with dialogue taken directly from Longfellow's letters, journals and other writings. "A Life in Words" is a series of conversations and correspondences among the writer and his friends, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens and others.

In all, there are about a dozen voices in the play. Noel wrote it for a cast of three to five actors, who will play multiple roles. He is in the final editing stages.

Noel knew a little about Longfellow before he began his play. He co-created the Longfellow Shorts reading program at Portland Stage and has long admired Longfellow's published poems.

His appreciation for Longfellow as a person grew as he delved into the writer's life. His research led him to ask questions about the intersection of art and life. That theme constitutes the core of the play.

Longfellow's refusal, especially as a young man, to compromise his writing impressed Noel. As an artist who sometimes struggles to sustain his life in the arts, Noel admires the way Longfellow held fast to his faith in himself.

Equally, Longfellow never allowed his eventual fame and fortune -- he was internationally famous and enjoyed enormous wealth -- to alter the core values that he learned growing up in Portland.

"He appears to have been a very nice guy," Noel said. "In my heart, I believe there was something in Longfellow that reflected the Everyman."

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at: