louis edmonds' "business trips"

[michael c]

i've been watching the early part of 1897 and one particular thing is giving me deja-vu...

no sooner does the storyline start when it's announced that the(as yet unseen)louis edmonds character edward collins is in "boston on business". the character returns to collinsport briefly for the action surrounding edith collins death when he's yet again packed off to "bangor on business".

needless to say all of this is reminding me of louis edmond's "present time" character roger collins and his perpetual business trips to boston and bangor and portland and eventually europe.

what gives? like joan bennett(who's characters were prone to a series of hospitalizations)did edmonds' contract allow him several weeks off a year to pursue other projects? or was it that once the monster situation took off it was hard for the writers to come up with valid material for roger and louis' other human characters?

during 1795 of course joshua disappeared for weeks when angelique turned him into a cat and again i seem to recall various trips to boston to consult with occult specialists and whatnot. and roger didn't appear at all for months during the "summer of 1970" sequence and again his absence was explained as an extended business trip to europe. i find it hard to believe that as a contracted player edmonds' would allow himself to be written out of the scripts for that length of time unless he requested the time.

thoughts?

[Gothick]

Hi MSC,

Louis was a veteran stage actor and did a lot of theatre during his various times of hiatus on DS.  I believe some of it was outside the city, actually.  I don't know about his contract or whether he was allowed to request leave at certain times or how it worked.  The Craig Hamrick book, at least the original edition (I never got hold of the revision) did not give any insight into this, as I recall.

G.