[No surviving envelope]
I must write something now, as for the next two weeks I don’t expect to write anything to anyone except postcards. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1954 Geneva rest cure;i5;a4 leave for 1, rue de l’Evéché after breakfast on Monday, arriving presumably in time for a late lunch in Geneva. I return exactly two weeks later. I’ve decided not to go to Paris or Frankfurt afterwards as my doctor is much opposed to it – not that he is dissatisfied with my state of health, for he finds me in very good condition, but on the general grounds of conserving strength at my age, and avoiding all fatiguing travels. A première of one’s own play is bound to be fatiguing, because of the number of people one gets involved with. SoUniversity of Hamburgawards TSE Hanseatic Goethe Prize;a1 after my return on the 20th Itravels, trips and plansTSE's deferred 1955 visit to Hamburg;i6;a2 do not expect to go abroad again until I pay my visit to Hamburg: unless I go south for a few weeks in the winter. But I don’t know of anywhere that I want to go. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1955 visit to America;i7and contingent speaking engagements;a1 hope to be in America in the spring: I have made a provisional engagement for a reading in New York on May 14th, which would go a good way towards paying my expenses.
The autumn term is drawing near, and you do not seem to have had a very successful holiday yet – too many brief visits; and I infer that you will be settled in Andover again after Labour Day – this very next Monday, I believe.
IConfidential Clerk, The1954 Paris International Theatre Festival production;b5reception;a2 wentBrowne, Elliott Martin1954 touring Confidential Clerk;g3TSE and Martin Browne catch in Golders Green;a1 withConfidential Clerk, The1954 post-Paris English touring production;b7 Martin to Golder’s [sc. Golders] Green the other night to see the touring company in The Confidential Clerk. This is the company that went to Paris, where, I gather, they had good audiences mostly English and Americans, but a bad press – mostly second-rank French critics who, I suspect, did not know English very well. And one needs [to] know English pretty well to follow the story, I think. It was not – Martin agrees with me – a suitable play to introduce to the French public in English. ICocktail Party, The1954 Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier production;e7reception;a2 hope that this bad start will not impair the prospects of a production in French, as the Cocktail Party has done so well – the critiques of that in the Paris press were excellent (asConfidential Clerk, The1954 Ruhrfestspiele production;b6reception;a1 were the notices of the Recklinghausen production of the Clerk in German). But the company gives the effect of all second-line touring companies: you can’t say that anyone is bad, but the effect is of very flat champagne. TheLeggatt, Alisonas Mrs Guzzard in Cocktail Party;a1 best performance was that of Alison Leggatt, who was as good as ever, and even I thought a little better, as Mrs. Guzzard. IsabelJeans, Isabelin subsequent touring production;a2 Jeans is still charming, but tends to grimace too much for comic effect. (However, it can’t be good for any artist to have to play to dull provincial audiences in August). BobbySpeaight, Robertin The Confidential Clerk;e9 Speaight as Sir Claude is rather wooden; he has no grace of movement, and little mobility of feature – the character becomes surprisingly unsympathetic. RosemaryHarris, Rosemaryas Lucasta;a1 Harris,1 the Lucasta, is young and not very sure of herself, and had injured her voice, I was told, taking the part of a raucous American girl in some Tennant production – she had certainly not yet recovered it, because when she spoke softly, she was often inaudible, so that a good deal of Act II was lost. ItSherek, Henrywhich proves a misadventure;b8 would have been better if Sherek had not taken the company to Paris, and then he could have started his provincial tour later in the year, when there would have been better audiences.
I was much alarmed by the reports of the hurricane in the English press, butEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister);h6 a letter from Marian, dated Sept. 1st, speaks of it rather lightly. But it is odd that she does not speak of the Old North Church: the Times had a photograph of the steeple falling.2 AsEliot, John (TSE's great-great-grandfather);a1 our great-great-great grandfather was Minister there for many years, I regard it as a kind of family loss.3 Anyway, I was relieved to infer that it had not seemed so terrible in Cambridge, though Marian is always too ready to minimise her own troubles. The holiday was a great success, I am happy to think.
I hope I shall find a letter from you on September 20.
1.RosemaryHarris, Rosemary Harris (b. 1927): British stage and screen actor – she had graduated from RADA in 1952, and made her stage début in 1951 – went on to win several international awards including the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Lion in Winter (1966). In time, she even received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her role as Vivien Eliot’s mother in the 1994 film of Michael Hastings’s play Tom & Viv.
2.Hurricane Carol, which ravaged New England on 31 Aug. 1954, brought down the steeple.
3.Mary Trevelyan, ‘The Pope of Russell Square’: ‘The U.S.A. hurricane was front page news and Marion had written of it. “And it caused the wreck of my great-great-grandfather’s steeple in Boston. I last remember being in a really bad hurricane in 1896 – it’s terrifying.”’
TSE’sEliot, John (TSE's great-great-grandfather) ancestor John Eliot, a Boston Congregational minister, was pastor of the New North Church (now St Stephen’s), and a co-founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
TSE’sEliot, John (TSE's great-great-grandfather) ancestor John Eliot, a Boston Congregational minister, was pastor of the New North Church (now St Stephen’s), and a co-founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
1.RosemaryHarris, Rosemary Harris (b. 1927): British stage and screen actor – she had graduated from RADA in 1952, and made her stage début in 1951 – went on to win several international awards including the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Lion in Winter (1966). In time, she even received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her role as Vivien Eliot’s mother in the 1994 film of Michael Hastings’s play Tom & Viv.
4.HenrySherek, Henry Sherek (1900–1967), theatre producer: see Biographical Register.
2.RobertSpeaight, Robert Speaight (1904–77), actor, producer and author, was to create the role of Becket in Murder in the Cathedral in 1935: see Biographical Register.