[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
I was hoping for something from you on the Queen Mary, and more than pleased to get so much in your letter of the 1st, as I know how difficult it is to get the time and convenience to write personal letters when one is visiting. ItHavenses, theEH stays with;a6Havens, Paul
What youFamily Reunion, TheEH spurs TSE's reflections on;g6 say about the play is just. You have no reason to blame yourself for not having seen its weaknesses more clearly. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin1939 production of The Family Reunion;c1and the play's weaknesses;c1 did not, andFamily Reunion, Theand Otway's Venice Preserv'd;g7 I believe there is nothing more difficult than to anticipate what will prove strong and what weak, especially with this type of play, which is attempting to break new ground, and partly ground which has not been cultivated for three hundred years (exceptingOtway, ThomasVenice Preserv'd and Family Reunion;a1 ‘Venice Preserved’1 but that was an attempt to imitate a form that had died). Remember rather how much you contributed towards improving it! e.g. in persuading me to remove Mary from the brawl at the end and put her grievances into the early scene with Agatha. I don’t know what could have been done with the Harry–Warburton scene, which drags: there isn’t room for it in the first act, and the scheme precluded three acts. IMacCarthy, Desmondcriticisms which TSE deflects;a7 do not agree with MacCarthy’s objection to the mixing of Greek and Christian – and none of the Christian reviewers has shared that objection – or to his objection to the chorus: if, as I feel likely, I abandon the chorus, it will be for other reasons. As you say, the play was something that I had to get rid of; and in my next attempt I ought to be able to choose a plot more objectively, and take one with practical advantages. HowRacine, Jeanquoted on plotting;a1 I agree with Racine, who, when asked how is [sc. his] play was getting on, replied that it was nearly finished: ‘there is nothing left to do but write the poetry’. I shouldn’t have said that before; but for the next, I know that deciding on the theme and working out the pattern of key points is going to be the most difficult part.
Ipoetryand theatre-going audiences;b7 am also of opinion that there is no public yet which knows how to listen to poetry. They accept Shakespeare in spite of the poetry, liking only familiar tags of verse. I got my musical pattern right, but allowed it to dominate the action pattern too much. Another difficulty is that any theatre audience nowadays expects to be able to understand a new play at first sight; they are not willing to let the play at first merely work on them, without bothering to understand. Of course that stands in the way of ordinary poetry too: the feeling of being insulted by anything that is not immediately intelligible. Of course they don’t understand Shakespeare – nobody can say that with confidence – but they think they do.
YesRedgrave, Michaelas Harry;a4, but again, if not Redgrave, WHO is there in London who would have been better? At least, one could not be sure in advance.
I would not say that the whole idea is based on Harry – the most important character is perhaps Agatha – the family, rather than any individual, is the protagonist.
Yes, if and when it is given to New York, it will have to be a very particular group of people to undertake it. But I expect rather more intelligent (and detached) criticism from the New York literary reviewers than from the London dramatic ones.
HeavenSecond World Warprognostications as to its outbreak;a4 only knows what is going to happen this spring: butEuropethrough the 1930s;a2 I still have a feeling that war will be postponed at least until the autumn: I say ‘postponed’, because I don’t see that anybody is doing anything to untangle the knot that Europe has got into. TheGermanyits territorial ambitions under Hitler;b2 Germans complain of our policy of ‘encirclement’, and that is what it is; but it is merely one circle against another. The kind of poker game in which they have all been engaged is one that can do no one any good in the end. I don’t know whether I am more apprehensive of war or of the results of the way in which war will be averted, if it is. War would certainly mean that Japan would get control of the whole East: British, French and Dutch colonies would go at a bang; ItalyItalyand European pre-war diplomacy;a8Rome
IMoot, The;a5 am off this afternoon (Friday) to Jordan’s to a weekend of the Moot: three evenings and two days of discussion of the future of Christendom. TheMorleys, the;j3 following weekend I go to Pike’s Farm, which will be comparatively restful.
1.Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d (1682).
2.Christopher Fry (1907–2005) was Director of Oxford Playhouse, 1939–40, 1944–6, and from 1947 a director and staff dramatist at the Arts Theatre, London. Plays include A Phoenix Too Frequent (1946), The Lady’s Not For Burning (1948), Venus Observed (1950), and adaptations of Anouilh, Ibsen and Rostand. He wrote the screenplays for Ben Hur (1959) and The Bible: In the Beginning (1966); and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 1962.
Fry’s pageant play The Tower opened at the Tewkesbury Festival on 18 July 1939.
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.
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.DesmondMacCarthy, Desmond MacCarthy (1877–1952), literary and dramatic critic, was intimately associated with the Bloomsbury Group. Literary editor of the New Statesman, 1920–7; editor of Life and Letters, 1928–33; he moved in 1928 to the Sunday Times, where he was the chief reviewer for many years. See Desmond MacCarthy: The Man and His Writings (1984); Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Clever Hearts: Desmond and Molly MacCarthy: A Biography (1990).
1.According to Browne (The Making of T. S. Eliot’s Plays,147), MichaelRedgrave, Michael Redgrave – aged 31 – ‘had already made a name for himself at the Old Vic, with John Gielgud in his season at the Queen’s, and with Michel Saint-Denis at the Phoenix’. TSE to James Forsyth, 16 July 1940 (tseliot.com), on Redgrave: ‘He is a most likeable person and very easy to work with. Unlike some actors he does not assume that he knows more about the play than the author does, and is always anxious to co-operate.’
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.