[No surviving envelope]
Letter 5.
YourAmericaNew Bedford, Massachusetts;f8EH's holidays in;a1 letterHale, Emilyholidays in New Bedford;q6 of January 2, from New Bedford, arrived a few days earlier than your letter of December 22 from Concord. I think I will send this by air for a change; though in general the ordinary mail seems quite good enough – after all, there is always liable to be a long delay of letters posted before Christmas, even to people in the next street. The difference between a month by sea and three weeks by air is not good enough – if it was going to be so important as that one would be cabling anyway!
I was delighted to hear that the Bethlehem play went off so very well. But it is a great pity that neither I, nor any of your closer friends, should ever have seen one of your most successful productions: I was quite aware that I had not, but not that nobody else had. Could not somebody have come out from Boston for this, or was it private. I hope that the school authorities at least showed some appreciation. I fancy that it must have been particularly difficult, doing a religious play with some such little children in it. ‘DearHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Dear Brutus;b1 Brutus’ (which I think you have produced before? at least you have had to do with some Barrie play) ought to be easier: for I imagine that that will only concern the older girls, and that it is simpler of apprehension anyway – anyway, what they don’t understand will not matter so much as with a religious play in verse. (IsBuckton, Alice MaryEager Heart: A Christmas Mystery-Play;a1 a play called ‘Eager Heart’ ever used for children at Christmas? I saw it done in a village a few years ago: the writing is not very good, but yet it has good points).1
ThePerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);g6 HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard calendar given to TSE;b8 calendar, a very charming production, only arrived this last week, so I have not yet written to Mrs. Perkins to thank her for it; but I will do that next. I was still more pleased by her thought of sending it, and now by the cable, which I had assumed to be a joint production, or that you had sent it and put her name to it instead. You have not yet told me very clearly about the condition of her sight, and the prospects.
IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)as curator of Eliotana;e9 was interested to get your account of the exhibition to do with myself, for it really gave me a much clearer impression than Henry’s more statistical account. He says that he had no part in the initiation of it, but I suspect that he did a good deal of work, which I was not happy about with his impending operation. I am waiting impatiently to learn the result. And these things are very expensive, and because of the war restrictions I can do nothing to help anyone in America financially. IEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law)and Henry's mania for Eliotana;c9 have sometimes wondered whether Theresa did not get a little tired of his enthusiasm for the Eliot collection and its exhibitions; but she is very patient and generous about such things.
IElsmith, Dorothy Olcottnow living in Boston;b2 am interested to know that Dorothy Elsmith is now living in Boston – or was she only stopping there for a visit? IMcKnight Kauffer, EdwardTSE dislikes photograph by;a5 did not like that photograph by McKnight Kauffer (not McKauffer Knight). Such powerful lenses should not be put into the hands of amateurs; a photograph taken late at night makes a man look very unshaven, so the effect was rather coarse I thought. I prefer the Stockholm one to that. (TheLow, Davidcartoons TSE;a1 cartoonist David Low came in and made a few sketches the other day: not for his newspaper work, but for a drawing for some collection he means to publish as a book, I gather. I don’t like him much). I am glad you saw the exhibition in the right company. I don’t much care for this sort of thing: the more information people have about one, the more definite, often, their incorrect impressions and inferences.
IHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7of EH's portrait;e8 remember the colour of your painting, and the sweet peas, and I remember that as good: I think that perhaps the minute inaccuracies of outline show more clearly in a reproduction like this. The general effect of the original portrait was charming, at least to me. I should like to see the other one you speak of.
I am glad that, now you are discovering drawbacks in the character of your landlady, the arrangement for next year is fixed. Apparently you are less independent in lodgings than you would be lodging at the school, which is very contrariwise. I am waiting for you to divulge the mysterious discussion which you say you were to have with the headmistress about unsatisfactory features.
IMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1casting Becket;a5 have had aSpeaight, Robertdiscounted from film of Murder;e1 rather distressing letter from Bobbie Speaight about the film.2 Actually no casting has been done; but he has heard rumours of the film and infers (quite correctly) from the fact that he has not been approached, that he is not wanted. But I could not press upon Hoellering a man who I never thought had the right face for it (and ten years have brought a fleshiness which does not increase the effect either of spirituality or of power): apart from the fact that I think it is bad for any play to be always associated with one actor (and probably bad for an actor to be associated only with one play, but it is not for me to point that out to him). And what he never put into his interpretation, was the development of the character: Bobbie was as much the Saint the first moment he stepped upon the stage, as at the end of the play – with the film version, which starts seven years earlier, the conception of character development becomes more important still. But I am very sorry. I regard the whole thing as an experiment. IFabers, theas moviegoing companions;f7 have never been an enthusiast for films – IMarx Brothers, theTSE's only inducement for moviegoing;a1 can’t understand people like the Fabers, who like to see every ‘important’ film that appears – except for the Marx Brothers; and I like documentaries. What interests me is the possibility of getting the verse spoken perfectly, and of its all being audible to a whole audience. TheMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1recording made for;a6 recording I am doing is hard work: the standard is very high, and no breath or click of the tongue must be audible.
Well, I must stop and change for dinner. Not time to finish off properly.
1.Eager Heart: A Christmas Mystery-Play (1904), by Alice Mary Buckton (1867–1944).
2.SpeaightSpeaight, Robertcomplains and is disingenuously soothed;e2n to TSE, 29 Jan. 1945: ‘This letter is being written in much sorrow, but in no anger. I understand that the Murder in the Cathedral film is really seriously under way, and that production is contemplated in the comparatively near future. At the same time, from the fact that no approach whatever has been made to me, I gather that the producer has other ideas for the part of “Becket”. It would be wholly insincere to pretend that I should not be bitterly disappointed to be deprived of a part which I so largely made my own, but I am too well versed in the ways of the entertainment industry not to realise that these things may easily happen, and my only motive in writing to you is to make two points … It is, I gather, being suggested that I am altogether too wedded to the original stage production to be sufficiently plastic for the conceptions of the film. Although I find it difficult to imagine that a producer whose knowledge of English is so rudimentary that he can hardly carry on a normal conversation, could teach me or anybody else very much about the speaking of a play which is as English as Piers Plowman, nevertheless, I do assure you that so far from attaching myself to previous techniques, I should welcome the opportunity of making a new approach, within, of course, the same imaginative conception. As you know very well, and as I take it Mr Hoellering also knows, we televised the play several times and were completely at the service of that medium. Also, I played the part in Washington, under a producer who had learned nothing from you or Martin Browne, although the results were so alike as to suggest that there are not, after all, so very many “new ways” of doing Murder in the Cathedral.’
TSE to Speaight on 5 Feb. 1945: ‘I do not know that Hoellering has got anywhere near the point of casting, though I know that he has been considering the question of the principal rôle. I do not know whether he considered you too “wedded to the original stage production”: and any of his designs that he has confided to me I have so far considered as confidential. So I do not know how much foundation there may be for any rumours that have reached you.
‘My own attitude has been, to make no positive suggestions, for casting or anything else. I do not know anything about films; and apart from the Marx Brothers and a few documentaries, they generally bore and tire me. But I was rather fearful of a broadcast version, and when it was done (by Miss Burnham) I was very well pleased with it. It has seemed to me that my part should be confined to veto: to stop anything I don’t like, but not to try to make positive suggestions. I know that a film has to be in some ways very different from a stage play, but I have no experience to tell me what these ways are. I only can see from common sense that a film can do some things the stage cannot, and that the stage can do things which ought not to be attempted in a film.
‘I regard this film as an experiment: when it is done I shall know what I think of the film as a medium, and whether I want to have anything more to do with it or not – though, I cannot, in any case, conceive caring to write primarily for the screen, but chiefly the possible filming of a future play at some time after its success or failure on the stage.
‘If, however, Hoellering wants to cast the film quite differently from the play, I don’t consider that any reflection on your interpretation of the part. I don’t believe that there was anyone, ten years ago, who could have made the play such a success as you did; and if the standards of verse speaking on the stage have improved, that is largely due to your work.’
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
4.TSEElsmiths, theseminal Woods Hole stay with;a1Elsmith, Dorothy Olcott
6.DavidLow, David Low (1891–1963), Australian cartoonist, worked for many years in the UK, initially (from 1927) for the Evening Standard; later for the Manchester Guardian. Knighted in 1962.
2.EdwardMcKnight Kauffer, Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890–1954), American artist and illustrator: see Biographical Register. His partner was Marion Dorn (1896–1964), textile designer.
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.