The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers Vol II: 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright
Page 16
Yours distractedly,
[D. L.]
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MARGARET BABINGTON
17 March 1939
Dear Miss Babington,
Here, at last, is the complete Faustus, or rather The Devil to Pay, (how did you get along with the Dean?).1 I hope you will like the play; as you see, it is going to make greater demands on the production and stage management, but I feel sure Mr. Williams and Mr. Napier will manage to cope with it. I have tried, in the Preface, to explain something of what I wanted to do in this play, especially in the passage which deals with time and the problem of evil, pages 9 and 10.2 The bits of the play which I think most important, if you are thinking of quoting them in the Chronicle, are (1) The Judge’s speech on page 67,3 “All things God can do … . .”; (2) Mephistopheles’ speech on page 72,4 “I am the price that all things pay for being …”; and, perhaps, if there is room for it, part of the Pope’s speech on page 29,5 from “Hard it is, very hard”, to “so all damnation is.” Theologically speaking, these are the cardinal points of the play.
You will see from the cast list what we shall need: I propose to bring actors for the two Faustus’, Mephistopheles, Helen and the Judge. You will see, by the way, that we shall need a Lisa who can sing the little song, “Five silver fishes” on pages 32 and 33;6 I shall have to ask Mr. Knight7 to compose this as well as the recitatives and chorus at the end of the play, and also to suggest some sort of diabolical melody for Mephistopheles’ verse on page 58,8 “Jump little man”. I do not know how the play will work out for time, but I think really the easiest way is to print it as it stands without bothering about the cuts made in production, as this only creates confusion and holds up the printer. I shall be very glad if Mr. Goulden can give us, as he did before, page galleys with good wide margins at both sides and bottom, stamped together to form acting scripts; he will remember how this was done for Zeal.
With all good wishes to the Festival and yourself,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The Very Rev. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury from 1931. He was known as “the Red Dean” because of his Marxist views.
2 pp. 25 and 27 in edition by Gollancz, 1939.
3 p. 100 in ed. cit.
4 p. 106 in ed. cit.
5 pp. 54–55 in ed. cit.
6 p. 58 in ed. cit.
7 Gerald H. Knight, the Cathedral Organist, who also composed the music for The Zeal of Thy House.
8 p. 102 in ed. cit.
The Robe of Faustus designed by Elizabeth Haffenden
Harcourt Williams who played Faustus
Costume for Mephistopheles designed by Elizabeth Haffenden
24 Great James Street
W.C.I
TO HER SON
22 March 1939
Dear John,
Well, you are a one! What with Hitler blowing off steam in Central Europe,1 and you busting your collar-bone2 at Malvern, and every possible agitation boiling up every five minutes about the play, and Canterbury screaming for the script of the new play there, and clergymen writing by every post imploring one to open bazaars at Penzance or South Shields – oh, gosh!
I’m frightfully sorry about the collar-bone – I hope they’ve now tied it up securely, and that it won’t go wrong again. You will probably have to abandon the idea of becoming rugger centre-forward for England (or do centre-forwards only come in soccer? I forget, never having been at all intelligent about football!).
I will try, when the telephone stops ringing, (which it has done twice since I started, curse it!) to go forth and collect some reading for you. It’s very difficult to tell “what to read”, just like that. I’ve always had one of those snipe-like minds myself, which dart off in all directions, pursuing now this and now that, as one thing leads to another. I’ll send down a bunch of “Penguin” sixpennies – good print and light to handle – of various sorts of things ranging from philosophy to fiction, which you can browse about in and see if there’s anything you take a fancy [too] to (can’t spell!). I’m sure the best rule is just to follow one’s immediate fancy and see where it goes to. Sometimes one happens to read a book at the wrong moment and it says nothing to one, whereas a few years earlier or later it would have seemed a direct revelation from Heaven – but one can’t legislate for these things. Nobody of my generation has or can have the faintest idea what’s going to appeal to a person of your generation and it’s no good pretending we can. Poetry which to us looks like clotted madness is clear as daylight to you, and the stuff you find dull and old-fashioned is prized by us because it once seemed new and exciting. We talk a different language, though I think it’s very important that each generation should know what has been said in previous generations – otherwise they may discover that somebody’s brand-new philosophy is really only an old one that has been tried and found wanting for centuries. Also, of course, it’s always much easier to get the hang of a thing if one knows what led up to it. (The jargon for that is “historical perspective” – an excellent thing if not overdone.)
I’m here in Town for a day or two. All next week I shall be at the Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth – unless anything unexpected happens.
Best love and good luck with the shoulder.
Your loving
Mother
1 On 16 March 1939 Hitler proclaimed from Prague the dissolution of the State of Czechoslovakia.
2 This was the second time he had broken a collar-bone. See letter to Ivy Shrimpton, 13 May 1927, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899–1936, p. 261.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO JOHN DICKSON CARR
3 April 1939
Dear Mr. Carr,
I enclose the Order of Initiation1 which I have adapted so as to make as few repetitions as may be. The promises upon the skull must, I think, be made by each candidate separately. If I am to be the Proposer, will you see that I have a copy with the full names of the candidates and their works clearly written out, as it is not easy to read hasty pencillings by the light of one candle.
With best wishes,
Yours ever,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
P.S. Forgive delay; I have been away at Bournemouth.
1 Of the Detection Club. This letter is evidence of D. L. S.’ authorship (at least as reviser) of the Order of Initiation. (See Brabazon, pp. 144–145.)
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO T. S. ELIOT
4 April 1939
Dear Mr. Eliot,
I have taken the liberty of quoting from The Family Reunion in an article for the Leader page of the Sunday Times1 on Easter Day; I hope you do not mind, and that you will feel you can approve of the way I have interpreted the very small part of the play’s meaning, which I have been able to get into this restricted space. Also I must apologise because in order to cram what I wanted to say into their confounded columns, I have been obliged to string the verse all together as though it were prose. I have done my best by inserting capital letters at the beginnings of lines (to the great confusion of the printer) and by using a semi-colon for a full stop in a place where the capital I was ambiguous. Please forgive me for taking these liberties.
May I take this opportunity to say what a magnificent play I think it; I took with me to the theatre a friend of very agnostic views, who was further prejudiced against the play by the fact that she did not care for Murder in the Cathedral; she was profoundly moved, and said it was the most exciting evening she had spent in the theatre for very many years.
I expect Michael Mac Owan2 has told you that I tried with some other friends to get a letter about the play into The Times, but we were crowded out by National Conscription. I hope business is picking up.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
T. S. Elio
t replied that he himself had no very high opinion of Murder in the Cathedral.
1 “The Food of the Full-Grown”, published in The Sunday Times, 9 April 1939. Re-titled “Strong Meat” and published as a pamphlet by Hodder and Stoughton, June 1939. Later included in Creed or Chaos?, Methuen, 1947.
2 Michael Macowan, producer at the Westminster Theatre, at which the play was later put on.
The White House
St Peter’s Lane
Canterbury
TO HAROLD ARNEIL
17 May 1939
Dear Harold,
I always said Love All1 would burst into song at the most agitated and inconvenient moment possible! I believe you and Dorothy Allen have done it on purpose!
Of course I would love you to do it, dear, and I know you are just the person to make a first-class job of it. The really tiresome thing is the date. As you know, I am settled down here for a month, looking after Devil to Pay, which is a hell of a big, complicated production; and even if I were to kill myself rushing backwards and forwards between Canterbury and Cambridge, I shouldn’t be able to give an awful lot of time and thought to Love All. Not that the production couldn’t get along perfectly well without me; but I wrote that play some time ago, and in a rather irresponsible mood, and I’m quite sure there are a thousand things I ought to alter and improve, which will only be discovered in rehearsal.
Of course, if you can get Cecil Parker2 to produce and cast, that would be the best possible arrangement, because I know he likes the play, and would get the right angle on it. It is such a light little trifle that everything depends on getting just the right touch in the acting and production.
I wired to you this morning to ask whether you could possibly get up to Town tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning to talk it over. I have an appointment at the War Office on Friday at eleven, and an R.D.S.3 Committee-meeting at two, after which I dash back to Canterbury for a rehearsal; but I could give you all Thursday afternoon or Friday lunch-time. We might possibly arrange that I could get over to Cambridge for, say, one rehearsal and conference and for the dress rehearsal and first night.
How are you getting on at Cambridge?4 I hope all is going well. I haven’t been able to get any news of you, as there has been no one at the flat, and Muriel hadn’t heard from you.
With all love,5
Yours affectionately,
[D. L. S.]
1 A light-hearted comedy written by D. L. S. during her second visit to Venice in August 1938; ed. Alzina Stone Dale, Kent State University Press, 1984.
2 Cecil Parker (1897–1971), actor, best known at the time for his interpretation of the role of Mark Antony.
3 Religious Drama Society, also known as RADIUS.
4 Harold Arneil was hoping to put on Love All at the Festival Theatre in Cambridge.
5 A nice play of words.
The White House
St. Peter’s Lane
Canterbury
TO MURIEL ST CLARE BYRNE
20 May 1939
My dear Muriel,
Thank you so much for your very encouraging and enthusiastic welcome to the Sonnet1 – it was frightfully good of you to bother to write. I rang you up yesterday morning, but there was no voice nor any that answered, so I concluded you were out of Town. (I was up for the night, calling at the War Office, etc.) I’m much relieved that you like the thing and think it nice and tough and dignified; one is always haunted by the fear that in paying a man a public tribute one may only succeed in making a public fool of him. Billy is going to be just as grand in Faustus as he was in William. That last act suits him down to the ground, as I knew it would. He’s marvellous, of course, [in] that queer, incoherent speech he has to make on waking – you remember –
Christ! Christ! Christ!
They have taken away my Lord these many years,
And I know not where they have laid Him. Sir, if you know,
Tell me, for I denied Him, and just now
I heard the crowing of the cock. How long
The night has been! And now the dawn is red,
And a great storm coming …2
And he’s charming, too, in the little love-scene with Lisa – about the swallows building and the “peace in those quiet streets, cool and deep beneath the leaning gables.”3 And Frank4 is a grand Mephisto, and I think is going to get the hardness and cruelty into the last act, which was the thing I was a little afraid about, with his highly sympathetic personality. Raf5 is at present wrestling with a fancy for all the kinds of symbolic gestures and what-not, which we feel destroy the immobile awfulness of God, and from which we are weaning him with what tenderness we can. He will be all right, though. He always starts off with a lot of fads which have to be quietly eliminated! Betty Douglas excellent as Lisa – a bit of inspired casting on Bill’s6 part – Alastair Bannerman7 coming on nicely in his “dog” act. (The bloody dog itself is going to be a difficulty; if you get a frenzied wire for Bunter,8 don’t be surprised. Barking is, of course, the thing one has to fear – but surely the dog could wear a light muzzle which would prevent that. Whimpering would be tiresome, too, but at any rate in character!)
We have at last got a Helen of Troy, one Mary Alexander, with a very beautiful voice and the right unearthly touch about her. We thought we were having Vera Lindsay, but she cried off after the try-out – not enough in the part for her, I imagine. I’m not sure this girl won’t be even better, though not so astonishing in appearance.
Our one agony now is that we have had to sack the local Emperor. A very nice man, and very keen – 25 years on the stage and runs a School of Drama, and we placed great reliance on him. Unhappily, he is, without any exception at all, the worst actor I have seen on any stage, in any part. Not only were all his gestures ridiculous and all his intonations false, but also he could never remember a line, nor repeat it correctly when it was given him, nor recognize a cue, nor come in on it! This, as you may guess, rather destroyed the zip and oompah of the siege of Rome! Another bloke is promised for Monday – if he’s no good, we must have another pro. The set is going to be good, I think, judging from Frank’s drawings; he starts building Hell-mouth with his own hands on Monday. (That’s the kind of company we are – all hands to the capstan-bars, and we should like to see “that gentleman that will not set hand to a rope”!)
Life was complicated on Wednesday by Dorothy Allen, who put it into Harold Arneil’s head that he might do Love, All at Cambridge. He promptly suggested doing it in May Week9 – June 5th of all dates! – five days before we open here. I dashed up to Town, and persuaded him to postpone it till July – out-of-term, but giving more time for production and allowing me to get there and do any necessary alterations and repairs. He is trying to get Cecil Parker to produce, and London actors for the three chief parts. It may or may not come to anything; I have rather made it a condition that he shall get Parker.
A further distraction is that Robert Atkins10 has asked me to join the committee of the Open-Air Theatre.11 I have said yes, because I thought it might be a useful thing to do. But I wish everything didn’t happen at once!…
With love and many thanks,
D.
1 Her sonnet to Harcourt Williams, “To the Interpreter”, published as a dedication in The Devil to Pay. See also Poetry of Dorothy L. Sayers, edited by Ralph E. Hone, who calls it “this magnificent sonnet, one of the best poems Sayers ever wrote” (ed. cit., p. 119).
2 Scene 4.
3 Scene 2.
4 Frank Napier.
5 Raf de la Torre, who played the Judge (God).
6 i.e. Harcourt Williams.
7 Alastair Bannerman played the part of Young Faustus. He married Betty Douglas, a niece of Miss A. M. Douglas, founder of the Godolphin School.
8 Muriel St Clare Byrne had a dog named Bunter.
9 The name given to a week of festivity at Cambridge University, previously in May but now in June.
10 Robert Atkins (1886–1972), actor and stage director. He acted in the co
mpanies of Tree, Benson and Forbes-Robertson before World War I. He was director of the Old Vic from 1921 to 1925 and of the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park from 1938 to 1960. He was made C.B.E. in 1949.
11 Productions were put on in Regent’s Park, London, near Queen Mary’s Rose Garden.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO FATHER HERBERT KELLY
2 July 1939
Dear Father Kelly,
I was so terribly sorry not to be able to come and see you after all at Nottingham; it was really a great disappointment, but as I think my secretary explained to you, I was suddenly thrown into a great turmoil of business over the arrangements to produce The Devil to Pay in London, and could only dash up to Nottingham, speak my speeches and hurry back by the next train. I hope very much that I shall, before long, be able to visit Kelham.
I am glad you found The Devil to Pay interesting, and could approve of it on main lines; its theology is, of course, not so straightforward as that of Zeal; in fact, it is, perhaps, a little obscure in places, and this, I think, has been an advantage to it with the Press, who always treat obscurity with respect. It has irritated the New English Weekly, who, having no good answer themselves to the problem of evil, very much dislike anybody else’s attempt to find one. The entertaining thing is, the number of people who think it would be so nice to be turned into a little innocent dog, and do not see that they are exactly the people against whom the play conveys a warning. Anyway, I hope we may do well with it in town, though I feel we should have more chance if it would please God to call Adolf Hitler to Himself; perhaps He does not want him!
With best wishes and with again very many regrets that I was not able to accept your invitation,
Yours very sincerely,