Tiger tyger

1. How can a tiger be ”burning bright”?
2. What does the phrase “fearful symmetry” describe?
3. Why does the writer refer to the “distant deeps or skies?”
4. What are the wings that the tiger aspires to?
5. Why does the poet refer to the “shoulder” of “art”? What does this have to do with a tiger?
6. The writer refers to hands and feet in the third stanza.  Whose hands and feet are they, and why are they in the poem?
7. What does the hammer and chain refer to?
8. Why would the stars “throw down their spheres?
9. Who or what is the Lamb?
10. Why does the writer end the poem by repeating the first stanza+

John Donne questions

The Good Morrow by John Donne

1. What did the speaker and his lover do, till they fell in love?
2. What is the ‘Seven Sleepers Den?’
3. What is ‘the dream’ that the writer describes?
4. Why are the ‘waking souls’ of the writer and their lover not fearful?
5. How does love control everything?
6. How can one little room seem like ‘an everywhere’?
7. The writer describes love as superior to seas and maps. How can it be?
8. Explain the link between the face and ‘plain hearts’.
9. Where can the writer find ‘two better hemispheres’ without traveling?
10. What is the advantage of love ‘mix’d equally.’?

THIS HAPPY BREED BY NOEL COWARD

THIS HAPPY BREED by Noel COWARD

The 1944 film has a more obvious propaganda purpose compared to Coward’s later films.  A portrait of a working class family in the London suburbs between 1919 and 1939, it begins and ends with the theme ‘London Pride,’ one of Coward’s favourite morale-boosters of World War Two.  It has occasional sententious moments, often involving Robert Newton, the paterfamilias, referring to the strength of the family and how it sustains itself, whatever happens to it.  And goodness; what a lot happens: marriages, births and deaths, one of the children absconding without telling the parents, the neighbour leaving for the British coast, plus the usual internal family squabbles that involve everyone.  Yet Newton has the time to make a comment about the British capacity for doing things in their own time, unpestered by others.  This might seem maddening, but the British do get things done, unlike members of other (unnamed) races.

Yet the film is not necessarily interesting on account of such statements.  It is a testament to the strength of one family to survive everything that is thrown at it, whether domestic or political, due to its inner strength.  None of its members are especially ambitious, except for daughter Queenie (Kay Walsh), whose social ambitions drive her out of the house without telling her parents.  Her mother Ethel (Celia Johnson) doesn’t want her name mentioned in the house any more, but the two are reconciled when Queenie returns to marry her childhood sweetheart Billy (John Mills), son of neighbour Bob (Stanley Holloway). The family remains the stable rock that doesn’t change, even while times do.

This might seem old-fashioned, were it not for the link between the family and Great Britain as a whole.  One sequence shows them crowded round the radio, as they listen to the announcement of the death of George V in 1935, and subsequently they all join the crowds in filing silently past the royal coffin.  This is why the country remains stable, despite the sufferings, food shortages, strikes and the like: it sticks together through thick and thin.  The link between family and country is reinforced at the film’s beginning, with lengthy pans of the London suburban landscape showing small houses toe to toe, with families in each of them going about their daily business.  There is a certain degree of historical truth in this: but THIS HAPPY BREED makes no mention of war damage, or the fact that many of these trim suburbs were destroyed by German bombs.

Maybe this was deliberate, as director David Lean consciously tries to recreate the atmosphere of prewar Britain for a 1944 release, to remind people that what existed prior to 1939 could easily be recovered, if the people were willing to work at it.  The stability of the family isn’t just due to houses and gardens, or ordered suburbs, but the people who inhabit them.  They have their occasional losses of temper, or moments of impetuosity, but they are fundamentally good-natured to one another and look our for one another in moments of crisis.

This is what gives the film its lasting charm.  The situations might be very different today, but the characters have a kind of innocence as well as an integrity that keeps them going.  Frank Gibbons’ (Robert Newton’s) determination to spend at least some time during the week cultivating his garden contrasts with Celia Johnson’s dedication to housework: not because they have to, but rather because they realise that’s what families do.   Work or leisure-time does not occupy the whole time.  Frank has to tell his son Reg (John Blythe) off, ending the talk with some sound advice.  Ethel (Johnson) has to offer motherly comfort to at least two of her daughters, as well as swallowing humble pie so as to readmit Queenie into the family.  And the family has to learn how to cope with the unexpected death of Reg and his wife Vi (Eileen Erskine), as well as complaining Granny Mrs. Flint (Amy Veness).

The actors handle these moments with such sensitivity that it’s hard not to start crying oneself.  This is what transhistoricity truly means: the ability to be able to communicate across time and space.

Still Live by Noel Coward

STILL LIFE BY NOEL COWARD, BBC 26 May 1991

• This is the original source from which Brief Encounter originated.  One of the Tonight at 8.30 series of playlets originally performed in the mid-1930s, it tells similar tale as the film yet gives more prominence to Albert, Mrs. Baggott, Beryl and Stanley. They are employees of the station who have their own marital plans in mind. Albert (Norman Rossington) is a northern cheeky chap pie with a yen for Mrs. Baggott (Joan Collins), who rules the cafeteria with a rod of iron, yet yearns for another man to sweep her off her feet, so she can marry for a third time.  She is the kind of independent woman who yearns to dominate a husband. EVentuslly she agrees when Albert presents her with an engagement ring, and promises tea “and afters” as a reward. 

Beryl (Diane Langton) and Stanley (Steve Nicholson) are the flirty types, who enjoy the pleasure of ten minutes together at the end of the day. Stanley is cheeky to Mrs Baggott, but in a very mild way.  it is clear that both are as interested in the romance of Mrs. Baggott as they are in their own affairs.

The third romance between Laura Jesson (Jane Asher) and Alec Harvey (John Alderton) is very clandestine - so clandestine that we don’t initially notice them talking in a corner of the room. Director Sydney Lotterby has done this deliberately to emphasise that the romance isn’t publicly subversive; no one would really notice from the outside that the couple are in love. The real nitty-gritty occurs in whispered comments, and eyes staring at one another, or Laura’s tendency to look away from Alec and down at her hands. When she goes outside to look at the express, and attempt suicide, no one takes any notice. It is only when she returns that Dolly Maitland (Moyra Fraser) observes her state of deshabille on her return that Dolly orders a restorative brandy.  But this is a temporary moment of solicitude; Dolly is soon prattling away, leaving Laura staring blankly at the ground.

in truth, there is almost too little detail here to understand the depth of Laura and Alec’s love-affair. They seem tremendously fond of one another, but there is something keeping them apart.  Maybe this is due to convention; in a society at the end of the war, an extra-marital affair was common, even though frowned upon in British society.  And as respectable members of middle-class society, neither Laura nor Alec can entertain the idea.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER on Radio

BRIEF ENCOUNTER ON RACIO

The story of BRIEF ENCOUNTER is so straightforward it cries out for radio adaptation.  Yet the effect on listeners can be very different from the stage version.  

This phenomenon is very evident in two versions from different historical periods - the Lux Radio Theater”s version from 1948, and the BBC World Service drama production from 1983.

The Lux Theater Version is presented in the formal associated with all American radio drama of the time; in three acts with commercial breaks as well as words from the sponsors.  Recorded live in front of an audience, with a live orchestra providing the background music, it is “event radio,” a prestigious form of drama broadcast in prime time every Sunday. The orchestra has its own score that forms a backdrop to many of the major speeches, reminding us of the prestigious nature of the production as well as setting the mood.

This version is narrated by Laura (pronounced “Lara” in this version), who is sitting in the chair at home by the fire with Fred opposite her. Fred completes the crossword puzzle, leaving Laura to reflect on the traumatic events of the previous few weeks.  Everything we hear has been filtered through her consciousness. Hence we understand far more the magnitude of what she has done (in her view, at least) and how it has changed her outlook for ever. As performed by Eileen Erskine, she comes across as an ordinary woman trying and failing to cope with extraordinary events, the kind of things she never thought would happen in a million years.  Some of them have been life-changing; others have led to indescribable humiliation.  The sequence where she escapes from the flat after Alec’s friend unexpectedly enters is particularly traumatic, with Erskine’s voice becoming particularly jerky as she recounts the event.  Alec (Van Heflin) is no real help, just telling her to “forget it” as unimportant, as her identity was not revealed.  This response demonstrates a breathtaking lack of sensitivity, as the man deprives the woman of her identity just to ensure her safety. 

From the tone of Erskine’s response, it’s clear that she would rather have had events brought out into the open: it might have adversely affected her public image, but she would have expressed her true identity in public.

This was one side of Erskine’s interpretation, the other focused on her desire to keep the family together, despite not having any passionate love for her husband. Fred was a good man, ever solicitous about his wife’s health, but completely insensitive to her feelings.  He perceived the whole incident as a tempest in a teacup, easily forgotten in the process of family life where Laura had her appointed duties of looking after the house and children.  Like Alec, he regularly protests that he loves her, but obviously doesn’t understand the complexity of her feelings.

This production spares us nothing in her description of her suffering. She talks about running the streets of the city after being discovered, knowing nothing about where she is going, but just wanting to be alone.  She ends.up sitting in the town square, the rain lightly plashing down, staring into space, not thinking about anything except her humiliation. She eventually goes home on the train with her friend Dolly Messiter, but cannot listen to a word.  The radio adaptation has Dolly prattling insensitively away in the background as Laura describes her feelings to listeners, making us painfully aware of just how insensitive other people are, even when they try to be kind. Perhaps the only way is to remain silent and to allow Laura to reflect for herself; and if she wants to talk, to listen rather than comment.

Squeezing all the emotions of BRIEF ENCOUNTER Into a forty-five minute adaptation is no easy task.  Maybe that’s one of the functions of the musical accompaniment that underpins much of the dialogue; to reduce the rawness of Laura’s plight and hence render it acceptable to mass audiences listening at 14.30 on a Sunday afternoon (or on one of the pdf recordings currently on the internet).  This is perhaps the most stark of all recordings of Coward’s play, with the two-malnutrition moment of Erskine’s silence on the train home suggesting that she might be considering suicide.

This episode might be part of a long-running anthology series, and probably very quickly rehearsed before broadcast, but the spontaneity of the performances give it the kind of edge to that even transcends the Lean movie.

The BBC version follows the movie script pretty closely, with little time given over for verbal flourishes or silences.  Cheryl Campbell is particularly concerned to mask her feelings to everyone - especially the listeners - so her performance is a little one-note.  But we should not fault the actor for this, but remind ourselves of Laura’s ordeal, and how every actress has to find a way of communicating it to audiences. If she chooses to mask her true emotions as best she can, we ought to admire her for it, rather than censure her.  

Ian Holm made rather a specialism of playing tortured souls, as he also played Crocker-Harris in THE BROWNING VERSION and Mr. Winslow in THE WINSLOW BOY, both for BBC’s Play of the Month series.  In the BRIEF ENCOUNTER for radio, he comes across as sympathetic yet imperceptible; the kind of man who loved his wife yet sees her as an unpaid servant with the responsibility of providing his dinner at the proper time, and keeping the house clean and tidy.  Without actually saying anything, the thoughts behind his ovoids are evident; Laura, you have abnegated your responsibilities as a wife and mother.  Please resume them as soon as possible.

The impossibility of love in BRIEF ENCOUNTER

This is the original David Lean film based on the Noel Coward text Still Lifw with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.  Johnson gives a quite remarkable performance as the suburban housewife plunged into a love-affair she never expected, and ending up born between feelings pleasure and intense guilt as a result.

The film is very much of its time, with soldiers coming into the station buffet and demanding whiskey, even though it is well past opening hours.  They amuse thermselves by insulting Mrs. Baggot (Joyce Carey) who looks after the bear.  Every emotion is kept under careful control: Mrs. Baggot affects an upper class accent, though it’s clear she is as common as nucjk.  Daisy, her waitress companion, has a playful love affair with the station porter, but both are careful to restrict their dalliancing to after hours.  Mrs. Baggot has a love-affair with station porter Stanley Holloway, but they are careful to restrict their activities to the occasional kiss or a smack on the bottom.  In the moral scheme of things, they are allowed the odd moment of outrageous behaviour, as they are from the working class.

Not so Laura and Alec.  They are firm members of the middle class, and are expected to remain respectable.  We only know the effect Alec has on Laura through the tiniest facial gestures that would be imperceptible were it not for Ronald Nedame’s camera focusing on close-ups of her face (from Alec’s point of view) during their conversations.

The morality is straightforward.  As a happily married women with.a devoted husband and two children, Laura has responsibilities, which she feels she neglects by falling in loved with Alec.  This might be perfectly justified, but it’s clear that Fred, Laura’s husband (Cyril Raymond) doesn’t’ understand her at all, and treats her as a domestic convenience to bring up the children and keep the home going, with an afternoon per week to go out shopping and visit the pictures.  He does not always understand that she is a passionate woman, dying for something or someone to lighten her life.  In this film, we know what Laura will do, but doubt whether this is the best decision for her.  When Alec departs for South Africa, the affair will of necessity come to an end, leaving her with memories of frustration and heartache.  Maybe it takes a homosexual to understand these feelings more closely than his heterosexual contemporaries.

The contrast between Laura and Mrs. Baggot is evident.  As a ‘mere’ bartender she is permitted the odd expression of love for true station porter, with perhaps the odd bit of slap and tickle.  By contrast Laura has to bottle up her feelings, or let them out on her own in the street as she goes to the station.  Coward stages at least two sequences where the lovers are interrupted: in one, Alec’s flatmate unexpectedly returns home.  Laura manages to get out unseen, but the flatmate confesses that he is unimpressed with Alec’s behaviour.  Maybe the two of them should have shared a joke.  In the second interruption, Laura and Alec’s final conversation is interrupted.by Laura’s friend Dolly, who shows spectacular insensitivity by talking incessantly and not noticing the lovers’ desire for her to go.  Dolly’s reaction sums up the general expectation: women such as Laura are not expected to have love-affairs, and hence their friends continue on their merry way as if nothing had happened.

The two lovers’ characters are finely distinguished.  Despite his protestations  of love for wife and family, Alec always wants more.  He keeps telling Laura how much he loves her, and initiates the idea of spending some time alone at his flatmates.  Maybe he is trying his luck a bit, especially since he does not appear to listen to Laura’s doubts.  Undoubtedly attractive - especially to Laura - he claims that he will never forget her, even in South Africa, but we wonder whether this is a cliche designed to placate her.  Laura, on the other hand, is far more cautious.  She never comes out direct with the phrase “I love you” and although communicating her true feelings in the voiceover that spans the entire narrative (which communicates what she would like to say to Fred, but cannot summon up the courage to do so), she remains taciturn to Alec, even while embracing him.  She accepts his advances, but makes little comment herself.

Seventy years on, we have to take the story as a period-piece, but still Johnson’s performance is astonishing, as she shares her agonies with us, and undergoes much the same emotions as we do if we happen to fall for someone not our wives.  It proves the oft-told dictum that times might change, but people’s reactions don’t.  This is s film about real people in real situations, situations that occur throughout time.

Patriarchalism in BLITLE SPIRIT (New York, 1947)

The US Steel-sponsored revival of BLITHE SPIRIT was first broadcast in 1947, and starred Clifton Webb and Mildred Natwick from the original Broadway production. To those familiar with the original play, there were some significant textual Alterations in this revival.  It began with Webb addressing the audience direct, ostensibly from the ship of a steamer taking him to New York.  He had escaped from both his wives, and was now going to tell the entire story.  Unlike the David Lean film from 1945, Charles survived at the end to life a wife-free existence, suggesting that the cause of women’s rights was far from the author’s mind.  Or maybe the male survivor was something that US producers considered more acceptable to audiences.

In fact, Charles had a relatively easy time in this revival.  He escaped being killed by Elvira, and avoided the indignity of a sprained arm due to falling down the stairs.  The maid Daisy - renamed for this production got concussion from falling down the stairs, but Charles listened to Ruth for once, and escaped punishment.  He lived to continue telling the tale.

The production had other changes.  Madame Arcati was not only a medium but worked with the Girl Guides, so as to make it seem as if she wasn’t wasting her time. She was also a basketball referee, a somewhat curious profession, given that basketball was probably seldom played by British Girl Guldes In the 1940s. Netball, yes: but not basketball.  This attempt to Americanise the text a little, so as to make Madame Arcati more normal didn’t appear to jar, even though it might have been slightly inaccurate.

The production made slight textual economies, which conjured up fascinating images.  Charles and Elvira’s lovers were reasssigned; now they were Dr. and Mrs. Bradman.  This gave the seance a sexual angle completely foreign to Coward’s text; in alternative circumstances the participants might have paired off and had some extra entertainment, so to speak.

But that might have been too much, especially following the scene between Charles and Elvira, which was full of heavy breathing and suppressed eroticism as Elvira seduced her late husband.  It was evident that he preferred Elvira to Ruth as he spent the night on the sofa having his head caressed by Elvira.  In fact, Charles didn’t emerge from this production with too much credit, as he ended up intellectually unscathed, sailing to New York to begin a new life which would probably be as complicated as his old life.  

This evident conservatism might have been imposed by the sponsors, fearful of a too radical content. Or perhaps the Theatre Guild built the production around Clifton Webb’s rather sexless screen and stage persona.  He appreciated flirting but nothing more; especially from women.  He was someone pursuing his own life on his own terms, and his wives would have to agree to it, or else leave. This created another contradiction; at one point Ruth observed how Charles was easily manipulated by women,and that his assertions of authority were purely bogus.  But that was not the impression cast by Webb’s characterisation, which put him in position of authority. Perhaps this strategy was deliberate, to show that Charles, Ruth and Elvira had different views of Charles’s character, that significantly influenced their behaviour.  the arguments between them were aggressively handled in this production, with few soft voices and lots of aggression.

Recorded in front of a live audience, this production generated a fair proportion of laughs, thereby vindicating its popularity.  Perhaps it was of its time, in its reassertion of male authority at thread, but it revealed how the text could be slightly rearranged at no cost to its overall effect. In a sense it is actor- and director-proof.

Blithe Spirit and Gender Relations

Broadcast in NBC’s  BEST PLAYS on 31 August 1952, this is a pared down (1 hour) version produced in an anthology series curated by theatre critic John Chapman.  the cast included John Loder, sometime film actor and socialite, Mildred Nateick, who played Madame Arcadia on Broadway, plus Halil Stoddard and Anna Barr.  The production was directed by Edward King, with a live studio orchestra.

There are a couple of quirks, especially for a British audience.  Charles Condomine’s surname is pronounced “condomine,” with the last syllable rhyming with the English word “mine”. And on at least two occasions Madame Arcati’s name comes out as “Archaty”.  I am not censoring anyone, but it does prove slightly disturbing when you’ve grown up with a play using certain pronunciations.

Often dismissed as just a farce, a piece of whimsy designed to take audience’s minds off the rigours of the War when it premiered in 1941, and since then venerated as providing a delicious role for an elderly actor such as Margaret Rutherford, Peggy Mount, or Hermione Baddeley.  Yet the play has more to say about marriage and how it affects different people.  This is what King’s production explored.  Initially it seems that Charles (Loder) dominates the proceedings, as he invites Madame Arcati for the purpose of researching his latest thriller. She bridles at the suggestion that she can “pass on a few tips” rather than undertake a serious job of work.

As the drama unfolds, so Charles los3s control over the proceedings.  Once Elvira materialises, the dialogue becomes extremely erotic, with Charles and Elvira exchanging sexual innuendo without actually saying anything remotely obscene, while Ruth, unable to see Elvira, remains on the outside, an increasingly irate presence.  Whether the eroticism has been initiated by Elvira is not defined, but it’s clear that neither Charles nor Elvira has control over what they say.  The eroticism just emerges.

This aspect of the production illuminates a fascinating contradiction. Charles organises the evening for s specific purpose, and throughout he and the Bradmans remain eminently reasonable.  On Elvira’s entrance, however, we begin to doubt whether anything that happens is reasonable or not; and does it matter, anyway? Why shouldn’t people occasionally give in to erotic impulses, even if they have no idea where they will end up? In BLITHD SPIRIT everything remains verbally quite polite, but this production suggests that things might be happening in adjoining rooms that we are denied any knowledge of.

The satire of marriage increases as the play unfolds, with Charles and Elvira confessing their various dalliances in the past, even while protesting their faithfulness at the same time. We might speculate about the nature of such affairs, but there’s no need to; the fact that Charles and Elvira willingly discuss their affairs with each other suggests a love of bickering, not serious infidelity.

The ending is deliciously handled.  Charles’ sense of self-confidence increases as the two women are spirited away, and he resolved to leave the cottage.  However the rumbles and the smashing of China accompanying his final speech suggests that they haven’t gone away at all.  They may no longer be corporeality visible, but their presence is still very much around.

Interestingly, this production omits the final final moments, when Charles gets into his car and drives off, only to come to a sticky end on the nearby bridge. The 1945 film has him joining his wives in eternity as his car crashes.  This American production leaves him alive while the two women are dead. Perhaps King wanted to restore the sexual status quo to placate his listeners, but this strategy fails to convince.  The fact that he is plagued with his ex-wives’ presence suggests that any pretence towards authority is purely illusory.

The Winslow Boy and the #metoo Movement

The Winslow Boy might appear to be one of the most historically specific of Rattigan’s plays. Set just before the outbreak of the First World War, it focuses on the individual’s right to challenge government institutions and persuade them to change their policies, even if the decision has to be ultimately made in the House of Commons.

As is common, however, there is more to Rattigan than meets the eye.  David Giles’s 1977version for the BBC’s PLAY OF THE MONTH strand reminded us of a time when the television companies produced material focusing on the actors, not on extraneous aspects of the mise en scene, to produce genuinely thought-provoking work.  initially this production seemed quite straightforward: with Alan Badel playing the advocate Sir Robert Morton, it seemed as if he might dominate the action with a performance combining authority with a genuine enthusiasm for right to prevail.  but this turned out not to be true: the star of this production was.Michele Dotrice as Kate Winslow, the daughter who passes up a socially advantageous marriage to fight for her brother’s innocence.  Her face remained largely expressionless, but her determination could be seen in the way she tensed her muscles whenever a big decision had to be made, and her refusal to change a decision once it had been made.  

The magnitude of what Kate did must not be underestimated.  The entire first half of the play centres on her engagement to military man John Watherstone (David Robb), with all the rituals of John obtaining permission from Kate’s father (Eric Porter), followed by the ritualistic celebrations with a glass of Sherry. But Kate refuses this life of prosperity in favour of principle: her brother is innocent, and she must fight for it.  John tries to persuade her to give it up, so as to secure his father’s money, but he does not understand the depth of her feelings. It’s not just family loyalty, it’s about retaining the individual right to challenge bureaucracies. Kate supports the nascent feminist movement, and will continue working with it, in spite of the minimal financial rewards.

Director Giles directs out attention to Kate in the play’s two major exchanges: the first with John, when she turns him down despite his offer of a secure life: and in the final exchange with Sir Robert Morton, where she admits to understanding his ambition as well as his quirks of character while in legal practice.  In a world that routinely believed that men are the workers and women are there to serve men, Kate’s refusal to be cowed stands out.  Her father, a crippled man who nearly bankrupts the family to win the case, relies upon her - as he admits in an exchange towards the end, as the two o the reflects on what they have achieved.

The production might be forty years old, but it has much to tell us, especially at a time when women are fighting the patriarchy and expressing their refusal to be cowed by male power.  Kate would be a valuable member of the #metoo movement in her convictions as well as in her willingness to fight battles on behalf of her sex as well as her family..  This production proves how Rattigan’s dramas are about more than they appear to be, and how their themes transcend the specifiicities of their situations.

The Deep Blue Sea on Television 1994

This 1994 production of the Rattigan classic stars Penelope Wilton, who had recently played the role onstage, and Colin Firth in a pre-big British film star role.  Seeng this immediately after the 1955 classic, I was struck by the difference in performances of the two leading roles. In 1955 Leigh was the put-upon lover enjoying the good things in life but opting rather daringly to ditch her comfortable life and her lover and pursue an independent existence instead. It was a brave move for such an emotional woman, but one she had to take. By contrast Wilton knew her own mind exactly and what she wanted from life.Freddie was a nice boy -and presumably good in bed - but he was out her league emotionally. She entertained the idea of accompanying him to South America, but rejected it on the grounds of practicality.  Freddie was interpreted as a callow youth way out of his depth; he could cope with the superficialities of male tap-room chat, but had no way of dealing with Hester.

This was a much harder production of THE DEEP BLUE SEA, concentrating on Hester’s life- choices. The suicide at the beginning was read as a cry for help: Hester did not want to die, but needed a shoulder to cry on. This was provided by the doctor, whose recall of his war experiences put Hester’s struggles into perspective. In the first part of the production she looked for succour from a host of males, including her husband.  But things changed as time developed, as she acquired a hard edge to her dialogue.  This was a woman acknowledging she had been through life’s knocks, and wasn’t going to accept anything she didn’t want. She despatched Freddy, kitbag and all, and firmly informed her husband (who remained remarkably deficient in self-awareness or an understanding of his wife’s feelings.  Those viewers who want to know will be interested to know that the Judge was played by Ian Holm, who also played the tormented schoolteacher in THE BROWNING VERSION. Now he was playing a role of an authority-figure unable to understand his wife’s suffering. 

The design was very much mid50s dowdy,reflecting the world of genteel poverty into which Hester had sunk.  But the performances were defiantly up to date, reflecting an uncaring early 1980s world where the bourgeois are purely concerned with respectability, and the feckless middle class care only for sexual gratification. The only solution is to strike out on one’s own

The Deep Blue sea by Terence Rattigan

THE DEEP BLUE SEA Isa straightforward tale about a middle aged women, separated from her judge husband, who alls in love with Freddy, a much younger and feckless pilot.  The story begins with Hester (the woman) trying to kill herself but doing it deliberately badl, so as to be successfully discovered.  The Ensuing action shows her finally splitting up with Freddy, but learning to step out on her own.

The play has echoes of THR BROWNIING VERSION in its depiction of a relationship soured over time, but deals with it in far bolder fashion.  in AnatoleLitvak’s 156 film she is played by Vivien Leigh, who experienced similar emotions when she fell in love with Australian actor Peter Finch while still marred to Laurence Olivier. She is completely head over heels in love, but realises that is not enough at the end of the play. Freddie is a good sort, but much happier in male Company where he cN play the part of a slightly perplexed duffer.  He is no good at handling Hester’s emotions.

• Hester is almost broken in pieces at the beginning, but recovers with the help of .  Kindly doctor Felix Aylmer.  Hester’s condition is not as bad as she claims: we observe her love of an audience to perform in front of. There is something about Leigh’s performance that remains strangely unattractive, as if she is continually in search of an audience because she lacks the courage of her convictions.

• Or maybe the desire to perform stems from the environment.  Litvak has opened up the play a bit, and set it in the seedier parts of Chelsea. Her room has the atmosphere of gentle seediness, with cheap furniture adorning her pearls.  Presided over by a nosey yet kindly landlady (Dandy Nichols), the room anticipates ROOM AT THE TOP, the kind of place that’s more suitable for rebellion than faded gentility .  Hester has obviously fallen upon hard times, but does not want to admit it, especially to strangers, especially men. Hence her need to perform, even while ostensibly ending her life.

• Freddy Page is played by Kenneth More. He is a feckless soul, preferring to drown his sorrows in alcohol rather than face up to responsibilities. His decision to leave Hester and work in South America is entirely provoked by the desire to escape from a world he can’t handle. He likes the sex, but cannot take the other responsibilities. In the end we understand his departure is a good thing for Hester, despite her desire to kill herself once more.
• In the end Hester, albeit snuffling profusely, comes to an understanding of herself and what she wants. Her husband offers her a life of affluence and no responsibility; she can flit about at home, go to parties, and enjoy the social advantages of going to parties. Or she can stay in her seedy bedsit and carve out a new life on her own, in spite of the potential hazards involved. Litvak emphasises the difficulties of the decision. The Judge is played by Emlyn Williams, a safe, reassuring presence with bags of money and status. Yet for this Hester this way of life is sexless, and hence devoid of fun. She might be middle_aged, but that does not preclude her from a promiscuous life if she should desire it.  She does not want the conventional life of a mid_50s woman, but seeks to flout convention and branch out on her own.
• For modern women, the choice can be roughly similar.  Either consign yourself to an assigned role or branch out on your own.  You might not be as beautiful as Vivien Leigh, but you still have that spirit of discovery that can encourage you to do anything.
• Litvak’s decision to open out the piece in central London makes it more of a period-piece: the emphasis here focuses on women of the mid-50s experiencing the same crises that the Angry Young Men experienced a couple of years later.  But Rattigan’s statements about the position of women and how men treat them are still very applicable today, especially at a time of the Female First movement, when so many women are making public statements about their treatment in public.

SEPARATE TABLES - THE MOVIE (1958)

SEPARATE TABLES. - THE MGM VERSION

Released as long ago as 1958, SEPARATE TABLES was one of Burt Lancaster’s respectable efforts.  With the help of his earnings from major studios, he set up a production company with producer Harold Hecht, dedicated to producing mood- or lower-budget material containing a raft of stars.

SEPARATE TABLES is a good example.  It has already been produced with notable success in the West End of London and on Broadway, and for the film version Lancaster hired four stars to dream of - himself and Rita Hayworth for the companion-piece and Dav;d Niven and Deborah Kerr for TABLE NUMBER SEVEN.  The supporting cast for both plsys in their film lncluded Gladys Cooper , Felix Aylmer and Claire Bloom.  Two of the major stars were American, the other two were US-based.  The support cast comprised a mixture of British imports and British expats in the US.

Filming was done in Hollywood on a nondescript setting that had all Tighe jewselry and Knick-knacks characteristic;c of a British hotel, but had the space of its American counterpart.  This gave Delbert Mann the chance to integrate the action of the two playas, while giving each a separate room to continue their discussions in.

The most noteworthy aspect of the production is that Niven and Kerr are cast against type in their roles.  As the Major, Niven cultivates a pleasant, affable personality, wishing all the guests good day while telling anyone who would listen about his public school and army officer career. The only trouble is that ever piece of information is false: the Major is not a major at all, but a corporal who worked in the NAAFI close to home rather than fighting out in North Africa as he claims.    The bonhomie that we normally associate with Niven’s characters in movies is false: in truth (as he admits to Sibyl) he has no confidence in himself at all.

Sibylle has similar problems: continually dominated by her mother (Gladys Cooper) she sits meekly in the corner while her mother pontificates as her mother pronounced on everything and expects nothing but agreement from Sibyl.  As someone recovering from a nervous breakdown, Sibyl lacks any power of resistance.  In one argumentative sequence she rushes out of the living-room to lie down on her own.  Kerr plays Sibyl as a girl of minimal speech, who keeps looking down at her hands.  Sometimes she plays with a handkerchief, but doesn’t want anyone to see what she is doing.

At last she and the major contrive to find some time away from the rest of the group, and we learn the real reason for the major’s eccentric behaviour.  It turns out he has an unsuppressed desire to interfere with young women in the cinema, and has been taken to court and fined as a result.  Mindful of the effect such news would have on his reputation, the Major cultivates an aggressively masculine mode of conversation, while doing his best to ensure that Mrs. Ailton-Bell, Sibyl’s mother, doesn’t get to read it.  Yet all this subterfuge turns to nothing: the residents find out about the Major’s calumny and ostracise him.  His scene alone with Sibyl is perhaps the last chance he will have to tell the truth about himself.

Niven was never an emotional actor: on the contrary he played characters with stiff upper lips who tried their best to conceal their feelings from others.  Faced with an entirely opposite role here, he copes brilliantly with the situation, starting off with a smile, as usual, but ending up in tears in public, perhaps for the first time.  He knows what’s wrong, but admits to such shyness that he cannot think of treating women compassionately.  He likes women, but cannot get along with them.  For the first time in the drama Niven appears disheveled, his immaculately pressed jacket awry, his tie hanging down limply - just like the lower middle-class person he actually is.

We know Niven has done wrong, but at the same time realize just how much mental pain he has undergone as a result of his mental infirmity.  He is to be listened to, and helped out of his condition rather than rejected.  But Sibyl seems entirely the wrong person to listen to his complaints - sat mousily in the most anonymous looking chair, she doesn’t even look at him, almost as if the material were too X-rated for her innocent ears.  But Lancaster - as director - proves us wrong: as Niven continues, Sibyl understands the Major’s need for emotional support, even if it is only in the form of a sympathetic voice.  The two look one another in the eye for a few moments in a significant gesture: it’s the first time in the entire film they have connected in this way.  We listen to them talking: the majority of the conversation is unimportant, but the fact they are exchanging views is highly significant.

Yet the Major still believes that he has to leave the hotel for good, despite the owner’s (Claire Bloom’s) blandishments.  We observing him walking on his own slowly up the stairs to his miserable room, packing his few belongings into his suitcase and taking it downstairs.  He enters the breakfast-room alone, with the other guests sitting in silence, munching their way through tea, toast, eggs and bacon.  The waitress, in a tone of enforced jollity, orders the Major’s breakfast and leaves.

There is a further pause — and then one by one the guests take it in turns to speak to the Major.  The subjects are banal - the local racing tips, Sussex doing well at cricket, the possibility of going for a walk in the afternoon — but the context means everything, showing that they are prepared to forgive the Major snd let him stay, if he should so wish.  Incensed, Mrs. RAilton-Brown gets up from the table and prepares to leave the room, ordering Sibyl to go with her immediately.   But Sibyl refuses, preferring to finish her breakfast instead. Her first active decision to rebel is a significant one, proving that she has no particular dislike of the Major, despite his past.  The owner comes in at al electric moment, with everyone fearing what will happen next.  She defuses the situation by going directly up to the Major and speaking to him, much to Mrs. Railton-Bell’s displeasure.   All Mrs Railton-Bell can do is got storm out and go to her room, alone and defeated.

The room returns to its tranquil calm, with the Major continuing to eat and his fellow-guests continuing not to talk much to one another, but obviously happy in one another’s company, especially now Mrs. Railton-Bell has disappeared. 

Nothing much happens in TABLE NUMBER SEVEN, except for the two male protagonists disclosing their various pasts.  But that’s the basic point: no one can escape their pasts, and the way to deal with them is to confront them, however unsavoury they might be.  By doing so the Major learns the virtues of truth rather than simply trying to cover things up: it may not be much, but he has shown great character in telling Sibyl everything.  Like Niven himself, he has shown tremendous the bravery in doing something he had not done before to the best of his ability, and discovered that no one really worries about it.  On the contrary they admire him for his pluck.

The play has to do with emotional discovery, while suggesting that it’s not just the Major and Sibyl suffering from emotional inadequacies, but most of the residents as well.  It’s just how you deal with them, that’s all.

THE BROWNING VERSION (BBC PLAY OF THE MONTH 1985)

Available now on BBC Video, this version was first broadcast in a series that brought the world’s best theatrical material to the screen each month, in studio-bound productions with the focus on characterisation and theme.  Rattigan was a popular choice for production, chiefly because his plays were quite recent (in the pantheon oi great drama, that is), and because his style of writing worked extremely well for their intimidate television camera and the use of videotape, which was the standard form of BBC shooting for the mid-80s.

Starring Judi Dench and Ian Holm, as the Crocker-Harris’s, the episode focused on the contrasts in behaviour of the two in a society dedicated to politeness and respectability.  Truth came at a terrible premium, and was often consciously avoided by staff members wanting to protect their pensions.  This is a theme that extends beyond the play’s limited social milieu of a minor boys’ public school in the late 40s, a time when much of Britain still looked back to pre-war attitudes, despite the radical social changes taking place in the Forties.  This is what the production stresses in its decor, a melange of dusty books, previous year’s exam papers, and reports.  The cramped staff conditions allow perhaps twenty per cent of its members to sit, while the rest have to stand.  Crocker-Harris’s (Holm’s) study is a dusty room where the windows are either blocked or so caked with dust that no new light enters inside.  The room is dominated by an ancient desk piled high with papers and an armchair where Crocker-Harris occasionally uses for moments of reflection. The whole scene looks tired, listless and in the need of a good lick of paint.

Yet it will never receive anything so radical, not while the current Headmaster (John Woodvine) is in post.  A superficial man whose main aim seems to be to cultivate an atmosphere of enforced efficiency, especially on public occasions such as Speech Day, he loathes Crocker-Harris for his listlessness and wants him out as soon as possible, even if it means denying him a pension.  Of course, the Head never says anything directly for fear of destroying the atmosphere of false bonhomie, especially on speech days.  Rather he has a way of dressing up bad news as not his responsibility, as if he is conveying it on others’ behalf while he remains impartial.

Crocker-Harris has peopled this environment for the past two decades.  As portrayed by Holm, he cultivates an outlook of extreme reserve, not revealing anything of himself to anyone.  This is the result of a career spent in an environment where survival depends on such traits, even if Crocker-Harris has been emotionally destroyed as a result.  The production makes much of his abilities when he came to the schnozzola - a brilliant classical scholar with a glittering future academically.  But the environment destroys him: he loses that hunger that drives good academics onwards and soon realises he is not cut out for teaching.  Crocker-Harris talks bitterly about his feelings in a conversation with Frank Hunter (Michael Kitchen), a younger colleagues who strenuously tries to befriend Crocker-Harris yet finds advances perpetually rebuffed.

The basic scenario suggests how in s school environment adaptation can soon become impossible, especially for someone whose personal convictions evaporated years ago.  It’s not that Holm’z Crocker-Harris is a bad teacher, or a bad person; but his mind has become so fouled up with inertia that he can neither relate to other people not modify his teaching style.  His is the fate of anyone not believing how self-development occurs because individuals want it to, and with the help of others around them.  Rather he remains suspicious of everyone (whom he believes either ignores him completely or laughs at him behind a facade of respectability).  The only protection is for Crocker-Harris to look and say nothing, even if that strategy alienates Holm further from his colleagues and learners.

Yet Crocker-Harris’s problems are exacerbated by a marriage to Dench’s Millie. She is a complex character, at once pitiable yet thoroughly deserving of what happens to her.  Superficially she maintains a respectable public image as a dutiful schoolmaster’s wife, attending all the right parties and agreeing with everything the Head says.  Yet behind that lies a deeply disappointed women, who has had extramarital love-affairs yet cannot experience any satisfaction from them.  Once Hunter learns how horrible she has been to her husband, he refuses to have anything to do with her.

The climactic moment between husband and wife occurs when Millie discovers that the boy Taplow has bought a going-away present for Crocker-Harris.  Beneath a look of pure hatred, she informs her husband that this has nothing to.do with the learner being fond of his teacher, but a strategy designed to cull favour from the teacher and ensure that the student gets his graces.  According to the logic of this production, this is the moment we understand how a lack of adaptation turns individuals into cruel beasts, offering explanations far from the truth but designed to humiliate their loved ones.  No one can really stoop lower.

Yet Rattigan has not finished yet.  Holm’s Crocker-Harris half-believes what his wife says, but for the first time in years he hits back.  Vowing never to put his wife through emotional hell any more, he spurns her company in the forthcoming vacation and resolves never to visit her parents in Bradford any more.  He does not know what he will do instead: maybe he will visit Frank Hunter instead —- alone.  Holm’s expression does not change, but we understand how he has adapted himself to find an alternative mode of existence.

The production ends on a note of cautious optimism.  He rings the Head and insists on his inalienable right to end the sequence of speeches, not to accept the Head’s demand that Crocker-Harris goes next-to-last.  This may sound unimportant, but Holm’s Crocket-Harris has for the first time willingly defied orders and asserted his own view instead.  As he moves away from the phone, he sighs a little then picks up the book Taplow bought him - a symbol of independence,  as well as a reminder that, contrary to what he had assumed, some learners did appreciate his way of teaching.

The production is very much a period-piece, the product of an era when Britain was dominated by pre-war attitudes.  But that context is only used to reinforce Rattigan’s concern that people should learn to adapt through life so as to remain happy, and listen to others.  No one is as badly disposed as Millie Crocker-Harris, even though in a world dedicated to surfaces they might be reluctant to share their emotions.

Rattigan and Human Adaptation: The Browning Version

Terence Rattigan”s career reached it peak in the Forties and Fifties, when he had an apparently endless string of hits including THE WINSLOW BOY, THE BROWNING VERSION and WHO IS SYLVIA?  Then, so theatrical mythology informs us, he dropped out  of the theatrical firmament in favour of the so-0called “Angry Young Men” spearheaded by Jimmy Porter and Arthur Seaton (of SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING inflame).

The only snag with that story is that it is hogwash. Rattigan was very much in vogue throughout the Fifties and has remained so ever since. His subjects might seem a little archaic to us, but his characterisations remain as fresh and exciting as they were seventy years ago. Rattigan has the gift of insight into a particular type of character who still dominates the professions, as well as understanding the effect he exerts on people of all classes and ages. In this piece, I want to explore this character in detail, drawing on some personal experiences as well as examples from Rattigan’s work.

I was educated at an English public school.  Apart from a good basic education, the element I remember most is the proliferation of single men, or unhappily married men that dominated the staff.  They were not precisely unhappy, but they certainly were not happy in themselves.  One was much more adept with an astronomical telescope than he was at teaching geography, while another had a longing to do drama rather than teach plays for exams.  Even as a teenager, I got the sense that these men had been forced by circumstances to teach, even though they did not like the vocation that much.  Don’t get me wrong; they were fond of the boys but could not abide the subjects they were teaching.  There were some who could be described as “perverted” with unnatural feelings towards young boys, but they were well known and avoided.  No: the more intriguing were the heterosexual men with no aptitude for their chosen profession, other than getting boys through the exams.

Arthur Crocker-Harris is a similar kind of personality (in THE BROWNING YERSION). A brilliant classical scholar in his youth, he began his career full of aspirations to write as well as produce exciting versions of AGAMEMNON. But the dreams came to nothing, and he has passed the time teaching the syllabus while never being able to connect with his students or his fellow-staff members.

His basic shortcoming is an inability to understand that teaching is a complex art that involves person skills: the ability to listen to as well as respond to others.  This is a problem shared by many Dulwich staff of the past , when I was there especially.  The causes are institutional as well as personal.  Schools are so obsessed with exams that they often neglect the social aspects of education: the ability to stimulate learners in whatever direction they choose.  This is partly due to ignorance, partly fear: give a learner too much freedom and they will challenge your authority.

So Crocker-Harris digs his own grave for himself.  Neither able to change his style nor practice inter relating better with the students, he stays where he is. When we encounter him, he is on his last day at the school, reflecting bitterly on a wasted life. In 1948, when the play premiered, this was a.hot topic, as many people felt that the spirit of newness prevailing since the end of World War 2 had passed them by.  There might be a Welfare State and a new National Health Service, but such legislation had little or no effect.  These men were part of an older generation for whom life had passed them by. They just struggled on doing the same thing year after year and hopefully with a minimal pension to look forward to at the end of one’s life.  Cricket-Harris doesn’t even have this consolation: forced by illness to retire early, the school governors have decided not to award him a pension, despite years seesseof devoted service.

For the bulk of the play, we are asked to sympathise with Crocker-Harris, with the knowledge that personal inadequacy dug the grave he finds himself in. He could have made more effort, we think.  When I was at school, I used to think this about frustrated teachers: why didn’t they have sufficient gumption to change their lives?

But here’s the rub.  I have always advocated human adaptation as a mode of self-improvement.  Understand that there are myriads of opportunity, personal as well as professional, just waiting to be grasped, provided you look hard enough.  But what happens to those who can’t this because of themselves, their circumstances, or the people surrounding them? This is where Rattigan cuts to the chase, and why he is so significant fir adaptation studies.  Crocker-Harris is imprisoned in a sink-hole job, with a loveless marriage and a unsympathetic headmaster who’d rather placate the governors and engage a new, younger teacher who will automatically attract popularity.  Crocker-Harris has nowhere to go except to teach English at a Cramer for eight months of the year.  The moment of truth arrives two thirds of the play, when Taplow, the boy finishing off his Greek course with some private study sessions, buys Crocket-Harris a small leaving-present of Broiwning’s translation of the AGAMEMNON.  Crocker-Harris realises that, contrary to what he assumed, the students respected him.  His classes might not have been that entertaining, but they were not as bad as Crocker-Harris had assumed. In a sequence of unendurable poignancy, he begins to cry, even in front of Taplow.  For the first time he has allowed his emotions to flow - a definite bad mark as far as the school ethos is concerned, but a positive development fir Crocker-Harris.

Rattigan here emphasises the importance of emotion, of being true to oneself as well as others, irrespective of the situation.  It’s a lesson as true today as it was in 1948 when the play was written.  If you acknowledge to yourself the presence of powerfulr emotions within you, you are on the road to successful adaptation.  It is just that people find it difficult to admit this, whatever the context.  Just think if Barry Evans, one of my schoolteachers, had felt he could talk more about his passion for astronomy, or to admit his homosexuality, or even admit his professional frustrations to his students.  I had the same dilemmas when I talk about having cancer, but have discovered that students learn more about me, and I learn more about them, if I do.

And that\s the major lesson of THE BROWNING VERSION.  It’s not about much in terms of content, but describes Crocker-Harris”s mental discovery that he has a heart and soul just like everyone.  It’s just a matter of finding it, that’s all.  The play ends with a pyrrhic victory, as Crocker-Harris calls the headmaster and insists that he will claim his right to speak last at Parents’ Day, even though the headmaster wanted a younger and more popular teacher who is leaving to fulfil that role.  Crocker-Harris has had enough of being pushed around; it’s tome to assert himself, even though no one has seen this personality before.

The play has resonance for me, because it not only describes a culture I know well, but because it deals with emotions of the heart. It forces viewers to reflect on themselves, and consider whether they should made similar processes of mental adjustment  Most significantly, it confirms how adaptation as a vitally trans historical power, influencing all our lives.