Aunt Edwina

SIR.—In his whole approach to the subject of myself and my play, Aunt Edwina, your Dramatic Critic succeeds, unwittingly no doubt.

in pinpointing the shortcomings of the more opinionated forms of present-day dramatic criti- cism. While ignoring his references to my manner and my dress, as befits such irrelevancies. may I comment briefly on some of his more general dicta?

1. 'The justification of a critic's existence,' he writes, 'is exactly the same as the justification of a play- wright's—that both are being paid to do the job they want to do.'

What cynicism! Money may well be the justifi- cation of a critic's existence (or, at any rate, your critic's, since he says so), but the justification of a playwright's existence, and indeed any artist's, is the fulfilment of the creative urge.

2. 'If one [a playwright] produces a play which no- body goes to see, or the other [a critic] writes a column which nobody reads, then the alternative is to go on the dole or enter thr. House of Lords, or apply for the other man's job.'

What defeatism! And what lack of dedication! Playwrights are made of sterner stuff. When we

produce a play which nobody goes to see—and we-do sometimes (but not this time)--we sit down -and write another one. We do not abdicate.

3. do not believe that fourteen men have con- demned Aunt Edwina to death.'

Oh yes, they did indeetl. And they very nearly succeeded in having her e,ecuted without appeal,

since because of their a(tverse reviews she was taken off, after only six performances. and only put on again as a resus.t of favourable audience reaction.

4. 'No critics are as powerful as that.' • Certainly they are--witness America. High costs of production there (and increasingly here) render it uneconomical to run most plays after adverse criticism in order to assess public reaction. This is a tragedy in itself, but the greater tragedy is that your critic's statement tends to confirm the view that the critics in general are unaware of their new power and consequent increase of responsi- bility: 5. 'But anyway [fourteen men] would he two more than were needed to condemn Podola.'

This parallel is as unpleasant as it is illogical. Trial by jury compares very favourably with trial

by critic. There are checks on trial by jury— defence lawyers, a judge to sum up. appeal courts, the House of Lords, to name but a few. Whereas, in these days of high costs, there are no checks on trial by critic except the check which I have applied in the case of Aunt Edwina—that is to say, the test of audience reaction, which has saved her life.

And now for his more detailed comments on the play.

6. 'This is an upper-class farce.'

His reason for saying this? No doubt because it -is based on a hunting family, and intellectual urbanites (though not, thank goodness, sensible sub-urbanites) imagine quite wrongly that all those who hunt are upper-class. But, even if they were. why should a play about the so-called upper class he an upper-class play? Does your critic label Hander and Henry V and Richard II (about royalty), Macbeth (about thanes), Julius Caesar (about emperors) and Journey's End (about officers) as upper-class plays? And how would Sheridan and Wilde and Shaw have fared before the onslaught of his pen?,And was Now Barabbas a lower-class play merely because it was about convicts? What nonsense! Why, in these en- lightened days, should art and artists, by their very nature free from artificial social barriers, become the victims of inverted social snobbery?

7. 'Mr. Douglas Home seems to have no idea of the real, sexual. emotional. physical, social and finan- cial complications which his colonel would suffer.

Haven't I? One might just as well say that Miss Agatha Christie seems to have no idea of the real complicatidns of being murdered when she writes her highly, successful and skilful farcical thrillers on that theme. Do even the basic elemen- tary rules of dramatic writing elude your critic? Cannot he realise that, in a farcical comedy. all those real complications that he, in his serious- ness, so earnestly desires must be deliberately omitted in the interests of artistic integrity?

8. 'Colonel Ryan is a woman and we want to know how she feels.'

Listen to this vulture for sexual culture! And who is 'we'? Himself, of course, and some of his intellectual (as opposed to intelligent) col- leagues, but not the audience. Knowledgeable lovers of the theatre never want to know, in a farcical comedy, how anybody feels. Nor will any playwright who knows his job attempt to let them know. All they want to know, and all the playwright is obliged to let them know, is how people react. And feeling and reaction are two very different things, both worthy of study by your critic.

9. 'It is unfunny."

A legitimate expression of opinion, admittedly, but, in view of its origin, it tends to be a recom- mendation in itself. Oh. Mr. Editor, please hang a sense of humour for your critic on the office Christmas tree! Yet. if you did so, could he find a home for it? For that. basically, is his problem and, incidentally, the problem of many of his less mature colleagues. The public, of course, have sensed this lack of humour in the younger critics for some time. And so have I. That is why I took this stand about my Aunt Edwina since she's in the true, robust tradition of the British Theatre, and I knew that the public would not let her down. After all, 1 (and many of my fellow- dramatists) have good reason to like the public's sense of humour and, in all humility, we know that they like ours. Whereas, we don't know if they like your critic's sense of humour—if he has one. That, as we would say in Scotland, since we are a truthful race, remains 'non proven,' does it not?

Yours faithfully,

WILLIAM DOUGLAS 1-10MR

Travellers Club, Pall Mall, SW 1

(Alan Brien writes: 'Please stop this dripping- water torture about your sad, soppy, dull, little play, Mr. Home. I had to sit through that out of a mistaken sense of duty—haven't 1 antlered enough?'—Editor, Spectator.)