Compton Mackenzie
FOR some reason or other every time I have been going to see a performance at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon I have been prevented, but last week by accepting an invitation to ' lecture' to the Summer School the gap in my experience was filled. This year is the seventh of the Summer School on Shakespeare, the course of which has been so.skilfully directed by Mr. John Garrett, the Headmaster of Bristol Grammar School. Luck ruled that the play to be performed on the previous evening was Troilus and Cressida which I had never before seen upon the stage. As I was due next morning to give some reminis- cences and recollections of productions of Shakespeare I had seen in the past I was delighted to have a play that absolved me from the odious task of making comparisons.
I cannot imagine a better production of Troilus and Cressida than Mr. Glen Byam Shaw has made of it, and if it had been produced in any other way, it would have been a mighty dull evening's entertainment. Week by week I grow more puzzled to find my Sidelight so provocative, for that is the last thing I am trying to be. So I suppose if 1 call Troilus and Cressida a dull play upon the stage its champions will write and tell me that it is in fact a much better play than Romeo and Juliet or Anthony and Cleopatra. So be it. My head like that of W. E. Henley will be bloody but unbowed. Who can be moved by the petulant denunciation of Cressida's faithlessness by Troilus ? What else could he have expected when he let her be handed over to Diomed ? The endless speeches of Ulysses are boring to read to oneself and the admirable delivery of them by Mr. Leo McKern, a model of judicious elocution, could not prevent their being boring upon the stage.
By the way can we attribute the origin of ham acting to some lines-of Ulysses ?
Like a strutting player, whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.
Achilles was the most hated figure of my boyhood but, the son of Thetis (not Theetis, please !) was not quite such a cad as Shakespeare, following Lydgate, makes him. And was it wise to turn Patroclus into such an epicene ? True, says he :
A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loathed than an effeminate man In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this.
Nevertheless, the Stratford Patroclus offends against the Greek convention.
Hector was beautifully played by Mr. Raymond Westwell and except for Mr. Anthony Quayle's Pandarus, was the out- standing performance of the evening. He spoke like Hector; he moved like Hector. Beyond that, he was able to convey the impression from his first entrance of the hero who is fey, which has nothing to do with fairyland as too many of my fellow-writers suppose, but means ' fated to die.' This was the authentic tragic thrill. To hear Andromache and Cassandra pleading with him to disarm and not to fight today was to yearn for him to listen to them, knowing as we did what was going to happen.
The Pandarus of Mr. Anthony Quayle was a triumphant piece of portraiture: it will remain in my memory like a picture by a butch master. A little more, and the part would have been overplayed, but Mr. Quayle knew just when to stop. The scenery was perfectly designed, built and painted, and if sometimes the Greek and Trojan warriors looked like Red Indians as they moved across the stage, embattled, a second glance removed that impression without difficulty.
I read somewhere recently a criticism that deplored Mr. Glen Byam Shaw's decision to give Troilus and Cressida a classic setting. I cannot believe that the long speeches of Ulysses would have sounded better if Ulysses had worn a ruff or the red tabs of a staff-officer. The effect at which the producer aimed was gained with .praiseworthy economy of costume and scene, and the background remained gratefully restful so that one was never too conscious of the lack of dramatic action and the excess of pseudo-dramatic movement. For that lack and excess Shakespeare is responsible. * * What a success the Memorial Theatre itself is ! I had got into my head a notion that I should find it too self-consciously modern and was most agreeably surprised to find myself full of unqualified admiration. The terrace from which one looks down at the Avon must always be beguiling, but at the end of the only azure day I have seen since April it was enchanting. The roses by the statue of Shakespeare were .in bright and prodigal bloom. I thought with pity of those perverse creatures that believe in. Bacon or any other of the pretenders to the works of William Shakespeare. Next day which was another blue day with great ships of cumulus sailing across the sky I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture by Mr. Nevill Coghill on Shakespeare's use of the soliloquy; I would not have believed I could sit on such an uncomfortable chair for an hour without noticing it. These lecture-listeners are a hardy race: that Summer School will have listened to seventeen lectures in seven days before they leave Stratford. Even if every lecturer be as good as Mr. Nevill Coghill such a feat of endurance amazes me.
My final word of congratulation must go to Mr. George Hume, the General Manager of the Memorial Theatre.
The sequel to that visit to Stratford may be of interest to those who like myself believe that Puck still amuses himself. The train from Stratford to Leamington leaves soon after two in order to catch a fast train to London due to arrive about five. On the edge of Warwick this branch-line train stopped and for an hour remained motionless in the quiet afternoon. We put our heads out of windows to try to guess what was the matter, but we were left in ignorance. At Warwick station I asked what was the matter. Wagon on the line,' replied a porter, reproach in his tone for such a silly question. When we reached Leamington the waters of the Spa were effervescing; 'what used to be the dignified Great Western Railway was in a turmoil of unmanageable trains. However, we did reach Paddington about 6.30 in a train that was sup- posed not to stop till we got there but by force of habit stopped at Banbury after all the tickets had been taken. On the way to catch the 10.35 p.m. train at King's Cross to Edinburgh I said to myself that Puck was not likely to interfere with what used to be the Great Northern Line. I should have known better. The mischievous elf boarded the \10.35 and put the grand new signal-box at Doncaster out of order, with the result that for two hours the 10.35 train was wandering about the East Riding of Yorkshire. A genial sleeping-car attendant brought me some tea at a quarter-past eight instead of as usual at a quarter to seven. ' We didn't half chip them at Doncaster,' he said to me with a grin. ' Where we didn't get to last night ! That's the way with these wonderful new inventions. They're all right till they go wrong, but when they do go wrong they go much more wrong than the old-fashioned signal-boxes.'
A little before we reached Edinburgh the train stopped for a moment at Drem Junction to let Puck off. I don't know the date of the next performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream but no doubt he will be back in Stratford in time to be present.
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