.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ an incident—nothing more. All the world is crying out for deeds—for action! When I step upon the stage I want to act—I’m willing to talk a little to oblige a man like you—but I must act—and hugging my ankles for three mortal hours won’t satisfy me in this regard. I can’t fool myself and I can’t fool my audience. I will gather together any afternoon you please a charming assemblage at our Garrick Theatre and read your play to them or play it—as best we may—but I can’t put it on for dinner in the evening—people are not satisfied with only the hors d’oeuvres at dinner—where is the soup & the fish & the roast & the game and the salad and the fruit? Shaw—if you will write for me a strong, hearty—earnest—noble—genuine play—I’ll play it. Plays used to be written for actors—actors who could stir and thrill—and that is what I want now—because I can do that—the world is tired of theories and arguments and philosophy and morbid sentiment. To be frank & to go further—I am not in sympathy with a young, delicate, morbid and altogether exceptional young man who falls in love with a massive middleaged lady who peels onions. I couldn’t have made love to your Candida (Miss Janet Achurch) if I had taken ether.

      I never fall in love with fuzzy-haired persons who purr and are businesslike and take a drop when they feel disposed and have weak feminine voices. My ideal is something quite different. I detest an aroma of stale tobacco and gin. I detest intrigue and slyness and sham ambitions. I don’t like women who sit on the floor—or kneel by your side and have designs on your shirtbosom—I don’t like women who comb their tawny locks with their fingers, and claw their necks and scratch the air with their chins.

      You’ll have to write a play that a man can play and about a woman that heroes fought for and a bit of ribbon that a knight tied to his lance.

      The stage is for romance and love and truth and honor. To make men better and nobler. To cheer them on the way—

      Life is real. Life is earnest. And the grave is not its goal.

      .. . . . .

      Be not like dumb, driven cattle

      Be a hero in the fight!

      Go on, Shaw; Beatrice & I are with you—you will be always as welcome as a brother.—We want a great work from you.—

      Candida is beautiful—don’t mistake me—we both understand it and we both appreciate it—There are fine things here—but—we are paid—alas—Shaw—we are paid to act.

      Yours, Shaw, truly

      Richard Mansfield

      [PS] I am perfectly aware that you will not read this letter—you will gather that I am not about to produce Candida—& there your interest will cease—you would like to have Candida presented—if I don’t present it—I’m damned—but also—I’m damned if I do. Ah Shaw Wir hatten gebauet ein stattleches Haus [German commercium song from 1819]. I don’t want to ruin it all.

      21/ To a British actor-manager and a barrister Charles Charrington

      16th April 1895

      Telegram just received from Mansfield “Am opening Garrick with Arms and the Man [on the 23rd April] will produce Candida if I need not appear.” The benevolent object here is to produce the play with a bad cast, and by making it a failure, at one stroke prevent any other manager from getting it and prevent Janet from making a success in New York. I have not yet made up my mind whether to cable, or to leave Miss Marbury to carry out her instructions & get the play from him. Probably I shall cable to her & not to him at all. The effect will be, anyhow, that he may not now produce the play on any terms whatever. Am posting this bit of news to Janet. Back tomorrow evening.

      GBS

      22/ To Janet Achurch

      19th April 1895

      My dear Janet

      . . . A paragraph has been going the rounds here stating that I not only insisted on your being engaged for Candida, but stipulated that you should have 50 pounds a month. I do not usually contradict the mistakes of the press in these matters; but as the inference here would be that the £50 [£6,723.26 in 2020 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] is an artificially high salary given under pressure from me, I have written to the Era pouring vitriol on the blunderer in such a way as to bring out clearly that your salary is a matter of your market value, and that I should no more dream of meddling about it than you presumably would interfere in the matter of my royalties. I also wrote privately to the Weekly Sun man asking him to take some opportunity of contradicting the report. He telegraphs begging for more information. The Era letter will no doubt be in tomorrow’s issue.

      Yesterday a cablegram came from Richard as follows:—“Since you insist (which I didn’t: I positively forbade) will produce Candida now cable [Elisabeth] Marbury deliver manuscript.” To which I replied, “Withdrawal final.” This morning another telegram came, this time from Miss Marbury:—“Will you authorise me to place Candida with good actress Minnie Seligman on terms named Lux) advance 5 per cent first £600 7 per cent next £400 ten above weekly gross reply by wire immediately.” Which I did, as follows :—“Paralogize palmitic without Achurch,” which, being translated through Lowe’s cable code (which you had perhaps better get, as it is useful for American messages, and cannot be confused with the Unicode Latin words) means “Offer declined nothing can be done at present without Achurch.” This caused me a heart pang, not because of the hundred pounds, but because of the brutality of calling you Achurch instead of my darling Janet.

      By the way, have you added anything to the private code we arranged? I have nothing in mine after VERETRUM.

      Now as to the letters from Richard and Felix. It was just as well that Felix wrote; for his letter was written with the sweetest consideration for my feelings towards you, and I was therefore able to read it to Charrington, whereas Richard’s, the existence of which I concealed from C. C. [Charles Charrington] in order to avert his rushing out by the next Cunarder and having Richard’s blood, was childishly indiscreet in its allusions to you. He accuses you of being fuzzy haired, of purring, of being businesslike, of smoking, of sitting on the floor, of combing your tawny locks with your fingers, of clawing your neck and scratching the air with your chin, and of being unfallable-in-love-with on all these accounts. On the subject of your acting, he maintains an eloquent silence. This, by the way, is much the most sensible part of his letter, which I wish I had time to quote more extensively. The play is not a play—it is all talk—it is lacking in all essential qualities—the stage is not for sermons—the American public would not stand it—and so forth, the whole being intersentenced with the most pathetic expressions of eternal friendship and admiration: for example, “Go on, Shaw: [my wife] Beatrice and I are with you: you will always be welcome as a brother. We want a great work from you.” Felix pleads nobly for his brother, and writes a really respectable letter, with four postscripts, as follows, 1. Beatrice was charmed with your letter. 2. Beatrice says you have just hit Dick’s position at home to a T (I had said that he was an abject domestic slave). 3. Beatrice says she must have a play. 4. Beatrice says “Come over.” 5. Beatrice sends love. My reply to Richard, which goes by this mail, is as follows, “My dear Mansfield, Your letter has arrived at last. I confess that I waited for it with somewhat fell intentions as to my reply; but now that the hour of vengeance has come, I find myself in perfect goodhumor, and can do nothing but laugh. I have not the slightest respect left for you; and your acquaintance with my future plays will be acquired in the course of visits to other people’s theatres; but my personal liking for you remains where it was.” I wrote kindly to Felix, but gave him a remorseless analysis of the whole case. Do not shew this СКАЧАТЬ