Second Plays. A. A. Milne

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ on bark with a burnt stick—clutched in a skeleton hand—might be recovered later by some literary sea-captain. (As it might be, Conrad.) But how many of us would write masterpieces if we had to burn them immediately afterwards, or if we were alone upon the world, the last survivors of a new flood? Could we bear to write? Could we bear not to write? It is not fair to ask us. But we can admit this much without reserve; it is the second reward which tears at us, and, lacking it, we should lose courage.

      So when the promising young dramatist has his play refused by the Managers—after what weeks, months, years of hope and fear, uncertainty and bitter disappointment—he has this great consolation: "Anyway, I can always publish it." Perhaps, after a dozen refusals, a Manager offers to put on his play, on condition that he alters the obviously right (and unhappy) ending into the obviously foolish, but happy, ending which will charm the public. Does he, the artist, succumb? How easy to tell himself that he must get his play before the public somehow, and that, even if it is not his play now, yet the first two acts are as he wrote them, and that, if only to feel the thrill of the audience at that great scene between the Burglar and the Bishop (his creations!) he must deaden his conscience to the absurdity of a happy ending. But does he succumb? No. Heroically he tells himself: "Anyway, I can publish it; and I'm certain that the critics will agree with me that——" But the critics are too busy to bother about him. They are busy informing the world that the British Drama is going to the dogs, and that no promising young dramatist ever gets a fair chance.

      Let me say here that I am airing no personal grievance. I doubt if any dramatist has less right to feel aggrieved against the critics, the managers, the public, the world, than I; and whatever right I have I renounce, in return for the good things which I have received from them. But I do not renounce the grievance of our craft. I say that, in the case of all dramatists, it is the business of the dramatic critics to review their unacted plays when published. Some of them do; most of them do not. It is ridiculous for those who do not to pretend that they take any real interest in the British Drama. But I say "review," not "praise." Let them damn, by all means, if the plays are unworthy; and, by damning, do so much of justice to the Managers who refused them.

      We can now pass on safely to the plays in this volume.

      We begin with a children's play. The difficulty in the way of writing a children's play is that Barrie was born too soon. Many people must have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who came later have no chance. What fun to have been Adam, and to have had the whole world of plots and jokes and stories at one's disposal. Possibly, however, one would never have thought of the things. Of course, there are still others to come after us, but our works are not immortal, and they will plagiarise us without protest. Yet I have hopes of Make-Believe, for it had the honour of inaugurating Mr. Nigel Playfair's management at the Lyric, Hammersmith. It is possible that the historians will remember this, long after they have forgotten my plays; more likely (alas!) that their history will be dated A.D. (After Drinkwater) and that the honour will be given to "Abraham Lincoln." I like to think that in this event my ghost will haunt them. Make-Believe appeared with a Prologue by the Manager, lyrics by C.E. Burton, and music by Georges Dorlay. As the title-page states that this book is, in the language of children's competitions, "my own unaided work," I print the play with a new Prologue, and without the charming lyrics. But the reader is told when he may burst into an improvisation of his own, though I warn him that he will not make such a good show of it as did my collaborators.

      Mr. Pim Passes By appeared at several theatres. Let us admit cheerfully that it was a success—in spite of the warning of an important gentleman in the theatrical world, who told me, while I was writing it, that the public wouldn't stand any talk of bigamy, and suggested that George and Olivia should be engaged only, not married. (Hence the line, "Bigamy! … It is an ugly word," in the Second Act.) But, of course, nobody sees more clearly than I how largely its success was due to Mr. Dion Boucicault and Miss Irene Vanbrugh.

      The Romantic Age appeared first at the Comedy, and (like Mr. Pim) found, in its need, a home at The Playhouse. Miss Gladys Cooper has a charming way of withdrawing into a nursing home whenever I want a theatre, but I beg her not to make a habit of it. My plays can be spared so much more easily than she. By the way, a word about Melisande. Many of the critics said that nobody behaved like that nowadays. I am terrified at the thought of arguing with them, for they can always reduce me to blushes with a scornful, "My dear man, you can't do that in a play!" And when they tell me to remember what Strindberg said in '93 (if he were alive then; I really don't know) or what Aristotle wrote in—no, I shan't even guess at Aristotle, well, then, I want to burst into tears, my ignorance is so profound. So, very humbly, I just say now that, when Melisande talks and behaves in a certain way, I do not mean that a particular girl exists (Miss Jones, of 999 Bedford Park) who talks and behaves like this, but I do mean that there is a type of girl who, in her heart, secretly, thinks like this. If, from your great knowledge of the most secret places of a young girl's heart, you tell me that there is no such type, then I shall only smile. But if you inform me sternly that a dramatist has no business to express an attitude in terms of an actress, then you reduce me to blushes again. For I really know nothing about play-writing, and I am only sustained by two beliefs. The first is that rules are always made for the other people; the second is that, if a play by me is not obviously by me, and as obviously not by anybody else, then (obviously) I had no business to write it.

      Of the one-act plays, The Camberley Triangle and The Stepmother, nothing much need be said. The former was played at the Coliseum; the latter, written for Miss Winifred Emery, was deemed by the management too serious for that place of amusement. This, however, was to the great advantage of the play, for now it has appeared only at Charity matinées with an "all-star" cast.

      As before, the plays are printed in the order in which they were written; in this case between October 1918 and June 1920. May the reader get as much enjoyment from them as I had in their writing. But no; that is plainly impossible.

      A.A. MILNE.

MAKE-BELIEVE

       Table of Contents

      A CHILDREN'S PLAY IN A PROLOGUE AND THREE ACTS

      Make-Believe was first produced at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on December 24, 1918. The chief parts were played by Marjory Holman, Jean Cadell, Rosa Lynd, Betty Chester, Roy Lennol, John Barclay, Kinsey Peile, Stanley Drewitt, Ivan Berlyn, and Herbert Marshall—several parts each.

MAKE-BELIEVE

       Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

       Table of Contents

      The playroom of the HUBBARD FAMILY—nine of them. Counting MR. and MRS. HUBBARD, we realize that there are eleven HUBBARDS in all, and you would think that one at least of the two people we see in the room would be a HUBBARD of sorts. But no. The tall manly figure is JAMES, the HUBBARDS' butler, for the HUBBARDS are able to afford a butler now. How different from the time when Old Mother Hubbard—called "old" because she was at least twenty-two, and "mother" because she had a passion for children—could not even find a bone for her faithful terrier; but, of course, that was before HENRY went into work. Well, the tall figure is JAMES, the butler, and the little one is ROSEMARY, a friend of the HUBBARD FAMILY. ROSEMARY is going in for literature this afternoon, as it's raining, and JAMES is making her quite comfortable first with pens and ink СКАЧАТЬ