[This week's anniversary blog (number 650) is written by John Aplin, editor of the correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore (online at Intelex, 2020), the letters of Philip Webb (Routledge, 2016), the correspondence of the Thackeray family (Routledge, 2011), and author of A Thackeray Family Biography (Lutterworth, 2010-2011). Together, we are preparing an edition of the collected letters of Charles Ricketts.]
100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 1)
As an occasional contributor to this blog, I know that I will not be alone in noting the milestone marked by its arrival at number 650 in a remarkable unbroken weekly sequence of articles – informative, authoritative, and always with something new to say. It is testimony to the energies of its founder that it is now established as the unrivalled online vehicle for the recording and sharing of information relating not just to Ricketts and Shannon, but to the creative world in which they operated. To mark the occasion, it seems appropriate to give it something of an anniversary flavour, and therefore I offer three of Ricketts’s letters (to be concluded in blog 651) written 100 years ago this month, in January 1924. They were addressed to two of his closest friends and admirers, Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore, and reveal, I think, something typical of Charles Ricketts – that in the midst of a crowded life he always made the time to be generous to his friends, showing a genuine interest in their own work by giving of his time and artistic advice, or in a time of difficulty by extending sympathy and support.
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| Gordon Bottomley, 'Gruach' [Free audio book version by LibriVox on YouTube] |
Gordon Bottomley’s one-act poetic drama Gruach was dedicated to Ricketts and Shannon, and Ricketts had designed the cover when it was published in 1921 with Bottomley’s Britain’s Daughter (for which Ricketts refused any payment, as he did for the three other volumes for Bottomley’s works for which he prepared cover designs). It was first performed by the Scottish National Theatre Society in Glasgow in March 1923, but Gruach was now to be given a single London performance on 20 January 1924 at the St Martin’s Theatre, staged by the Reandean company under Basil Dean, with Sybil Thorndike in the title role.
Like its predecessor King Lear’s Wife, the work by which Bottomley is best remembered, Gruach is a prequel to a Shakespeare play (in this case Macbeth), and portrays the first meeting and immediate attraction between the future Lady Macbeth and her husband. At the last moment, Bottomley was unable to attend the performance, a recurrence of his debilitating lung condition and a threat of a railway strike making it impossible for him to travel to London from Silverdale on Morecambe Bay. Knowing how much Bottomley would have wanted to be there, Ricketts, who attended the performance with Shannon, immediately sent Bottomley his detailed reaction to the production, calling on his wide practical knowledge of theatre, both as a designer and a frequent audience member, to make suggestions about possible rewrites where things did not quite work effectively. It is an honest and constructive critique, and Bottomley valued it as such.
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| George William Harris (1878-1929), 'A King' (Costume Design for 'Gruach', 1924) [Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool] |
To Gordon Bottomley, 21 January 1924
[BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 83]
My Dear Bottomley
Both Shannon & I missed you yesterday, though it was prudent not to risk the weather & the Strike. Your play went excellently well; it was, I think, hurt by the end, played with uncertainty by the minor players who impersonated the servants, all of these were poor, but the reception nevertheless was excellent & had the curtain fallen 10 minutes sooner it would have been very warm indeed Fern was good, the Mother quite good, notably in her later scenes, the bridegroom poor & vulgar.(1) Sybil Thorndyke was generally quite admirable, rising superbly to the occasion, with occasional lapses in intonation & in minor business, due to nervousness & hesitation in Macbeth, who was not entirely at his ease in the part.(2) Gruach’s entrance in ugly bridal clothes was superb, her entranced, passionate & magnetic acting in the first scene beyond praise, her sleep walking scene admirable (this is too long and she showed hesitation) her awakening & struggle was quite admirable. Then Macbeth seemed not quite word perfect, he bungled the business of the cloaks & Sybil grew nervous & over busy – for the stage – there are one or two lines too many, or perhaps too much to do, before the exit. The steward was slow, the old woman servant quite good, the drunkard out of the picture. I do not care for the fay girl episode; it is too long (3) & the two girl servants were poor. Macbeth had a good voice & spoke the longer speeches well, he was modern or vulgar in chance exclamations & I think nervous. Sybil was also nervous & many of her slight faults would probably vanish at a second performance, anyway it was very notable indeed. The grim comedy of the servants requires actors of non English blood, the Irish players could have done it in perfection – at least the men could. Russians & Germans would have caught the atmosphere at once. To London players the task was impossible, they were blameless bewig[g]ed cockneys trying to look barbaric. All spoke with distinctness & both Shannon & I were greatly impressed by the beauty & force of the language & the compact planning of the play.
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| George William Harris (1878-1929), 'Saxon Warrior' (Costume Design for 'Gruach, 1924) [Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool] |
The Abercrombie farce is quite good fun, a little long here & there & was acted with go & comprehension. Miss Clare as the Slave R[h]odope was delicious, the Queen was too “musical comedy” & the King poor but for a quite admirable delivery of the speech about blue wine.(4)
[George Bernard] Shaw has returned to the charge over St Joan. I have undertaken it conditionally & on the understanding that it should be anonymous. I have given my reason, that if he can only write plays which take 6 days to act & with gigantic casts, I can only stage vast & expensive ventures like Parsifal & Aida on gigantic stages, regardless of expense. I dont know yet what the upshot will be.(5)
The setting of “Gruach” was quite passable, the dresses neither simple enough or not elaborate enough. I know that for these performances one cannot expect the impossible but less was required, in this as in diction & stage delivery the English lack essential sincerity or simplicity.(6)
I shall praise Sybil up to the sky when I see her.
Best love to both.
Ever Yours
C Ricketts
PS
Shannon was greatly impressed & less cynical than I.
This is not quite like it looks rather better.
[Ricketts added a sketch of the ‘Gruach’ set]
Notes
(1) These roles were played by Hilda Bruce Potter (Fern), Esmé Beringer (Morag) and Felix Aylmer (Conan, Thane of Fortingall).
(2) Played by Malcolm Keen.
(3) The kitchen maid, sometimes called by Bottomley the ‘second sight’ girl (played by Hermione Baddeley), is a young servant who has visions, and foresees the murder of Shakespeare’s Duncan.
(4) Lascelles Abercrombie’s Phoenix completed the double-bill. The slave-girl Rhodope, played by Mary Clare, ‘looks a charming slave, and certainly she is an amusing one’ (The Times, 21 January 1924). Barbara Gott played the Queen, and Leslie Banks the King.
(5) ‘When we saw him Ricketts said he was quite decided not to do St Joan for Shaw & in your letter he speaks doubtfully still. I hope he refuses for he cannot suit Shaw’s invention over such a subject & there is bound to be something awkward’ (Thomas Sturge Moore to Bottomley, 9 February 1924, BL Add MS 88957/1/68, f 126). ‘I feel with you that Ricketts’ invention is of too ardent and rich an order to be mated with St. Joan seen through Shaw’s polariscope’ (Bottomley to Sturge Moore, 25 February 1924, Senate House MS 978 17/162). Despite Ricketts’s own justifiable reservations and the doubts of his friends, his decision to undertake the designs for Bernard Shaw’s St Joan resulted in ‘his most celebrated theatrical production’ (J.G.P. Delaney, Charles Ricketts. A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 312).
(6) The costumes were designed by George William Harris (1878-1929).
John Aplin
[To be continued next week.]
