The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 2, 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright by Dorothy L. Sayers
But you are not children. The thing they react to and remember is not logical argument, but mystery and the queer beauty of melodious words. To you and me, for instance, the poetry of de la Mare2 is both obscure and fragile, because it evades all attempts at interpretation and breaks when forced into an intellectual pigeon-hole. But that does not worry children. Nor do children feel any particular religious awe at the Sermon on the Mount; what fascinates them is the mysterious Trisagion of A & M 160,3 and the beasts and the wheels of Ezekiel. I don’t suppose it would occur to you to put on a reading of the Athanasian Creed as an attraction for the Children’s Hour; yet I know of a small boy of seven who urgently demanded this of his mother as a special birthday treat. It is the language that stirs and excites: “Not three incomprehensibles and three uncreated; but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.”
As regards Melchior’s astrological speech: they will like the sound of the planetary names and the unusual words. The grand noise will convey its message without any need for understanding. (Read Greening Lamborn’s4 account of the effect on a class of elementary school-children of Homer in the original Greek.) It is true that the children may not grasp the implications of the “imperial star” and the “constellation of the Virgin” – does that matter? If they hear and remember the words, one day they may suddenly light upon the meaning. Though, actually, some of the older ones may be a good deal better up in astrology than the rest of us, since the poor little wretches have to do Chaucer’s Prologue with notes, as a set book for Matric.,5 besides coping with Spenser and God knows what. But the important thing is the magical sound of the words, not what their brains make of it.
The same thing goes for the “Mortal-Immortal”. I will swear that no child has ever heard unmoved, “[So] when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality”.6 What does he know of corruption? Nothing. But it is moving to him precisely because his mind and ear are not corrupted like those of people who read the penny papers.
I knew how you would react to those passages; it is my business to know. It is also my business to know how my real audience will react; and yours to trust me to know it.
Nothing will induce me to let you put in explanations and bright bits of information at the beginning. If you do it here, you will want to do it at every change of scene. If you think the references to the Kings’ visit do not set the scene enough, you must add a line in the text:
Ephraim: You have all the luck … . (querulously):
They oughtn’t to allow these disturbances
right under the Palace windows … .
Rumours? Rumours? What about it?
Joseph’s idiom: This is entirely a matter for the actor; that is why I never give more than the very slightest hint of dialect. Let the actor settle his own accent and turn of speech, according to the particular dialect he can do. If he decides on a touch of Yorkshire, for instance, he will not say “it do be”, but use some other form. When he has settled this, then, if he finds that “conduct you to your tent” is too formal for the speech he is using, he can say “see you to your tent”, or “bring ‘ee to your tent”, according to the speech he is using. This is a matter for rehearsal, and you must learn to consult the actor. Since most of Joseph’s speeches, after the beginning, consist of quotations from the Old Testament, these must obviously be dealt with by accent, and not by dialect phrasing.
Modern Idiom: Nonsense. The whole thing is packed with modern idiom. Why not? “I deeply distrust his intentions” is, as a matter of fact, far more formal than everyday modern speech. “Do as you like” – well, there is the choice of “Do as you choose”, which is a jingle, and “Do as you will”, which is good Wardour-Street,7 but gives you two “will’s” in one sentence. “Like” is right.8 As for Proclus, he is as modern, prosaic, and matter-of-fact a person as you could find in a month of Sundays. That is what he is there for. He speaks like a soldier of any time and place, and the more modern he can be, the better. Why should an Army Captain talk Wardour-Street? Do you suppose they had no blunt speech or slang in ancient Rome or Palestine? The common Roman referred to his pal’s face as “testa” – “your mug” – exactly like the common Englishman. If I wrote that, would you complain of my “modern idiom”?
Actors: For goodness’ sake, handle Billy Williams9 tactfully. He will expect me to ask him to play Herod. He could play a Herod – and I once started to write a Herod play for him – but that was a different Herod, more lyrical and less political. Try not to let him know that I asked for Trouncer, or he will be hurt in his feelings.
It takes two months, generally speaking, to write a play of this kind. So I can hardly promise to produce them at the rate of one a fortnight, though I will try to get ahead as quickly as possible, so as to have something in hand.
I was asked for twelve plays. That was your arrangement. But if there is any doubt about it, you had better let me know. And quickly. I cannot possibly select incidents and arrange their place in the series, unless I know for certain how long the series is to be, and what proportion each is to bear to the whole.
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Cf. her comment concerning Thomas Lovell Beddoes’ willingness to conform to the criticism of friends: “It is true that the majority of these drastic reconstructions were never carried out; but what writer whose trinity was strongly co-ordinated would even dream of revising his work to conform with the majority report of a committee?” [Italics added.] The Mind of the Maker (Methuen, 1941), p. 130.
2 Walter de la Mare (1873–1956).
3 Trisagion: a hymn beginning with a threefold invocation of God as holy. The hymn referred to is that by Bishop R. Heber, beginning “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!”, no. 160 in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
4 Edmund Arnold Greening Lamborn (1877–1950), Headmaster of the East Oxford School, author of articles on education and other subjects. The reference is to The Rudiments of Criticism by E. A. Greening Lamborn (Oxford Clarendon 1916, 2nd edition 1925), p. 20: “I lately heard a ‘Greats’ man read a passage of Homer to some boys of twelve who knew no language other than their own; they listened breathlessly and then told him that there had been a challenge, a fight and a song of triumph – which was really the ‘substance’ of the passage. He then read some lines of Vergil and they said ‘it was a cavalry charge’; ‘passer mortuus est’ [the sparrow has died] of Catullus and they suggested that ‘someone was speaking of a dead child’”.
5 Matriculation, the examination which corresponded to the General Certificate of Secondary Education.
6 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 54.
7 Pseudo-archaic diction, from the name of a street in London where imitation antique furniture was sold.
8 In the printed version, D. L. S. had accepted “Do as you will” (Gollancz, 1943, p. 61).
9 Harcourt Williams.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
LADY BOILEAU1
22 November 1940
Dear Lady Boileau,
Thank you very much for your letter. I am so glad you liked “Creed or Chaos?”. I do this kind of thing mostly to order and if anyone demands something on the Incarnation, no doubt I shall deal specifically with that subject some time – though in fact, anything one does on these lines is naturally based on a doctrine of Incarnation. The impression I get – I don’t know whether you will agree with me – is that the average Englishman has no idea whatever what is really meant by the term, so that a great deal of Christian doctrine is completely incomprehensible to him. The fulminations of one Minister of Religion who announced that I had shocked all thoughtful Christians by the suggestion that God Almighty was crucified, suggest that some of our Pastors and Ministers know as little as their congregations. I meant to tell this gentleman that he apparently believed either that Christ was not God (in which case he was an Arian heretic) or that His divinity was withdrawn from him
It is very sad about Helen.3 I agree entirely with you that I have never met anybody who equalled her in vivid personality and in the intense interest she brought into her contacts with people and things. I don’t really quite know just what was the matter, but immediately after her operation, I gathered that things had not gone well and that they had found something more extensive than they expected, so that from the beginning I rather feared the worst. Of course, one could not get anything out of Browne4 – in any case, one does not like to try and pump people too much. I am afraid I don’t know where she was buried; of course I wrote to Browne at the time but equally of course, he has not written – she died down in the country and under present circumstances I should think it likely she was buried there.
With again many thanks,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 An administrator in the Voluntary Unit Training Centre, Women’s Transport Service.
2 Relating to the heresy of Manichaeus (3rd century), who held that Satan was co-eternal with God.
3 Helen Simpson.
4 Her husband, Denis Browne.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MARGERY VOSPER1
27 November 1940
Dear Margery,
I have been having the usual struggle with the play at the B.B.C. What happens is that the Producer goes away and a yammering kind of letter is sent me by some female he has left in charge who thinks it her duty to tell me how to write English and how to write for the stage! I have been firm about this but I expect we shall have ructions, especially as I wrote rather a stiff letter pointing out that they were buying about £100’s worth of work for twelve guineas – and intimating that they had to put up with what they got!
Meanwhile it is only proper that you should know what they have got and enclosed is a copy. They seem to have more or less accepted it, their objections being mostly the fiddling and unnecessary kinds. …
With all the best,
Yours sincerely,
[D. L. S.]
Derek McCulloch, returning “somewhat travel-battered” after a 19-hour railway journey from Fife to Bristol, found D. L. S.’ reply to May Jenkin. He supported all his assistant’s comments and urged D. L. S. to come and visit them in Bristol: “You do not know us, but we flatter ourselves that by meeting each other we might soon sweep away all obstacles”.
D. L. S. replied:
1 Her dramatic agent.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO DEREK MCCULLOCH
28 November 1940
Dear Mr. McCulloch,
Oh, no, you don’t, my poppet! You won’t get me to do three days of exhausting travel to Bristol in order to argue about my plays with a committee. What goes into the play, and the language in which it is written is the author’s business. If the Management don’t like it, they reject the play, and there is an end of the contract.
If travelling is at all possible, I am ready to meet the Producer and the Actors in rehearsal. Then, if there is any line or speech which, in rehearsal, I can hear to be wrong, or ineffective, or impossible to speak aloud, I will alter it, if I think the objection to it justified. (But if the actor is merely being tiresome, I say, “No, darling, Mother knows best”, and he has to get on with it.) And if the actor puts the accent in the wrong place (as from time to time he inevitably does) I assist him to get it right. And if neither actor nor producer is sure which way a thing is meant to be said, I explain as placidly as possible. And if either of them makes a good suggestion, I listen to it, and adopt it if possible. Anything that has to do with Production I am always prepared to modify – as in the matter of Joseph’s dialect, or the extra lines required to set the scene.
But the business of getting my ideas across, and the writing of the English language, is the affair of the playwright; I will give you my reasons for what I do, but if you do not accept them, I can only say, “Take it or leave it”. After all, if I am asked by the B.B.C. to do a play for you, it is because they think I can supply a quality of some kind which they cannot get from their staff. That is why outside writers of standing are asked to do things. This always involves the risk that the outside writer may do something which is different from the routine thing which the staff is accustomed to do – and this difference is the thing for which the outside writer is engaged and paid. If the writer’s authority is not to be absolute in his own sphere, there is no sense in approaching him; he is approached because of his authority, and for no other reason.
You are the producer. Where production is concerned, I will respect your authority. But this is not a matter of production. It falls within the sphere of my authority, and you must respect mine.
You see, it is not merely a question of what children will, or will not, understand. This ground of defence is cut away by the attempt to tell me what sort of English idiom I should, or should not, use. You are, I know, bound to back up your colleagues and subordinates; but you must allow me to tell you that this kind of thing, phrased as it is phrased in Miss Jenkin’s letter, is a blazing impertinence. If I am asked to write a play for you, it is because I have the reputation of being able to write. Do you think I should have that reputation if I allowed my style to be dictated to me by little bodies of unliterary critics?
I must also make plain to you that I am concerned with you as a producer for my play. In that capacity, you are not called upon to mirror other aspects of your work at the B.B.C.; you are called upon to mirror me. If you prefer to act as the director of a committee of management, well and good; but in that case, you cannot also exercise the functions of a producer. You can reject the play, in which case the matter is closed; or you can accept it, in which case you must offer me another producer with whom I can deal on the usual terms, which are perfectly well understood among all people with proper theatrical experience. I am sorry to speak so bluntly; but I am a professional playwright,1 and I must deal with professional people who understand where their appropriate spheres of action begin and end.
I am writing to Dr. Welch to make the position clear to him; and shall suspend all work on the succeeding plays until the matter has been put on a more satisfactory footing.
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 She had by then written five plays: Busman’s Honeymoon, The Zeal of Thy House, Love All, He That Should Come, and The Devil to Pay, all of which had been performed. “Kings in Judaea” was the sixth.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO DR JAMES WELCH
28 November 1940
Dear Dr. Welch,
I am sorry to say I have reached a sort of impasse with Mr. McCulloch. His first letters were sensible and friendly, and proper as from a producer to a playwright.
Unfortunately, while he was away, an excessively tactless letter from a Miss Jenkin obliged me to insist on the author’s right to be sole judge of matter and style where his expert work was concerned. Mr. McCulloch (who is, as I quite understand, bound to back up his subordinate) now seems to have stepped out of the part of a producer into that of a Director, and to think it is part of his business to teach me how to write.
This will not do. He can, as a Director, reject the play. Or he can, as producer, undertake to interpret the play. But he cannot do both. Two objections which had legitimately to do with production, I have already dealt with, so as to meet his views. The other questions, which have nothing to do with production, are a matter for my judgement. These I have said I will not alter, and I have given reasons. This is as far as I am prepared to go. I am not prepared to accept the judgement of a committee upon my English style; though I am always ready to alter in rehearsal any phrase which presents difficulty to the actor.
The details of this controversy are not you
Also, having called in a professional playwright, it must give him a professional producer who knows where a producer’s job begins and ends. The producer’s job is to deal with the play in rehearsal, and not to act as the Management. In his own sphere the producer is God – but he is not God in the author’s sphere. The author is God there; and the producer’s business is to produce the play.
No professional producer of standing has any doubt about where the dividing line comes. I have never yet had the slightest difficulty with a competent professional producer, nor he with me. But the thing that makes work impossible is this trail of amateurishness over the B.B.C. departments, which results in interference by everybody in everybody else’s job; and that I cannot put up with.
I knew at the beginning that this kind of trouble was likely to arise. That was why I made strong representations about getting Val Gielgud, who is a professional, and does know his job. I have never had any kind of impertinence or stupidity from him, nor (I think he would tell you) he from me. Although he is a writer himself, he never thought of informing me how I might improve my style; probably, being a writer,1 he knew better. He would, of course, make suggestions in rehearsal, but always in connection with the acting, and in a proper manner, and I was always ready to listen and adopt them. But then, he knows his theatre inside-out, and is not an amateur.2