TWO SHORT WAR PLAYS by GALSWORTHY

When World War One commenced John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was forty-seven years old and a highly successful author of novels and plays. His poor eyesight precluded him from serving in the British armed services. Galsworthy actively supported the war effort in various activities such as working in France for the Red Cross, helping refugees in Belgium and working for the British War Propaganda Bureau where he wrote about supporting wounded soldiers. He also used his writing skills to develop stories and plays related to returning disabled soldiers.

                                                           JOHN GALSWORTHY 1919

 Galsworthy’s short plays depict the reality of war on individuals. These dramas pack both an emotional and intellectual punch since the characters are precisely drawn for a single emotional episode. In his essay titled “Some Platitudes Concerning Drama” published in 1912, Galsworthy sets forth the basic idea “Every grouping of life and character has its inherent moral; and the business of the dramatist is so to pose the group as to bring that moral poignantly to the light of day.”

Defeat, written in 1917, was designated by Galsworthy as “A Tiny Drama.” It is a two-character play--the young English Officer and The Girl, who identifies herself as Russian and later admits to being German. The Officer had just been released from the hospital earlier that day. He meets The Girl after he attended a concert.  The scene is a nearly empty room with only a few items of furniture and a little maidenhair fern*. The room is where the Girl lives.

The Girl is lonely and destitute. She obtains a bit of money as a prostitute.  After the concert the Officer had stopped to talk to her since she seemed sad. In her room, she speaks about her inner most feelings and she revealed that she does not like men. He speaks about men being at their best in the trenches. She tells him she is afraid all the time and eventually reveals that she is German. She sneers at the people on both sides of the war and upsets him by being so negative. He starts to leave her, but before he does he tells her: “No, we don’t only love ourselves; there is more. I can’t explain, but there’s something great; there’s kindness—and—and—" Suddenly there are shouts outside the window from a newspaper boy: “Great victory—great victory!”  Since The Officer’s thoughts are interrupted by the news of victory, he leaves.  The play ends as men passing The Girl’s window sing “Rule Britannia!” and she begins to sing “Die Wacht am Rhein.”

Defeat was premiered in London by the Curtain Group on March 20, 1920 at the Lyric Theatre also known as the Lyric Hammersmith. It was produced again two year later in London by Everyman Theatre during the Easter holiday season.  Era reported on April 19,1922 that The Officer was played by Herbert Marshall (1890-1966). Marshall, who would become a highly successful actor on stage, screen, radio and television on both sides of the Atlantic, served in the British Army during World War One and he was injured during a battle on the Western Front. As a result, his left leg was amputated. Since he desired to return to acting as his profession, he had to learn to walk perfectly with a prosthetic leg. The Officer would have been a role with which he could empathize. The play continued to be produced by local theatre groups throughout England during the 1920s and into the early 1930s. 

Americans were exposed to Galsworthy’s Defeat in 1917 when it was one of seven short stories published in Scribner’s Magazine’s annual fiction issue number twenty-eight. Defeat was not published in England prior to its 1920 presentation on stage. English publishers may have shied away from this work since it portrayed a German person sympathetically during the war years. 

Once the play made its debut in London, the community theatres across the United States started producing it. Defeat was produced numerous times throughout the 1920s and 1930s.   

I read several reviews related to Defeat being presented in the Tampa Bay area of Florida during the late 1920s into the early 1930’s. Ruth Thane was always named as presenting it as a one-woman monologue. Ms. Thane was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She presented her version of Defeat while she was living in Florida. After her husband died in1934, Ms. Thane resumed her professional acting career on television, on Broadway and in films under the name Ruth McDevitt (1895-1976).

The Sun, designated by Galsworthy as A Scene, was written in 1921-22. There are three characters: The Girl, The Man and The Soldier.  This is how they are designated in the script, but the characters refer to each other by their birth names—Daisy, Jim and Jack. Jim, a soldier, was wounded and returned to England to recuperate. He met Daisy and they fell in love. Jack was Daisy’s boyfriend when he went to war four years earlier. Since victory has been proclaimed, Jack just returned to England. Daisy is to meet Jack by a river. Jim has come with Daisy for this event.

This short play demonstrates two different ways that some of the fighting men had been affected by the war experience.  Jim refuses to leave and allow Daisy to meet with Jack alone. Jim speaks about how the war has affected him: “But I’m not accountable—not always, I tell you straight—not since I’ve been through that.”  He also shows Daisy that he has a knife with him. She is afraid that Jim will become violent.

Jack arrives and sees Daisy. He has promised himself a happy life if he lived to return home. He is extremely astute.  Jim quickly emerges from some bushes where he has taken cover and Jack immediately sees the knife in Jim’s pocket.  Jack discerns that Jim was wounded in combat and understands how the war has affected him. Jack does not try to reclaim Daisy, but he leaves as happy as he was when he arrived. This short play quickly demonstrates that many returning soldiers were wounded mentally as well as physically. The former affliction they may have for the rest of their lives. This remarkable play deserves to be to be read or seen on stage.

The Sun was premiered in 1922 at the Liverpool Playhouse where it was the first serious war play to be presented by this theatre. The Playhouse was primarily interested in presenting new short plays and it staged nearly one hundred of them. I found that only a few productions of this play were presented by local theatre groups outside of London after its premier.

The Sun was published in the United States in 1921 by Charles Scribners and Sons with five other short plays by Galsworthy including Defeat.  The book is titled Six Short Plays by John Galsworthy. The Sun was presented in 1922 by several American Little Theater groups particularly in California. It continued to be staged sporadically in different cities throughout the rest of the 1920s and into the middle 1930s.

In 1950 a production of The Sun was produced by NBC for American television viewing under the program titled “Chevrolet Theatre.” This production shown nationally starred British actors who also performed on Broadway: John Buckmaster (1915-1983) and Torin Thatcher (1905-1981).  The Girl was played by American actress Cara Williams (1925-    ).

Both Defeat and The Sun are thought-provoking plays that give meaningful insights into everyday situations World War One soldiers faced when they returned home.

NOTES:

1                  Photo: John Galsworthy and Disabled Soldiers of the Great War.

           Reznick, Jeffrey S. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.

    

2                    Maidenhair fern is known for its Lazarus effect of returning to life from the dead.

PAWNS OF WAR by BOSWORTH CROCKER

Bosworth Crocker (1861-1946) is the pseudonym of Mary Arnold Crocker Childs Lewisohn.  Childs was the family name of her first husband and Lewisohn was her second husband’s.*  Bosworth was her father’s middle name.  She was born in England, but her family moved to the United States when she was a child. 

Bosworth Crocker began her playwriting career during the first decade of the twentieth century. By the time she wrote Pawns of War, a three-act play, several of her one-act plays were staged and/or published. Pawns of War is a tribute to the nation of Belgium and its suffering under the boots of Germany during the first days of the 1914 invasion. Although it may have been written during the early years of the war, the play was not published until January, 1918.  The publisher was Little, Brown and Company, Boston.  John Galsworthy (1867-1933) the noted British playwright and novelist wrote the Forward for the book. (Galsworthy’s World War One play titled The Foundations is discussed in my post dated June 18, 2015.)

Galsworthy considered “Pawns” to be “very gripping”.  He also proclaimed it to be “so lifelike and so forceful.”  It is a realistic play that has the ability to grab ones emotions particularly as its moves toward the conclusion. The German General in this play is written in a manner that allows a reader to have a degree of pity for him. Through him one can understand that individuals on both sides of a war may be pawns in a piteous situation. 

A review of the play that appeared in The Dial, Volume 64, April 25, 1918 states: “Mr. Crocker, almost completely avoids the polemical emphasis.  The dramatist does not flinch from portraying the full horror of the whole brutal business, as that nationwide horror is reflected in the lives of one small household.”  This reviewer also mentioned that the final scene was “an eloquently restrained and pathetic climax.”

A review by Walter Prichard Eaton in the November, 1918 issue of The Bookman takes an opposite position.  He considered Pawns of War to be “a bald narrative, in dramatic form, with the subject-matter so horrible that your response is a shudder of nausea.”  He believed an audience in the theatre would not be able to stand this play since “it is too stark and murderous.”

Pawns of War has many plot similarities to other invasion of Belgium plays. Act One is set in the entry room of Doctor Albert Esterlinck’s home.  He is a surgeon and the burgomaster of the village of Aerschel, Belgium.  He is a fourth generation surgeon in his family and his father also had been burgomaster of this village. Esterlinck’s family consists of his wife, their adolescent daughter, and an adult son who has been ill. A young teenage son, who never appears on stage, was killed by the Germans as he attempted to get word about the invasion of his village to the Belgium government. This act begins to set-up the specific situation for the drama when the German General, Ludwig von Wahlhayn, commandeers the Doctor’s home for his headquarters. The family learns there is to be a proclamation written that states if any member of a household fires at a German soldier, the entire household will be put to death.

The second act is set the same as the previous one; however, it is later in the same day and the German General and his staff are in the dining room having supper. The proclamation has been written and it is to be posted immediately. The General and the Doctor leave the house. The only remaining soldier on the premises is the General’s Chief of Staff, named Falkenhorst. He has consumed too much wine.  He is attracted to the Doctor’s daughter and makes unwanted advances. She is frightened and her brother shoots him dead.

Act Three is also set in the same location.  It is this act I found the most original and moving. I have set the scene and established the conflict, but I do not want to reveal the conclusion of the play.  It is a fast read and the play is available in a digitized version on-line.

The publication of Pawns of War occurred during a productive time in Bosworth Crothers playwriting career. Her one-act play The Last Straw, written in 1916, was produced in August, 1917 by the Washington Square Players. Another one-act play The Baby Carriage was produced in 1919 by the Provincetown Players.  Five of her early one-act plays were published in 1923 under the title Humble Folk that includes The Baby Carriage. Most of these plays relate to issues encountered by impoverished immigrants living in the United States.  Crothers remained active as a playwright, drama critic and poet until the late 1930s.

·                * In 1906, Crothers married Ludwig Lewisohn (1882-1955).  He is remembered as a prolific novelist, scholar and critic. His autobiographical novel The Case of Mr. Crump (1922), considered by many critics as a major literary work, was not published in the United States until 1947.  Bosworth Crocker entered a libel suit, in the early 1920’s, to keep the book from being released in the United States.  She was angry about the fictionalized version of herself as depicted in this novel.