LA PAIX (PEACE) by MARIE LENERU

Marie Lenéru (1875-1918) was born in France and while she is not a recognized name today, she began to gain major notice as a playwright in Paris during 1910. Her reputation grew with each new play and it spread to English speaking countries as well. Her death in September of 1918 resulted from the Spanish influenza pandemic, but it did not deter the spread of her reputation since several of her dramas were performed in major theatres of Paris after the war and her journal was published posthumously. 

Marie Lenéru was a remarkable individual who surmounted major medical problems during her youth. Sometime between ten to eighteen years old, she contracted scarlet fever that left her deaf and nearly blind. These afflictions plagued her for the remainder of her life.  She was frequently referred to as France’s Helen Keller (1880-1968).

Marie and her mother, her father died when she was an infant, moved to Paris in 1902.  Within a few years, Marie’s writings began to attract attention.  Her first play La Vivante (The Awakening) won the literary prize, La Vie Heureuse, in 1908. The prize included publication by Hachette, an established publisher. La Vivante was produced in 1910 by the Odéon theatre.  Her second play La Redoutable was produced on the same stage in 1912, but due to negative responses it was withdrawn after a few performances.   

When Lenéru submitted her third play, La Triomphatrice (Woman Triumphant), to the Comedie-Française in 1914, it was reported in many American and British newspapers that this distinguished French theatre was considering it for production.  The Comedie-Française had not produced a new play by a women since the nineteenth century when works of George Sand (1804-1876) and Delphine de Girardin (1804-1855) had been staged.  Lenéru’s play was accepted for production by the Comedie-Française, but the war interrupted its production schedule and the play eventually premiered in January, 1918.

World War One changed Lenéru’s focus and she became an avid, deeply thoughtful pacifist who was against all wars.  She advocated for the need to ensure a lasting peace through the establishment of a council of international leaders. She was a follower of the ideas espoused by both H. G. Wells (1866-1946) and Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who was President of the United States during the war.

Inspired by her strong political feelings, she wrote her next play La Prix (Peace). She completed the writing in 1917, but the action of the play takes place after the war is won by the Allies. The Odeon theatre presented this play commencing on February 12, 1921.

Peace is a play in four acts with five to nine French scenes in each act. It takes place in the autumn of 1918 during the Paris Peace Conference and all the scenes in Acts One through Three are set in the salon of a chateau. The owner of the chateau died in the war as had two of his three sons. The wife is grieving and keeps herself fairly removed from her guests. The older generation in this play is aged forty-two to fifty five years. Their children are eighteen to twenty-two years and the house-guest from England, Lady Mabel Stanley, is thirty-three years old.  The ages were specified by the playwright on the characters list.   Lenéru wanted audiences to identify with the age ranges and to realize that anyone in these age groups could be involved in another horrific war during their lifetimes. 

Lady Mabel strongly supports the idea that the Paris Peace Conference do more than merely provide a truce document.  She states her vision during Act One, Scene 4:

 . . . a league composed of men of all parties, who have finally been able to organize themselves into concern, who are agreed on a program, a sort of “copybook” of peace, which will impose on their representatives, on Parliament to begin with and through that as an intermediary to the world leaders at the Congress.

Mabel believes that “War must never happen again.” This is her position throughout the play and she has an ally in Graham Moore, who is a British representative at the Paris Conference and a visitor at the chateau.  The other men in the play are French as well as professional soldiers who believe in the nobility of their profession.  This is a play not based on action, but on a thorough discussion of the state of peace once a truce has been written and accepted.  

 Act Four is set in Mable’s guest-room in the chateau, Jean Gestel, the youngest son and only surviving heir of the chateau owner, has just resigned his military position to join the soldier for peace movement that Mabel supports. Moore returns to the chateau to tell Mabel that their idea failed to be ratified at the conference. Mabel knows she will continue to press for her ideas, but the play concludes with her final thought “Where are those who only want to live to make peace?”

Lenéru truly understood the tenuous circumstances and political ambitions surrounding any peace truce made at the conclusion of World War One.  She believed, without a doubt, that there would be another horrific war within the lifetime of her characters. She wrote an essay that supported her reasoning.  It is titled “Le Temoin” (The Witness) and it was published in The Book of France (1915). The Spectator reported in its 31 July 1915 issue that The Book of France was the idea of a British committee who desired to include “contributions by some first minds of France.”  The profits from the book were “to assist French sufferers from German barbarity.”  The Spectator also mentions that the authors and translators gave their work without compensation.

La Paix was published in French on January 1, 1922 by Grasset. I read the English translation by Claire Tylee that appears in War Plays by Women: An International Anthology (published by Routledge, 1999). 

The early years of the 1920’s marked continuing interest in Marie Lenéru since several of her plays received productions in Paris. The Journal of Marie Lenéru was published in France in 1923 and it was a great success.  It was translated into English and published in January, 1924 by Macmillan and Company.  Announcements about the English publication of “The Journal” were printed in many newspapers across Great Britain and the United States. Lenéru was widely known for her literary talents as well as her courage to persevere despite being nearly blind and deaf.

NOTE: I have briefly discussed the major theme of Peace, but there are other significant ideas

 beyond the one I outlined.  There is a detailed article about this play on-line titled

      “Women, War, and H.G. Wells: The Pacifism of French Playwright Marie Lenéru.”

      The author is Nancy Sloan Goldberg. The article appeared in “War Literature, 

       and the Arts” 2002.  

            Photo: Modern Drama by Women 1880s-1930s. Katherine E. Kelly, editor. London:
            Routledge, 1996.

VAN DRUTEN’S THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER

John van Druten’s (1901-1957) three act play titled The Return of the Soldier (1928) is an adaption of Rebecca West’s (1892-1983) 1918 novel of the same name.  West’s book was considered a “unique war story” since “it deals with a heretofore unknown pathological condition—shell shock.”  While these particular quotes are from the San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 1918, I have read similar statements in other American and British newspapers. This was West’s first novel and it was widely read in Great Britain, where it first published, and across North America.

On August 10, 1926 a short newspaper notice appeared in the London papers announcing “Constance Collier (1878-1955, a celebrated actress) and Rebecca West are collaborating on a dramatization of Miss West’s story “The Return of the Soldier,” which is one of England’s best known war tales.”  The next day the same short announcement appeared in newspapers across the United States. 

By the end of 1926  or early 1927, John van Druten, whose first successful play titled Young Woodley had been produced in London during the 1925 season, convinced Rebecca West to let him write the dramatic version of The Return of the Soldier. He completed his version sometime in 1927.

Act One of The Return of the Soldier is set in the drawing-room of a manor house located in Harrow Weald, a wooded area northwest of London that was not highly developed in the spring of 1916. The time of day is afternoon.  Captain Chris Baldry had been happily married for ten years. Due to wounds he received in France, he suffered from amnesia that erased his memories of the past fifteen years of his life. This situation was considered to be a form of shell-shock, an unknown condition prior to World War One.  When Chris returns home to Baldry Court during Act One, he only seems to find comfort when he is with Margaret, a woman he had been in love with fifteen years earlier. He has no recollection of his wife, Kitty, or anything that occurred during that time span. He remembers his two cousins, Jenny and Frank, but only as they were earlier in life.

Act Two is in the drawing-room the next afternoon. Margaret, “a faded, dowdy woman of about thirty-six” who is married to “a pathetic little middle-aged clerk,” comes to Baldry Court to spend time with Chris. They discuss the past as if it was yesterday and Chris wishes to spend time only with Margaret.

Act Three is the same location one week later.  It is afternoon. Chris has seen a number of doctors and no one has any idea about a cure.  The family’s last hope is Doctor Gilbert Anderson, who pays a house call. He is articulate about the problem, but not sure he can actually cure it. He speaks with everyone involved in the situation including Margaret. It is during this conversation that Margaret realizes she knows how to assist Chris regain his memory.  She selects two items that belonged to his son, who died when he was five years old. The remedy is conducted off-stage and it is reported that Chris’s memory is restored. Margaret returns to her life with her husband and it is assumed that life at Baldry Court will return to normal.

While the novel was a sensational success, the play seemed to have less appeal. I started to wonder about the basic differences between the novel and the drama.  Obviously the novel was timely in 1918, but the differences had to be more significant than the fact the play premiered ten years after the novel burst upon the scene. I decided to read the novel before writing this post. 

The novel contains a considerable amount of dialogue that the playwright incorporated into the play. The characters said most of the same sentences on stage that they had uttered in the book. The major departure from the novel is that West created Jenny as the narrator of the story.  The play does not have Jenny as narrator.  Therefore, the play’s audiences lose many of Jenny’s insightful thoughts about the entire situation.

The other major difference that some critics believed weakened the play is the ending. The Times of London reviewed the play on June 13, 1928. The reviewer thought “the weak spot in the play was that Chris never returned to the stage once he was cured.” While the plot revolves around Chris, its main focus is the impact his illness has on his family members and Margaret. It is this aspect of the story that van Druten tried to strengthen, but the play script left me wondering about how Chris reacted to having regained his memories of the past fifteen years.

The play opened on June 12, 1928 at the Playhouse Theatre, a venue that seated approximately 680 in the West End London theatre district.  The reviews were basically positive and Mary Clare (1892-1970) was praised for her portrayal as Margaret. 

The play received its U.S.A. copyright in 1927 and it was published in 1928 by Victor Gollancz Ltd. of London. British dramatic societies produced the play once it closed in London. The Northampton Mercury ran a short story in 1933 that announced van Druten decided to grant no further performing rights to amateurs for The Return of the Soldier.  There was no reason provided and the play disappeared. 

A radio production was created and I found a notice that it was to be broadcast in North England on December 12, 1952.  This radio version may have been produced at an earlier time however, I have not found any additional information. The 1982 film titled The Return of the Soldier was developed from the novel. It gives no credit to van Druten.

Van Druten’s work as a playwright developed into very successful career following The Return of the Soldier. He was best known for his comedies and several of them are adaptations of novels—I am a Camera (1951) and I Remember Mama (1944). He was a prolific playwright and screenwriter particularly in the 1940’s and fifties. He directed many successful Broadway productions in addition to his contributions as a playwright.