THE CRAFT OF COMEDY

“a work on the art and craft of comedy as important in its own way as works by Stanislavski and Chekhov” —Oxford Theatre Companion

In 1939, a young, inexperienced actor wrote to a famous actress of his acquaintance, asking for advice on playing comedy. She responded enthusiastically, and they corresponded variously over the next year. The Craft of Comedy, a record of these exchanges, soon emerged as one of the few classic texts in the field of comedy acting. This major new edition takes a brilliant book and makes it better. Editor Robert Barton has devised extensive supplementary material, including:

• an introduction to the correspondents, the culture of the time, and the evolution of their book; • summaries, definitions, and exercises and practice scenes for readers wishing to explore Athene Seyler’s invaluable advice; • photographs, additional essays by Seyler, and a guide to easily accessed video clips of her performing.

Seyler’s lucid guidance, and Barton’s scrupulous editorship, ensure this legendary work’s rightful status is restored: as one of the great practical guides to the craft of comedy, and an essential resource for actors and students of acting.

Robert Barton is the author of the books Acting: Onstage and Off (now in its 6th edition), Voice: Onstage and Off, with Rocco Dal Vera, Theatre in Your Life and Life Themes, with Annie McGregor, and Style for Actors (all in recent revised editions). His most recent text is Acting Reframes: Using NLP to Make Better Decisions in and out of the Theatre. His regular column “Many Right Ways” is published in The Voice and Speech Review. THE CRAFT OF COMEDY

The 21st century edition

Athene Seyler with Stephen Haggard Edited and adapted by Robert Barton First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Text © 2013 Athene Seyler and Stephen Haggard Editorial matter © 2013 Robert Barton The right of Robert Barton to be identified as author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-0-415-52723-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-52724-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-11902-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK CONTENTS

List of plates viii Acknowledgments x

Introduction 1 Cultural contexts 3 Athene Seyler 7 Stephen Haggard 16 How the book evolved 20

1 Distorted truth 23 Stephen to Athene, June 8, 1939 23 Reply, June 10 24 Summary 27 Concepts: revue comedy, non-comic acting, comic foundation, comic spirit, distorted truth, comic state of mind 27 Exercises: Comic perspective, Adding delight 28

2 Tight-rope walking 31 Stephen to Athene, June 17, 1939 31 Reply, June 30 34 Summary 39 Concepts: comedy through situation, comedy through character, comedy of being out of character, lack of balance, distortion, tight-rope walking, over-statement, over-emphasis, under-statement, shared secret, spiritual comprehension, personality, technique 39

v CONTENTS

Exercises: Personal tendencies, All out of proportion, Both sides now 40

3 Just do it 43

Stephen to Athene, July 20, 1939 43 Reply, July 21 46 Summary 53 Concepts: comedy essentials, national humor, farce, high comedy, comedy vein 53 Exercises: Delicate to broad, Sitting in fear, Bubbling with pleasure 54

4 Trust and confidence 57

Stephen to Athene, November 19, 1939 57 Reply, December 9 61 Summary 65 Concepts: confidence, taking the audience in, topping 66 Exercises: Assurance and creativity, Tricks of the trade 66

5 Rhythm 69

Stephen to Athene, January 15, 1940 69 Reply, January 22 74 Summary 84 Concepts: double take, breaking, rhythm, emphasis, business, breaking up the scene 84 Exercises: Scarfing, Opposition, Max and Anatol 85

6 Comedy of manners 87

Stephen to Athene, February 10, 1940 87 Reply, March 29 90 Summary 94 Concepts: leading up to a laugh, trodding on a laugh, antimodal comedy, three kinds of dramatic expression (poetic drama, straight drama or comedy, artificial or high comedy), leveling of emotion 94 Exercises: Period physical lives, Walk the walks 95

vi CONTENTS

7 Delicate decadence 97

Stephen to Athene, April 18, 1940 97 Reply, April 20 98 Summary 110 Concepts: interest, manners without morals, line delivery, types 110 Exercises: Character distinctions, Relish and detail 111

8 The acting profession 113

Stephen to Athene, May 6, 1940 113 Reply, May 16 115 Stephen to Athene, May 31, 1940 117 Summary 119 Concepts: professional prerequisites, pursuing stardom, career pitfalls, career compensations 120 Exercise: Self-analysis 120

Appendices A Seyler’s second thoughts 121 Summary 123 Concepts: spiritual antiseptic, two kinds of comedy, power of an audience, final enunciation, feed line 123 Exercises: Line or character?, Endings, Post mortem 124 B Fans, trains and stays 127 Applications: training, rehearsal, homework 133 C Plays referenced and scenes for practice 135 D Video clips 137 Athene Seyler 137 Stephen Haggard 138 E Tribute by Prunella Scales 139 F Additional sources – comedy books 143

vii PLATES

Plate section I Plates can be found between pages 22 and 23.

1. An early portrait of Athene Seyler with autograph 2. Seyler as Mrs. Carmichael in Plus Fours, Haymarket Theatre, 1923. Cover from the 1990 edition of The Craft of Comedy (London: Routledge) 3. Athene Seyler with her daughter Jane Ann Jones (from a brief early marriage to James Bury Sterndale Bennett) by Bassano. © National Portrait Gallery, London 4. Nicholas Hannen and Athene Seyler, London c.1952 (printed 2000) by David Moore. Gelatin silver print on photographic paper. Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. The series David Moore: From Face to Face was acquired by gift of the artist and financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AM and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001. Seyler lived with Hannen from 1922 to his death in 1972 (they married in 1960) 5. Athene Seyler as Millie Williams in the film The Weak and the Wicked, 1954, directed by J. Lee Thompson 6. Seyler as the Duchess of Berwick in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Haymarket Theatre, 1945. Cover from the 1957 edition of The Craft of Comedy (New York: Theatre Arts Books) 7. Caricature of Seyler as Dame Beatrice Appleby in Breath of Spring, from an album of drawings; Gilbert Sommerlad (1904–1976). © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

viii PLATES

Plate section II Plates can be found between pages 120 and 121.

8. Stephen Haggard as Marchbanks in Candida, Globe Theatre, 1936. Photograph by Angus McBean 9. Stephen Haggard, New York, 1934. Photograph by Avery Slack 10. Stephen Haggard and Peggy Ashcroft in The Seagull as Constantin Treplef and Nina Zarechnaya. Komisarjevsky’s production of Anton Chekhov’s play, The New Theatre, London, 1936. Courtesy of Lebrecht Photo Library 11. Stephen Haggard as René Latour in The Laughing Woman, by Josephine Tey, Wyndham’s, 1934. Photograph by Dorothy Wilding 12. Stephen Haggard as the Fool in King Lear, The New Vic, 1939. Photograph by Ian Dow 13. Stephen Haggard by Bassano. © National Portrait Gallery, London 14. Stephen Haggard in uniform, shortly after enlisting in July 1940. Photographer unknown

ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank my publisher Talia Rogers for encouraging this project as well as for undertaking other new versions of classic texts that deserve to regain attention. I am grateful to Sam Kinchin- Smith for shepherding the entire project through development and production. My thanks to all those accomplished actors, particu- larly the late, great Rex Rabold, who taught me that comic acting is an art unto itself and deserves the most minute and careful instruction, that while many are simply blessed with the gift, others can, with training, achieve it.

x INTRODUCTION

The Craft of Comedy is a classic, practical, much admired (and by many beloved) guide to comic acting. The Oxford Theatre Companion describes it as “a work on the art and craft of comedy as important in its own way as works by Stanislavski and Chekhov.” While records from the early part of the past century are not entirely reliable and the terms edition and printing are often interchanged, the book has now been published in at least four editions, twenty printings and five languages, since its initial release in 1943. Simon Callow has summarized the abiding regard with which it is held: “It’s one of the first books I ever read about acting and remains one of the best. An absolute miracle of insight and witty writing.” In 1939, a young, relatively inexperienced actor wrote to a famous successful actress of his acquaintance for advice on playing comedy. She responded enthusiastically. They had seven additional exchanges of letters, and then he wrote to her one last time, all within just under one year. Sadly, his death in World War Two preceded the actual publication of those letters and prevented his own career application of her words of wisdom. However, countless others benefited. This handful of letters proved so full of wise insights and useful tips that the book is regarded to this day as a major source on comic performance. The Craft of Comedy has a wide range of enthusiastic supporters from scholars to undergraduates, from professional actors and directors to academics. It is on the shelves of many

1 INTRODUCTION theatre practitioners, but its last publication was in 1990 and it is now largely unknown to Generations X and Y. This new edition keeps the wonderful letters intact, adding summary material, term definitions and suggested exercises for readers wishing to immediately apply the invaluable advice. It offers considerable supplementary introductory material regarding the lives of the correspondents, the culture of the time and the evolution of the book. It provides illustrations of both writers in and out of performance. Appendices include additional essays by Seyler, an introduction to video clips of her performances, plays referenced for practice and an annotated bibliography of texts on comic acting published more recently. The adaptation aims to introduce a new generation to the contents, while providing struc- ture that will allow readers to more easily scan and search the material, pull out salient points and apply the techniques discussed by Seyler. The book has always been innovative in eschewing elaborate theory in favor of pragmatic advice and in the format of letters exchanged instead of a single authorial voice. It was not formatted for classroom use, but rather for the individual reader. It has provided a challenge for some readers to excerpt and apply ideas and to instructors attempting to use it as a textbook. It is hoped this edition will aid these processes, for both the solo reader and for collective classroom contexts. The additions for this edition provide the kind of structure that would allow it to now be used as the primary text in an acting comedy class or as a supplementary text, employed for a unit on comedy in a more general acting class. But the reader addressed is still the individual actor who might open up a copy and decide to explore. If you are fortunate enough to be supported by classmates, castmates, teachers, directors or coaches, relish the feedback. But if you are flying solo, you can. Most of us who discovered this text between 1943 and now, did just that. Because it is now more than seventy years since the letters were exchanged, it is essential to establish historical context for the work and to ascertain what has changed between then and now.

2 INTRODUCTION

Cultural contexts The exchange of letters constituting The Craft of Comedy took place just prior to the outbreak of World War Two, an event often identified as the end of humanity’s collective innocence. Atrocities inflicted and horrors experienced eventually impacted theatre along with the other arts. Haggard seems to foresee this in I’ll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier’s Letter to His Sons (originally published in The Atlantic Monthly 1940). He had sent his wife and son to New York for their own safety after he enlisted:

My Dear Sons, You are both too young, thank God, to realize quite what it can have meant to me and to your mother to part as we have parted today. Britain is at war, of course, and life is full of partings just now. You and your mother are going to America to escape the possibility of a wretched fate. You are not going, as people of the last century went, with ambition and high hopes; you are not even going as the Mayflower pilgrims went, because they found the way of life in their own country insupportable. If that were the reason for your flight, there would be no great tragedy in it. There would be wretchedness, danger, hunger perhaps, the panic and despair which fill all refugees who are uprooted from the country and the people they have loved for generations. But you are fleeing because there is a chance – and on this twenty-fourth day of June 1940, a good chance – that all the wisdom, all the kindness, the education, the comradeship, the visionary development of the last fifty years, shall have proved of no avail in the battle against evil which is now raging.

When the letter was published in book form a few years later by Faber and Faber, the boys’ godfather Christopher Hassell wrote in the introduction that it had been a period where “we were bankrupt in time . . . desperately building dykes against

3 INTRODUCTION oblivion” and that “the sort of people we had been died almost overnight.” When Seyler writes that comedy should be free of malice and anger, she is referencing the body of work encompassing years prior to the war and its impact. This does not mean that the letters cannot be useful in any comic context, because comedy is comedy, but that the reader will find there are a number of forms of comedy as yet unknown to the correspondents. The writers do not address a more pervasive spectrum of what eventually came to be accepted as comedic, when theatre of the absurd and other darker pers- pectives emerged. And as more time now elapses between the origins of classical comedy (plays referenced in the exchange are for the most part written before 1895), the basic need and ultimate value of these tips for playing it will be even greater. Now it can also be more of a challenge to guide students who embrace the postmodern perspective as ordinary life, responding to experiences with an ironic, self referential edge, and being accustomed to comics who, according to media columnist Kevin McConough, “seem compelled to exude rage, blowtorch profanity and overall ‘edge’” into dramatic contexts where none of these exist. While all of us directing classical plays have had to devote considerable rehearsal time to guiding actors in the handling of corsets, capes, trains, fans, snuff and other unfamiliar clothing and props (see Appendix B, Seyler’s essay “Fans, trains and stays”) that task has become even more daunting. A colleague of mine recently mounted a contemporary play where characters were gathered for a formal dinner party. She found herself with male actors who had to learn to wear hard soled leather shoes and suit coats, because they did not own and had not experienced such garments, and some women cast members who needed to learn to move in long dresses and heels, which they had only worn to the prom, if then. So whenever a period costume is going to constrain and dominate a character’s movement, it will now be foreign territory to many actors, who will have no frame of refer- ence on which to build. If you do not know conventions and constraints of formal wear in your own time, where do you start to find connections in rehearsal to constraints of the past? This

4 INTRODUCTION simply means that the lessons will be more vital and the amount of rehearsal time required for mastery more extensive as time goes on. In our age of full disclosure, where nothing seems to remain secret or off limits, and the boundaries on what may be considered appropriate are constantly stretched, it can be puzzling to find that classical comedy often centers on debates over what is appro- priate behavior and what constitutes good manners. Decorum is simply assumed by all to be important even if characters dis- agree on exactly what it is. Seyler and Haggard also lived and wrote in a time when a sense of propriety dominated. For example, President Roosevelt was never photographed or filmed in a way that revealed he was restricted to a wheel chair, because that was univer sally regarded as disrespectful. There were also narrow standards of tolerated behavior. Film stars were actually censored by congress for making unconventional decisions in their romantic entanglements. The failure to accurately report the conditions of Haggards’ death and the failure of Seyler to be titled as most felt she deserved due to her living conditions (see their bios for further details) are all but unthinkable now and stand as vivid examples of what a different world it was then. While Seyler’s observations cover a wide range of comedic forms, the examples she most frequently references herein are from the plays of the Restoration. Unfortunately, many readers today, particularly in the US, will be unfamiliar or only vaguely aware of Restoration comedy. These plays, written between 1664 and 1700, reflect the “restored” British monarchy with Charles II returning from exile to the throne. Between the execution of his father Charles I in 1649 and this event, Puritanism of a most repressive and violent nature dominated England, with theatre itself even being outlawed in 1652. Politics replaced art. Essentially fun was outlawed during this interlude and then much sought after once it was over. The resulting plays focus on the antics of an aristocracy determined to make up for lost time in terms of decadent self-indulgence. Characters are often free of any moral code whatsoever, feeling an obligation to satisfy all appetites. Essentially anything goes provided it is done with well spoken panache.

5 INTRODUCTION

Restoration plays were always performed far more frequently in the UK than the US, are decreasingly done in either, and are widely regarded as the most difficult comedies to pull off successfully. If staged authentically in period, they require actors to achieve total command of accoutrements, which may include elaborate wigs, headdresses or hats, an abundance of lace and ribbons, fans, walking sticks, handkerchiefs and snuff. More importantly they require vocal precision in delivering lines. As Haggard says, actors must be able “to speak those long, artificial sentences with that mixture of precision and nonchalance which they require.” Most importantly they require the capacity to make these characters, who might be regarded as deplorable, adorable, or at their very least tolerable. The correspondents chose Restora- tion comedy to round out their letters, simply because it did and still does present the greatest challenges. The term “Restoration” is also sometimes used outside the period itself to refer to any style of comedy influenced by the plays of that time or to a particular style choice. In the eighteenth-century Georgian plays, while more wholesome characters may be at the center of the story, some genuine Restoration characters still emerge. Oscar Wilde’s late 1900s’ characters are in many ways Restoration with an absurd overlay of Victorian propriety. Noel Coward’s characters in the 1920s have practically returned to original narcissism. Many regard Captain Hook as a displaced Restoration villain. Some believe that Black Adder, no matter what period he is in, remains Restoration in nature. Many examples of arch, witty, removed Restoration characters exist outside the confines of their origins. Recently comedy has been exposed to science. We now know, for example, that there are fifteen facial muscles involved in laughter and that an animal story will get the biggest laugh if that animal is a duck. Seyler’s contention that laughter actually heals has been verified by solid scientific research. It would be interesting to subject all her ideas to scientific testing. She simply observes as a veteran drawing from her own singular experience. However, in the absence of empirical verification, we readers largely agree that those observations are spot on.

6 INTRODUCTION

Athene Seyler

(May 31, 1889 – September 12, 1990) “My work was my holiday to me, I enjoyed it so much. I had a smashing time.”

This sense of relish and sheer joy of performance seems to have consistently characterized Seyler’s work over an incredible 60-year career of nearly 200 roles, approximately 80 on film and 115 in the theatre. This averages out to three to four roles per year and there were no years in this astonishingly productive career in which she did not perform. The youngest, by ten years, of seven children, she and all her siblings were given Greek names by their Hellenophile father. She was educated at Coombe Hill, a progressive co-educational school where the emphasis lay on tutorials rather than textbooks. Family friend and neighbor, the legendary actor Sir Henry Irving encouraged Seyler to become an actor, perhaps after observing her in an early performance as a child, dancing a hornpipe and reducing the audience to helpless laughter when she acknowledged that her “draws fell down.” With his support, she applied for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Though she auditioned as Rosalind from As You Like It and gained a scholarship, her debut at the academy was as Charles the Wrestler in that play. She graduated as the gold medalist with top honors in 1908, despite being told by the pioneering female director and faculty member Lena Ashwell that she would never make an actress because of the way (“with poached-egg eyes and wizened quality”) she looked. Her first professional stage appearance was in 1909 at the Kingsway theatre portraying Pamela Grey in the play The Truants. It was Ashwell, with an apparent change of mind, who cast her in this role. Between her debut and the end of the First World War, Seyler appeared in almost thirty productions, in London and on tour, but it was not until 1920 at the Lyric, Hammersmith, that she began to attract considerable attention, first as Rosalind (at last and long identified as her favorite role).

7 INTRODUCTION

Seyler was recognized as one of the great technical experts on the playing of high comedy, mastering every element from the turn of a witty phrase to the eloquent manipulation of a fan. She was also regarded however as a great spontaneous, intuitive comic actor, exploring new ways to relish each moment in performance. She had a particular flair for Restoration comedy and excelled in Sir Nigel Playfair’s revivals, as Melantha in John Dryden’s Marriage a la mode and Mrs Frail in Love for Love by William Congreve. She would essay Lady Fidget in The Country Wife on three occasions and repeat Mrs. Frail as well. She made her silent film debut in 1921 as Rachel Wardle in The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick and appeared in other silent films during the 1920s. Seyler often alternated between the classics and scores of forgettable light comedies and between stage and screen. Long before Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren took on Elizabeth I, Seyler portrayed her in Drake of England (Royal Cavalcade) in 1935. Many of her roles were aristocrats with charac ters often listed as Dame, Lady, Duchess, Archduchess, Princess, Madame and even Czarina. She attracted considerable attention with her wry performance in Anthony Asquith’s delightful Quiet Wedding (1940), stealing scenes from a remarkable cast of ace character actors and in Dear Octopus (1943). Seyler was most active in film during the 1950s, with turns as Miss Witherfield in The Pickwick Papers (1952), the villain’s mother in Curse of the Demon (1957) and the stalwart Miss Pross in the 1958 version of A Tale of Two Cities. She was a regular cast member in screen adaptations of the novels of Charles Dickens. Her film and television career lasted into the 1960s, and included roles in The Avengers (1964, 1965). She eventually became particularly well known for playing slightly dotty older ladies. Two of her most successful hits were of this type. Her longest run (18 months) was as Veta Louise Simmon in Harvey. Her final stage appearance was in 1966, with her old friend Dame Sybil Thorndike as the sweetly murderous spinster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace. She officially retired from acting in 1970, but continued making public appearances until well into the 1980s, primarily on various talk shows.

8 INTRODUCTION

In 1950 she was elected president of RADA, where she had studied many years earlier. She was the first former pupil to hold that post. Gifted students at RADA each year were subsequently singled out for the Athene Seyler Award of Comedy. Also in 1950, Seyler became life president of the Theatrical Ladies Guild. In 1914, she married journalist James Bury Sterndale-Bennett. They had a daughter Jane Ann Jones, but divorced. In 1922 she met the actor Nicholas “Beau” Hannen, who was to be the love of her life. She began living with him that same year. She changed her name by deed poll to Hannen in 1928, but they were not to marry until 1960, after the death of his first wife, who had refused a divorce. Hannen died in 1972. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1959. Many believed that the title Dame of the British Empire (DBE) was withheld on account of her unmarried partnership with Hannen. She was sought after to write her autobiography and attempted to do so, but abandoned the project because “the central character bored me.” It was certainly true that, despite her considerable wit, her life itself was steady, filled with work and largely free of crisis. There probably would have been no startling revelations or personal drama, but rather charming anecdotes and tips for the rest of us on how she approached and mastered various roles. She was uncomfortable writing without specific prompts such as those Haggard provided her. While many twenty-first-century readers will not have known who Athene Seyler was prior to encountering this book, the same lack of familiarity was true in the final years of her life. Journalist Brian Sibley created the term “Seyler’s Disease” to describe the condition of being old enough that many in your profession do not know who you are. He wrote: It is said that Miss Seyler once arrived at the BBC for an interview and was collected from reception by a young secretary who was clearly unaware of the extent of the actress’ career. “So, Miss Seyler,” she said, making con- versation in the lift, “what else have you done?” Athene Seyler looked at the child and replied in a vaguely puzzled tone: “Do you mean this morning?”

9 INTRODUCTION

On the occasion of her 101st birthday, a celebration at the Royal National Theatre included her sharing vivid recollections of work- ing with G. B. Shaw, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Mrs Patrick Campbell, among other legendary figures. She died three months later on September 12, 1990 at the Coach House, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, where she had resided for over fifty years. Her ashes were placed in the Hannen family columbarum in St. Mary’s Churchyard.

Films/Television Note: Some of these films changed titles when released in the US. The original UK titles are listed here. In some instances, the name of the character Seyler played is not available.

1921 The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick, Rachel Warden 1923 This Freedom, Miss Keggs 1931 The Perfect Lady, Lady Westhaven 1932 Tell Me Tonight, Mrs. Pategg 1933 Early to Bed, Fran Weiser 1934 The Private Life of Don Juan, Theresa 1934 Blossom Time, Archduchess Maria Victoria 1935 Scrooge, Scrooge’s charwoman 1935 Drake of England, Queen Elizabeth I 1935 The Rocks of Valpre, Aunt Philippa 1935 Royal Cavalcade, Queen Elizabeth I 1935 Moscow Nights, Madam Anna Sabine 1936 Sensation, Madame Henry 1936 It’s Love Again, Mrs. Durland 1936 Southern Roses, Mrs. Rowland 1936 Irish for Luck, The Duchess 1937 The Mill on the Floss, Mrs. Pullet 1937 The Lilac Domino, Madam Alary 1937 Love and How to Cure It, Rowena 1937 Non-Stop New York, Aunt Veronica 1938 The Sky’s the Limit, Miss Prinley 1938 The Citadel, Lady Raebank 1938 Sailing Along, Victoria Gulliver

10 INTRODUCTION

1938 Jane Steps Out, Grandma 1938 Winter Sunshine, Sophie Lucas 1938 Many Waters, unknown 1938 The Breadwinner, unknown 1938 The Ware Case, Mrs. Pinto 1939 Johnson Was No Gentleman, Mrs. Peters 1939 The Saint in London, Mother Buckley 1940 Young Man’s Fancy, Milliner 1940 Castle of Crimes, unknown 1940 The House of the Arrow, unknown 1940 Tilly of Bloomsbury, Mrs. Banks 1941 Quiet Wedding, Aunt Mary 1943 Dear Octopus, Aunt Belle 1947 Nicholas Nickleby, Miss La Creevy 1948 The First Gentleman, Miss Knight 1949 The Queen of Spades, Princess Ivashin 1951 The Franchise Affair, Aunt Lin 1951 Young Wives’ Tale, Nancy Gallop 1952 The Secret People, Mrs. Redginald Kellick 1952 Treasure Hunt, Consuelo Howard 1952 The Pickwick Papers, Miss Witherfield 1952 Made in Heaven, Miss Honeycraft 1953 The Beggar’s Opera, Mrs. Trapes 1954 For Better, for Worse, Miss Mainbrace 1954 The Weak and the Wicked, Millie Williams 1955 As Long as They’re Happy, Mrs. Arbuthnot 1956 Yield to the Night, Miss Bligh 1957 Campbell’s Kingdom, Miss Abigail 1957 Night of the Demon, Mrs. Karswell 1957 Doctor at Large, Lady Hawkins 1957 How to Murder a Rich Uncle, Grannie 1958 Armchair Theatre: Night of the Ding Dong, Mrs. Beauchamp senior 1958 A Tale of Two Cities, Miss Pross 1958 Happy Is the Bride, Aunt Harriet 1958 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Jeannie Lawson 1959 Tales from Dickens, Uriah Heep 1959 The School for Scandal, Lady Candour

11 INTRODUCTION

1960 Make Mine Mink, Dame Beatrice Appleby 1960 A French Mistress, Beatrice Peake 1960 A Woman of No Importance, Lady Hunstanton 1961 The Girl on the Boat, Mrs. Hignett 1961 Jango: The Itching Fingers of Lady Ffoukes, Lady Ffoukes 1961 Visa to Canton, Mao Tai Tai 1961 Francis of Assisi, Aunt Buona 1962 Satan Never Sleeps, Sister Agnes 1962 Two and Two Make Six, Aunt Phoebe Tonks 1962 The Third Man: A Question of Libel, Lady Millicent Bridges 1962 I Thank a Fool, Aunt Heather 1963 Nurse on Wheels, Miss Farthingale 1963 Tin Pan Alice, unknown 1964 The Avengers: Build a Better Mousetrap, Cynthia Peck 1965 The Avengers: Man-Eater of Surrey Green, Dr. Cynthia Sheldon 1966 Armchair Theater: Don’t Utter a Note, unknown 1968 Play of the Month: The Old Ladies, Lucy Amorest 1968 Play of the Month: Waters of the Moon, Mrs. Whyte

Theatre 1909 The Truants, Kingsway Theatre, Pamela Gray 1909 Making a Gentleman, Garrick Theatre, Milly Chambers 1910 The Case of Rebellious Susan, Criterion Theatre, Elaine Shrimpton 1910 The Blue Bird, Haymarket Theatre, Water 1910–1911 Vision of Delight, His Majesty’s Theatre, unknown 1911 Lady Patricia, Haymarket Theatre, Clare Lesley 1911 The Perplexed Husband, Wyndham’s Theatre, Sophie Pelling 1912 Mrs. Dane’s Defense, New Theatre, Janet Colquhoun 1912 The Dusty Path, Playhouse, Kitty Scarcliffe 1913 The Great Adventure, Prince’s Theatre, Bristol, tour, Janet Cannot

12 INTRODUCTION

1913 Seven Days, New Theatre, Harrogate Playhouse, Anne Brown 1913 Thompson, Royalty Theatre, Helen 1914 The Two Virtues, St. James’s Theatre, Mrs. Jervoise 1915 Seven Days, New Theatre, Ann Brown 1915 The Debt, Coliseum Theatre, Mrs. Geddington 1915 The Rub, London Pavilion, Caroline Meek 1915 Mavourneen, His Majesty’s Theatre, Queen Catherine 1916 The Double Dealer, Queen’s Theatre, Cynthia 1916 The Great Redding Street Robbery, Coliseum, Liza 1916 The Widow’s Might, Haymarket Theatre, Mabel Tollinder 1918 Uncle Anyhow, Haymarket Theatre, Ermyntrude Farndom 1918 Roxana, Lyric Theatre, Betty Jackson 1919 Reparation, St. James’s Theatre, Lisa Portasov 1920 Marriage a la Mode, Lyric Hammersmith, Melanthia 1920 Kind Hearts and Coronet, Lyric Hammersmith, Polly 1920 As You Like It, Lyric Hammersmith, Rosalind 1920 His Lady Friends, St. James’s Theatre, Lucille Early 1920 The New Morality, Comedy Theatre, Betty 1921 Love for Love, Lyric Hammersmith, Mrs. Frail 1921 The Old Woman, Little Theatre, unknown 1921 Rounding the Triangle, Little Theatre, unknown 1922 Other People’s Worries, Comedy Theatre, Mrs. Ryecroft 1922 The Dover Road, Haymarket Theatre, Eustasia 1923 Plus Fours, Comedy Theatre, Mrs. Carmichael 1923 Isabel, Edward and Anne, Little Theatre, Mrs. Bucket 1923 The Coming of Gabrielle, St. James’s Theatre, Gabrielle 1923 Trust Emily, Criterion Theatre, Mrs. Delaney 1923 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Kingsway Theatre, Titania 1923 Shakespeare’s Birthday Festival, Old Vic, unknown 1924 The Mask and the Face, Everyman Theatre, Savinia Grazia 1924 The Country Wife, Regent Theatre, Mrs. Fidget

13 INTRODUCTION

1924 Much Ado About Nothing, Strand Theatre, Eustasia 1924 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Drury Lane, Hermia 1925 A Man with a Heart, Wyndham’s Theatre, Mrs. Hambledon 1925 The Torchbearers, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Mrs. Nelly Fell 1925 The Unfair Sex, Savoy Theatre, Diana Trevor 1926 Billeted, Royalty Theatre, Betty Tarradine 1926 Caroline, Playhouse, Maude Fulton 1926 The Gift Horse, Everyman Theatre, Janet 1926 The Country Wife, Everyman Theatre, Lady Fidget 1927 One More River, New Theatre, Lavinia Mildmay 1927 No Gentleman, St. Martin’s Theatre, Monica 1927 The Transit of Venus, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Cynthia Telford 1927 Their Wife, Little Theatre, Rosalie 1927 March Hares, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Claudia Kitts 1928 Skin Deep, Criterion Theatre, Olivia Brandon 1928 Napoleon’s Josephine, Fortune Theatre, Madame de Stael 1928 These Pretty Things, Garrick Theatre, Susie Parsons 1929 These Few Ashes, Duke of York’s Theatre, Madame de Seguin 1929 Red Sunday, Arts Theatre, The Czarina 1929 These Pretty Things, Arts Theatre, Susie Parsons 1929 The Last Enemy, Fortune Theatre, Clara Perry 1929 The Middle March, Many Waters, South African Tour, The First Mrs. Fraser 1930 The Importance of Being Earnest, Lyric Hammersmith, Miss Prism 1930 Marriage a la Mode, Lyric Hammersmith, Melantha 1930 A Business Marriage, Court Theatre, Diana Middlesham 1931 The Circle, Vaudeville Theatre, Lady Catherine 1931 Black Magic, Royalty Theatre, Margaret Huntington 1931 A Pair of Spectacles, Westminster Theatre, Mrs. Goldfinch 1932 Othello, St. James’s Theatre, Emilia

14 INTRODUCTION

1932 The Merchant of Venice, St. James’s Theatre, Nerissa 1932 Half Holiday, St. Martin’s Theatre, None Marvin 1932 As it Was in the Beginning, Arts Theatre, Tour of Egypt and Australia, Mabel Triton 1933 Twelfth Night, Old Vic, Sadler Wells, Maria 1933 The Cherry Orchard, Old Vic, Lyubov Andreyevna 1933 Henry VIII, Old Vic, The Old Lady 1933 The Importance of Being Earnest, Old Vic, Lady Bracknell 1933 Love for Love, Old Vic, Mrs. Frail 1933 Macbeth, Old Vic, First Weird Sister, Gentlewoman 1934 The Country Wife, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Lady Fidget 1934 Family Affairs, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Amy Wigmore 1934 Shakespeare’s Birthday Festival, Old Vic, unknown 1935 The Soldier’s Fortune, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Lady Dunce 1936 The Last of the Ladies, Ambassadors’ Theatre, Bella 1936 Winter Sunshine, Royalty Theatre, Sophie Lucas 1937 Love and How to Cure It, Globe Theatre, Rowena 1937 Candida, Globe Theatre and Paris, Prospertine Garnett 1937 The School for Scandal, Queen’s Theatre, Mrs. Candour 1938 People of Our Class, New Theatre, Elspeth Alderney 1939 Adults Only, Globe Theatre, Doris Sonning 1939 The Corn is Green, Duchess Theatre, Miss Moffatt 1939 Weep for Spring, tour, Ella 1939 The French for Love, Criterion Theatre, Amy 1941 The Cherry Orchard, New Theatre, London, Madame Raneska 1942 Watch on the Rhine, Aldwych Theatre, Fanny Farrelly (20-month run) 1944 The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, Savoy Theatre, Lady Frinton 1945 Lady Windermere’s Fan, Theatre Royal Haymarket, Duchess of Berwick 1949 Harvey, Prince of Wales Theatre, Veta Louise Simmons (18-month run) 1950 Who is Silvia?, Criterion Theatre, Caroline

15 INTRODUCTION

1952 First Person Singular, Duke of York’s Theatre, Amy Beringer 1952 Romeo and Juliet, Old Vic, Nurse 1953 A Woman of No Importance, Savoy, Lady Hunstanton 1953 Pygmalion, St. James’s Theatre, Hippodrome, Bristol, Mrs. Higgins 1954 Bell, Book and Candle, Phoenix Theatre, Miss Holroyd 1956 The Rivals, Saville Theatre, Mrs. Malaprop 1957 The Iron Duchess, The Cambridge, The Duchess of Whitadder 1958 Breath of Spring, The Cambridge, Duke of York’s Theatre, Dame Beatrice Appleby 1959 The Edwardians, Saville Theatre, The Dowager 1961 The Gentleman Dancing Master, Pembroke, Mrs. Caution 1962 The Chances, Chichester Festival Theatre, Mother 1964 The Dark Stranger, Ashcroft Theatre, Madame Rowlands 1964 The Reluctant Peer, Duchess Theatre, The Countess of Lister 1965 Too True to be Good, Edinburgh Festival, Strand Theatre, Mrs. Mopply 1966 Arsenic and Old Lace, Vaudeville, Martha Brester

Directing 1928 The Tragic Muse, Arts Theatre 1948 Dandy Dick, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith

Stephen Haggard

(March 21, 1911 – February 25, 1943) Seyler wrote this author’s note to the first edition of the text:

At the moment when the first specimen pages of this book were sent to me by the publishers came the news of Stephen Haggard’s death on acting service in Egypt.

16 INTRODUCTION

The joy and interest we had shared in this corres- pondence are now most poignantly clouded for me. But his enthusiasm and youth, the vivid quality of his mind, and the grace of his spirit shine in these letters; and I am glad to be able to send them out as a true remembrance of him.

Most readers would assume that Haggard was killed in combat in the Second World War. The actual circumstances of his death and the events leading to it are quite different and somewhat startling. Stephen Hubert Avenel Haggard was born on March 21, 1911, in Guatemala City, Guatemala. His parents were Sir Godfrey Haggard, a British diplomat and his French Canadian/American wife Georgianna Ruel Haggard. As diplomat’s children, Stephen and his sisters were raised in a variety of countries. He was educated at Haileybury College, a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. After a brief attempt at journalism, he moved to Munich, where he studied for stage at the Munich State Theatres. His stage debut was in the play Das Kluge Kind (The Smart Child) directed by the legendary Max Reinhardt at the Schauspelhaus in October 1930. He later played the title role in Hamlet at the same theatre. Returning to the UK in 1931, he was at first hired only for small roles in London and worked in repertory in Worthing, before deciding to pursue further study at RADA. In 1933, he received good notices as Silvius in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The playwright Clemence Dane discovered him and Haggard made his New York debut in 1934 as the poet Thomas Chatterton in her play Come of Age. Returning to England, he had considerable success in Flowers of the Forest, Whiteoaks and most notably as Konstantin in Chekhov’s The Seagull. Haggard married Morna Christian Gillespie in Oxfordshire in September 1935. They had three sons in rapid succession, one of whom died in infancy. He appeared onstage with some of the great actors of the twentieth century. In addition to Seyler, he performed with John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Jessica Tandy and Trevor Howard.

17 INTRODUCTION

He appeared as Mozart in the 1936 film Whom the Gods Love. In 1938 he returned to New York to reprise his role as Finch in Whiteoaks, which he also directed. Other films include The Duchess of Malfi (1938), Johnson Was No Gentleman (1939), Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn (1939) and The Tempest (1939). He appeared as Lord Nelson in the 1942 Carol Reed film The Young Mr. Pitt. His interests and skills went considerably beyond acting. As an author, Haggard published poetry, drama, essays and fiction, with his novel Nya released in 1938. The aforementioned letter he wrote to his sons at the start of the war. I’ll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier’s Letter to His Sons, was published in The Atlantic Monthly and later reprinted by Faber and Faber (1945). The Unpublished Poems of Stephen Haggard was released by Salamander Press in 1945. He also composed music for the 1941 film, Old Bill and Son. He and Athene Seyler acted together in the plays Candida and Love and How to Handle It (1937), appeared in the short film Johnson Was No Gentlemen (1939), and in Haggard’s play Weep for the Spring (1939), where they established a warm friendship in which he considered her a mentor. Their exchange of letters occurred between and June 8, 1939 and May 31, 1940, when he was twenty-eight and she was fifty. At the outbreak of World War Two, his wife and sons went to the United States where his father was consul-general in New York. Haggard joined the British Army, serving as a captain in the Intelligence Corps, posted to the Department of Political Warfare in the Middle East. There he met broadcaster R. D. Smith who recruited him to play starring roles in his radio productions of Henry V and Hamlet in Jerusalem. Smith’s wife, writer Olivia Manning, later based the character Aidan Sheridan in her Fortunes of War novel sequence on Haggard. While very few could be said to prefer a life of fighting in a world war or being separated from their families, Haggard found himself deeply ill suited to and unsettled by these circumstances. His dedication to I’ll Go to Bed at Noon, reads:

18 INTRODUCTION

To PAUL, PIERS, AND MARK Whose coming hither Consoles me for my going hence.

All three boys were under five years of age and he was missing their early formative years. His London residence was destroyed in a bombing raid, so while it proved fortuitous that his family had moved to New York, it also meant there was no home to return to. As a Pacifist, who nevertheless felt compelled to fight Hitler’s power, he was consistently conflicted by warring beliefs. Though many other actors’ careers were interrupted by the war and then resumed after, Haggard somehow convinced himself that his own had been ruined by it and would never revive. While in the Middle East, he fell in love with and had an affair with a beautiful Egyptian married woman residing in Palestine. Feeling overworked and inept, he was believed to be on the edge of nervous breakdown when after some months the woman decided to end the relationship. Haggard shot himself on a train between Cairo and Palestine on February 25, 1943 at the age of thirty- one. He was buried in Heliopolis War Cemetery, in Cairo, and the actual circumstances of his death were hidden from the public. They were not even acknowledged in his biography The Timeless Quest written by Christopher Hassall and published in 1948. The publication of that volume, his collected poems, his extended essay, the modeling of his character in the Sheridan series, not to mention the publication of The Craft of Comedy, gained him considerable recognition after his tragically short life. In her second letter, Seyler writes that she believes “that if we try our hand at the technical craft of playing comedy we may in the process enlarge our own personality in a comedic direction.” Her last letter ends with this advice for William Eager, though she clearly knows that is actually Stephen Haggard: “And beg him from me to keep uppermost in his mind that the sense of propor- tion which is so essential to comedy – and to life.” Haggard enlisted a month after writing the last letter that would become this book. It is tempting to imagine an alternative course

19 INTRODUCTION where he would have taken on a challenging comedic role, applying all the elements of Seyler’s indomitable comic spirit to his character and perhaps, as well, to his life.

Film/Television 1936 Whom the Gods Love, Mozart 1937 Knight Without Armor, uncredited minor role 1938 The Duchess of Malfi, Antonio 1939 Jamaica Inn, The Boy, Sir Humphreys’ Gang 1939 Johnson Was No Gentleman, Philip Stanhope 1939 The Tempest, Ariel 1940 Fear and Peter Brown 1942 Young Mr. Pitt, Lord Nelson

Theatre 1930 The Smart Child 1931 Hamlet 1933 As You Like It, Silvius 1934 Coming of Age, New York, Thomas Chatterton 1935 Flowers of the Forest 1935 White Oaks, Finch 1935 Crime and Punishment, Embassy Repertory Theatre 1936 The Seagull, The New Theatre, Konstantin 1936 Candida, Love and How to Cure It, Globe Theatre, Marchbanks and Arthur 1938 White Oaks, New York (revival), Finch 1939 King Lear (w/John Guilgud), The Old Vic, Fool

How the book evolved By the late 1930s, Seyler was widely regarded as one of the comic masters. Reviews not infrequently identified her as a “scene stealer,” with one critic lauding her for getting away with “comic larceny.” While she was most gentle and supportive of other actors, it became clear that they would need to be at the top of their game to play in her league. So the time inevitably came when

20 INTRODUCTION she was asked to describe how she did it. Seyler was recruited by a publishing house in the spring of 1939 to write her views on and approach to comedy. The British Drama League was releasing a series of handbooks on various aspects of theatre of which her volume would be one. She had given a highly regarded speech at the opening of a summer school she ran in the country and the publishers suggested that she take that and expand it into a prac- tical treatise on playing comedy. However, while she was comfort- able speaking, she was generally miserable and insecure writing. She soon gave up because she considered what she had written “pretentious, portentous, and dreadful.” Haggard was comfortable and skilled with writing in various formats. In fact they were appearing together on tour in a play of his authorship, Weep for the Spring (later revised and retitled House in Shadow), at the time. She presented her dilemma to him and asked if he could offer any assistance. He immediately came up with an idea that would put her at ease. He asked if she enjoyed writing letters. She responded enthusiastically that she did and he suggested that perhaps he could write to her for advice and she could respond. They were also presenting The Wedding Morning (referenced and excerpted in the text) as a curtain raiser during part of the tour and he was having difficulty playing Anatol, so suggested they might begin with his asking for help on the comedic challenges of that role. After an initial exchange of letters, they decided it would be more effective if they were corresponding about someone else, perhaps an actor with less experience and training than Haggard himself. They decided that they should write as if he was asking for a friend, so the imaginary William Eager, ardent though inept member of an amateur dramatic society, eager to leave his day job at a bank for a life in the theatre, was created and Haggard took on the role of a go-between in passing on the advice. At the same time, he acknowledged in his letter that he hoped to pick up a few tips for himself. This format obviously worked well and Frederick Muller and Co., in what must be regarded as an unusual decision then as now, opted to publish the letters, without any editorial comment. While Haggard was far from an amateur, comedy was not his

21 INTRODUCTION forte. His professional successes had been largely as tortured characters and he was not known for his lightness of touch in performance. He even reported “I find I laugh very rarely at the average English comedy. I am told this is because I have no sense of humor.” Seyler herself described the differences in their approaches thus:

In playing with him, I always felt an element of discomfort for he was obviously conscious of his performance, seriously weighing it, observing and checking up his mental criticisms. I like to let go my reasoning faculty at a performance and enjoy the impact of an audience and the inspiration of the moment.

While she praised “his passionate attention to the vision of perfection” as something that “marked him off from lesser folk,” she also expressed that “he was so meticulous and painstaking that he never caught the inspiration to convey what he undoubtedly understood intellectually.” When their director, Michel St. Denis was asking for a particular, though confusing effect, Haggard kept trying ever more precisely to identify it. Seyler stated that in the same situation “I would have tried wild, hit or miss methods to capture my producer’s intentions.” These contrasting tendencies to analyze in great detail on his part and to jump in and wing it on hers make for a dynamic exchange in the letters themselves. You can almost feel him persuading her to stop and consider more what she does and her persuading him to let go and play.

22 Plate 1 An early portrait of Athene Seyler with autograph

Plate 2 Seyler as Mrs. Carmichael in Plus Fours, Haymarket Theatre, 1923 Plate 3 Athene Seyler with her daughter Jane Ann Jones (from a brief early marriage to James Bury Sterndale Bennett) by Bassano. © National Portrait Gallery, London Plate 4 Nicholas Hannen and Athene Seyler, London c.1952 (printed 2000) by David Moore, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Seyler lived with Hannen from 1922 to his death in 1972 (they married in 1960) Plate 5 Athene Seyler as Millie Williams in the film The Weak and the Wicked, 1954

Plate 6 Seyler as the Duchess of Berwick in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Haymarket Theatre, 1945 Plate 7 Caricature of Seyler as Dame Beatrice Appleby in Breath of Spring, Gilbert Sommerlad. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London