A Character Type in the Plays of Edward Bond Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Frank A. Torma, M. A. Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Jon Erickson, Advisor Richard Green Joy Reilly Copyright by Frank Anthony Torma 2010 Abstract To evaluate a young firebrand later in his career, as this dissertation attempts in regard to British playwright Edward Bond, is to see not the end of fireworks, but the fireworks no longer creating the same provocative results. Pursuing a career as a playwright and theorist in the theatre since the early 1960s, Bond has been the exciting new star of the Royal Court Theatre and, more recently, the predictable producer of plays displaying the same themes and strategies that once brought unsettling theatre to the audience in the decades past. The dissertation is an attempt to evaluate Bond, noting his influences, such as Beckett, Brecht, Shakespeare, and the postmodern, and charting the course of his career alongside other dramatists when it seems appropriate. Edward Bond‟s characters of Len in Saved, the Gravedigger‟s Boy in Lear, Leonard in In the Company of Men, and the character in a number of other Bond plays provide a means to understand Bond‟s aesthetic and political purposes. Len is a jumpy young man incapable of bravery; the Gravedigger‟s Boy is the earnest young man destroyed too early by total war; Leonard is a needy, spoiled youth destroyed by big business. There is a sense in these young people that they are just starting out, inexperienced in the social situation Bond dramatizes in his work, and that they are doomed to be failures. Richard Scharine early on in Bond‟s career dubbed such characters Bond Innocents. They are optimistic and inquisitive souls, identifiable in art and life. ii A difficulty in the characterization occurs in how Bond utilizes the character type politically. In some cases, the character is deemed heroic by Bond when he is not. In other cases, he is the example of someone not following the right path, unnecessary for the socialist future, or he is just unnecessary for those onstage, who consider him, after he is used, a creature of insignificance. Bond‟s political ardor is intense. Characters, such as innocent bystanders during war, may be eliminated with only some regret. The political cause, the ends, justifies the means. The ethical mistake of destroying innocent characters, the dissertation suggests, is what makes Bond‟s theatre not the most engaging example of late 20th century political art. The man who is famous for showing situations of torture on stage becomes, through his continuing disregard for the naïve character, notorious for his misuse of the naïve and fledgling. iii Dedication For Dennis Torma iv Acknowledgements I thank my advisor, Jon Erickson, for working with me as I pursued my graduate studies. His insights as my advisor were very helpful, illuminating, and challenging. I greatly admire and respect Jon; he is an exemplary teacher and writer. Similarly, I need to thank Walter Davis for his encouragement. My appreciation of the dissertation committee needs mentioning. Joy Reilly and Richard Green, thank you for your kind attention and thoughtful care. I need also to acknowledge other professors whose patience, care, and intelligence helped me grow as a student: Nancy Mettler, Bruce Blake, Sally Slocum, Thomas Nash, and James Battersby. Thanks, Dan, for educating me with your example. I wish to also thank the many fellow workers at The Ohio State University, who supported my educational progress: Nance Hoza, Stephanie Sanders, Marge Bennett, Rich Chappell, Tammy Spears, Judy Robinson, Marie Taris, Debbie Goff, William Karl, Shereen Midkiff, Phyllis Miller, Susan Schnell, Lisa Ashbrook, Jennie Keplar, and Jude Grant come to mind, although there are many more. I thank my parents, Frank and Rose, and my family (Nanci, Michael, Dan, and Dennis) for their instilling in me a love of knowledge and the need for humor and compassion. Thanks to Sue Yovichin for friendship; thanks to William Panning for opening doors. Gratitude is given to Nicole, Dylan, Cody, and Dennis Torma for giving me shelter, comfort and support. Finally, acknowledgement needs be made of Becky and Hannah Torma, two creative spirits I am fortune to know and live with daily. v Vita June 1966…………………………………..Firestone High School 1981………………………………………..B.A., English, University of Akron 1987………………………………………...M.A., English, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English vi Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication…………………………...………………………………………………...….iv Acknowledgments…………………...………………………………………………….....v Vita…………………………...…………………………………………………………...vi Chapter 1: “I was in the trees.” 1.1 Len………………… ……………………………………………...1 1.2 Len and Pam…….…………………………………………………6 1.3 The Absurd……………………………………………………….12 1.4 Realism…………………………………………………………....19 1.5 Hyperrealism………………………………..…………….………29 1.6 Overstressing History.……….…....…………………..…………..35 1.7 Aggro-effects…………….………..……………………………...41 1.8 Resisting the audience………………….………………………....47 1.9 Len in the Oedipal Drama…………….……..……………………56 1.10 Len as Ethical Hero…………...…………………….……………61 1.11 Len and Scopey…….………………………………………….....64 1.12 The Three Lens……………………….………..…………………69 vii Chapter 2: “Why do I want to dig graves all my life? 2.1 The Gravedigger‟s Boy.….…………………………………………74 2.2 Dialogue…………………………...……………………….……….83 2.3 Aggro-effects.…………………….…………….……………….…..89 2.4 Lear as Political Hero.......…………………………………………..92 2.5 Lear and King Lear.……………………………..…………………..97 2.6 Bond and Brecht on Shakespeare………………....………………..104 2.7 Negative Capability……..………………….………………………112 2.8 Modern Adaptations of Shakespeare…………………………...…..122 2.9 Lear‟s Dramatic Form……...……………………………...……….131 2.10 The Son in Bingo..…….…………………………….……….……..140 Chapter 3: “But I think he had to destroy the innocent boy.” 3.1 Sacrifice…………………...…..…………………...……….…..…..146 3.2 Nature and History…………………..………………...……...……160 3.3 Bond‟s progress with Brecht……………………………………….169 3.4 The Turn to Terrorism……....……………………………….…......180 3.5 Moral Callousness…………..…....………………………..…….…193 3.6 Paradoxes in Sacrifice……..………………...….……...…….….…202 viii Chapter 4: “We are all bastards but we don‟t deserve this.” 4.1 Leonard…………....……………………………..….………….….216 4.2 Olly…………………....………………………..……….……….…229 4.3 Successors…………………………....……………………………..234 4.4 Imprecision…………………………....……..………..……………243 4.5 Ethics and Comedy…………….………………………..…………249 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………252 References...…...…………………………………………………………….…………...261 ix Chapter One: “I was in the trees.” 1.1 Len In Edward Bond‟s Saved, the audience learns that Len, previously considered free of any entanglement in an infant‟s horrific death, actually witnessed the killing of the baby in the park. “I juss saw,” is Len‟s statement of involvement, “I was in the trees” (Bond, Saved 86). “In the trees” is a rather poetic turn of phrase in a play noted for its blunt language. Perhaps Len was “in the trees” in that he was in the treed section of the park, hiding behind a tree trunk as the men bashed the baby to death. Perhaps Len was “in the trees” by truly climbing a tree, watching the baby‟s torture between the branches. Len offers the information not as a confession of guilt. If there is regret in Len‟s voice, it is based on his concern for the man who has been jailed for the crime. If Len had acted, perhaps the man would not be where he is. Len tells of his passive witnessing of the event to Fred, now in prison for the baby‟s murder. It is an ironic situation: Fred is the only one caught of the entire group that tortured the baby to death. The other murderers have got off scot-free. Scapegoat justice suffices in this world of dysfunctional law and order. Society, in the form of a wrathful mob of women, roars ineffectively in anger on the streets as Len, Fred, and the baby‟s mother, Pam, talk in the jail. Fred takes no blame for the death. He hides the truth of his group‟s involvement from the police – it was a bunch of toughs he never saw before who killed the child. He blames the fact that he is young as the reason the police 1 will not believe him. He also blames the baby‟s mother, Pam. She should never have had a baby; she should never have brought the baby to the park. Ultimately, it really does not matter anyway, he reasons: “It was only a kid” (Bond, Saved 85). If Fred shrugs off responsibility, similarly irresponsible is Len, who does not seem to think too much about his participation in the crime. He just didn‟t know what to do, he tells Fred. In an interview with Christopher Innes, Edward Bond gives an assessment of his approach to playwriting. “I don‟t think in categories. It‟s totally inappropriate to what I try to do, which is strictly analytical. If it [a play] is fantastic then it seems to be because reality is fantastic, and I‟m merely recording the absurd or the fantasy which is sometimes present in life . .” (Innes, “Rationalism” 109). The recording of the absurd and the fantastic can be easily seen in Bond plays like Early Morning, with its lampooned characterizations of the royal family and other Victorian icons, as well as in the grotesque situation of the conjoined twins, Princes Arthur and George. The absurd can pop up in a Bond play occasionally, as it does in the last moments of The Pope’s Wedding. The absurd also can be seen in Saved, with its character of Len, someone “in the trees,” someone whose feet are not fully on the ground. W. B. Worthen parallels Bond‟s work with Brecht‟s, where “„realistic‟ and experimental attitudes are tried out . .” (qtd. in Worthen 90). Published notebooks show the young playwright shaping his ideas on Saved‟s composition. “For a long time one sees shapes of moving figures bulging behind a canvas, and then a hand, a whole arm, a shoulder and even a head, break through” (Bond, Notebook I, 71).