Terence Rattigan: The Man and His Work by Michael Darlow and Gillian Hodson (review)

Book Reviews adduces a combination of classical. historical. and contemporary matter that considerably enriches our understanding. Such references as "Egeria" and "the fall of the Rupee" are fully yet concisely glossed, while "the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us" and other morc complicated points receive extended elucidation in an appendix. Readers with firsthand knowledge of British railway stations may not need to be told that the "cloak-room" at VictoriaStation is the left-luggage office, but hardly anyone without the horticultural expertise of a Miss Prism or a Cecily will fail to profit from being informed that the Marechal Niel which Cecily offers Algernon, masquerading as Ernest, is a yellow rose. The usefulness for performance of a note such as this is clear from the verbal emphasis Algy then places on his declared preference for "a pink rose" (II.175): not on rose, as mistakenly uttered in a production I recently saw, but on pink. The annotations also trace the evolution of Wilde's wit and wisdom from important earlier instances, notably The Picture a/Dorian Gray (as in "herhair has turned quite gold from grief"). An additional, equally fascinating context appears in Jackson's discriminating treatment of the evolution of the text itself. Here, among several important manuscripts and typescripts reflecting the complex development of the original play through severa1 four-act and three-act versions. two prove of crucial value: the typescript prepared by Alexander in 1898 at Wilde's request, which the author then extensively altered in preparing copy text for the Smithers edition of 1898; and a rehearsal script of uncertain date, now in the Harvard Theatre Collection, bearing Alexander's ornate fin-de-siecle bookplate and containing numerous indications of staging and considerable changes in the spoken text. Jackson is aware that the Harvard rehearsal book may reflect a St. James's revival rather than the original production (whose promptbook seems not to have survived), but with some justification he takes the staging indications in it to reflect Alexander's consistent intentions from 1895 on. The notes consequently include a wealth of revealing theatrical information, still of interest in mounting the pJay today. One inconsistency is left unresolved, In Act II the time of year, fixed as "July" in the opening stage directions, is actually mid-May, to judge from the three-month length of "Ernest" and Cecily's imaginary engagement, which, she explains, was "settled" on "the 14th ofFebruary last" (11.457- 469). Theomission is negligible,however, alongside the fullness of commentary and annotation and the authoritativeness of text that distinguish this edition. It deserves a preeminent place, not only in the library. study, and classroom, but on the English-speaking stage itself, where future productions can henceforth be completely accurate, textually, and substantially better informed, than at any time in the previous life of this remarkably durable and entertaining play. JOSEPH DONOHUE, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST MICHAEL DARLOW AND GILLIAN HODSON , Terence Rattigan: The Man and His Work. London: Quartet Books 1979. pp. 360, illustrated. Terence Rattigan's Playbill: The Browning Version and Harlequinade has enjoyed critical and popular success at London's National Theatre in the 1980 season, an irony since it is the first production ofa Rattigan play in the long history ofthe theatre, either in its old homes or in the new one on the South Bank, Mel Gussow of the New York Times Book Reviews 239 (August 10, 1980) wrote that he had "kept waiting for a symbiosis of play and perfonnance" in his many journeys to the National and "finally found it on my last visit with, of all things, the Rattigan double bill, acted to perfection by Alec McCowen, Geraldine McEwan and Nicky Henson. What I had forgotten is that the play is so beautifully constructed; it is terse and literate." How pleased and gratified Rattigan would be to witness this acclaim at Britain's most prestigious theatre. A major English playwright of his time - indeed, declared at one time a "one-man theatrical establishment" - Rattigan in 1956 was made to feel old-fashioned and effete by the stage upheavals precipitated by the John Osborne dramatic revolution, which continued into the 1970'S. Now, however, the...