Approaches to John Arden's Squire Jonathan

APPROACHES TO JOHN ARDEN'S SQUIRE JONATHAN JOHN ARDEN HAS LARGELY REPUDIATED the professional theater of the West End of London in the last few years, since the staging of LeftHanded Liberty in the Summer of 1965.1 Instead he has written such unusual works as a mime, Friday's Hiding, performed in Edinburgh, and a children's piece, The Royal Pardon, premiered at Beaford, Devon, both in 1966, together with a new translation of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale for Bath, Somerset, in 1968. He has worked also on two semi-improvisational experiments, in collaboration with his wife and the actors: an ll-hour Viet Nam "War Carnival" at New York University in 1967, and Harold Muggins Is a Martyr at the Left-wing Unity Theater, London, in 1968. He played leading roles himself in both The Royal Pardon and Harold Muggins. Late in 1968 he directed yet another of his plays, The Hero Rises Up, in the curious setting of Center 42's Victorian locomotive shed in North London. He completed a trilogy for television, so far unperformed, based on Arthurian legends, in 1969, and in 1970 an original radio play, The Bagman, was broadcast in Britain. Thus the appearance of his third 1968 play, billed as an "erotic comedy" and entitled The True History of Squire Jonathan and His Unfortunate Treasure, as a lunch-time show in the little basement of the Ambiance Restaurant, Queensway, London, was no surprise. The action of this "history" can be outlined briefly: Squire Jonathan lives alone in his castle at some remote past date, gloating over his treasure, terrified of the Dark Men outside, and dreaming of the coming of a huge white woman. At last she comes and he undresses her while giving her jewelry. However, he balks at the sight of her chastity belt and soon rejects her. As he draws a knife, she unpicks the belt herself and jumps through the window to the Dark Men. Jonathan, alone again, asserts "I am not defeated."2 Squire Jonathan is a thirty-minute, two-character play, and some critics, like Michael Billington, judged it "little more than an agreeable jeu d'esprit."3 Peter Ansorge, however, saw "a difficult, witty and disturbing fantasy,'" and Simon Trussler was not alone in being 1 Suggestions for this paper were contributed by Mark Czarnecki. Randy Enomoto , Tom Morris, and John Sutherland. 2 The text appears in Plays and Players, XV (August 1968), 60-64. 3 "John Arden's High Spirits in New Play," The Times, June 18, 1968, p. 12. 4 "Squire Jonathan," Plays and Playeers, XV (August 1968),57. 360 1971 ApPROACHES TO Squire Jonathan 361 unsure whether the purport "was so obvious as to be trite or so subtle as to escape me."5 Since Arden is unlikely ever to be trite, it is worth looking carefully at the merits and complexities of the drama. Taking first the surface action of the play, Jonathan, a crooked, ugly figure like the Bargee in Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1959), is solitary, possessive and fearful. He does not go out searching, but, unable to love or to form a human relationship, waits for what he wants to turn up. He believes that when the woman arrives she will be "able, by the intensity of her spirit, to peer right through the flesh of this rotten carcass and to discern within it the intensity of my spirit." He says of his true self, so deeply buried: "To reach inside of me-to reach deep into my very mortal core-nothing short of carronades or howitzers can conceivably serve." These two speeches show the paradox of Jonathan: he thinks he wants the woman to penetrate to his true spirit, but in fact will always defend it against outsiders. Jonathan has failed to achieve anything in his lifetime-even to re-decorate his tower; yet he claims to be compensated by the jewels gained passively, an inheritance. His "compensation," however, is useless to him without a woman. He wants to share his riches; at the same time, he is afraid to do so when the opportunity arises: "For suppose she were to prove avaricious, or even larcenous...