The Complete Dramatic Works of H. Rider Haggard: A Review Essay

Although the "complete" dramatic works of Haggard consist only of three plays—The Star of Egypt, To Hell or Connaught, Mameena—and a Prologue to an unwritten dramatized version of She, this previously unpublished material in the Cheyne Collection, the Norfolk Records Office, and the British Library is introduced by nearly fifty pages of informative detail. Each play is also given its own historical background, textual notes, and, for Mameena, a reprinting of its original "Programme Note." Also, seven appendices include extracts on production, staging, reviews (of Mameena), and biographical information on relevant figures. Neither The Star of Egypt nor To Hell or Connaught has ever been performed—the first a dramatization of Haggard's Morning Star (1910) set in ancient Egypt (begun ten days after its novel publication); the second a "patriotic Irish play" set during Cromwell's colonial acquisition of the country.

Interestingly, Haggard hoped the Abbey Theater would produce these two works, and it fell to a somewhat perplexed W. B. Yeats to respond to this "embarrassing compliment" (Dramatic Works, 11). Clearly Haggard, wherever his sympathies lay, was simply too conspicuously from the politically incorrect lee of the lough for Yeats's theatricals. Yeats found himself too busy; his poor eyesight required submissions be read to him; finally he owned up that "neither would be possible at the Abbey"—for reasons defying prose or prosody: "I find that I have so much to say about them (or rather about the Irish one) that I must wait to say it in person if you wish to hear it" (Dramatic Works, 11–13).

Perhaps, now that these two are in print, belated performances may put them to the test; they have conflict and suspense, and in The Star of Egypt an almost gothic atmosphere, a world of love, psychological violence, and supernatural powers poetically just. Almost like Prospero in The Tempest, the reigning pharaoh in Star of Egypt "by being so retir'd,... in my false brother / awak'd an evil nature" (I, ii, 92–93). Tua, the pharaoh's beautiful and innocent daughter, is trapped and forced toward marriage by her evil uncle until, with the assistance of her ka (her doppelgänger), she regains the kingdom; and then, much like Shakespeare's Miranda and Ferdinand, she takes her royal place with her truly beloved in a new social order in harmony with higher cosmic law. The rapacious and stormy atmosphere is perhaps not surprising. Haggard's novels of ancient Egypt are second only in number to his sub-Saharan tales of the imperial frontier.

Only Mameena, a dramatization of Haggard's own favorite novel, Child of Storm (1913), was performed when written—or, rather, when rewritten by the producer. Since this is the title play in the collection, I will focus primarily on it. If a reviewer should be permitted to cavil with any editorial decision in this collection, perhaps it lies here with Mameena. The editors write: "The text published here is taken from that held by the British Library, which is credited to Oscar Asche. A handwritten manuscript is held by the Norfolk Records Office. The latter is credited to Haggard and is partly, but not entirely, in his own hand" (Dramatic Works, 266). The substantial differences between the published text (credited to Asche, the actor-manager) and Haggard's draft have been included by the editors in the notes. Having put himself in the grubby hands of lucre, Haggard perforce must accept Asche's severe abridgment of his original script for the sake of popular taste. But though unperformed, Haggard's draft is surely truer to his artistic and dramatic vision than the abbreviated version, which is more suitable as a stage spectacle than a compelling script. I am, however, left puzzling whether mistakes in the unperformed text as reproduced in the notes are Haggard's misplays or errors in transcription. In any event, one may be sure...