World Theatre; Interview with Christopher Fry

[Speaker 1]Gentlemen, WNYC has consistently presented on its "World Theatre" the outstanding drama of the world, drama that has no rival in radio. Now, for example, we have carried BBC productions of "Othello", "Hamlet", "King Lear" by Shakespeare, "Brand" by Ibsen, JB Priestley's "An Inspector Calls" and "Crime Passionnel" by Jean-Paul Sartre. That, of course, is to name just a few. And in addition to the drama proper, we have presented supplementary features, for example, the interview with Christopher Fry which follows. Now this interview was aired in conjunction with the American radio premiere of Fry's production of "A Phoenix Too Frequent", a portion of which is to be heard, by the way, on the other side of this transcription. But right now, we should like you to listen to this interview with Christopher Fry. [Speaker 2] Why should I use poetry instead of plain prose? Well, if we have to be born into a world as wildly unprosaic as this one is what else can be done if we mean to be realistic?

What did you mean exactly, Mr. Fry, when you wrote that? [Christopher Fry] I meant that being alive is much more miraculous, tumultuous than rich and incredible than we're inclined to remember the fact that we should exist at all, that we should move and speak, Is an astonishment beyond the reach of prose. What we've been apt to call realism is the surface appearance of life, which we've got used to. And that is one thing, but an even greater reality is the whirling phantasmagoria of miracles which surrounds us and indeed is us. It has been said that my plays are fantastic, but when I look out at the world and then back at the plays, they seem a sober, rather inarticulate, understatement compared with the teeming exuberance of life on this planet. The language of them is extraordinarily matter of fact, almost, it seems to me, monosyllabic.

[Speaker 2] Do you consider "The Lady's Not for Burning" an experimental play? [Fry] No, certainly not. I'd rather be inclined to call prose plays experimental The tradition of the theater in ancient Greece and medieval England and right on to the 18th century has been a poetic tradition. I shouldn't be at all surprised to learn that when prose was first mooted to carry a whole play, the old hands were most dubious and said it couldn't ever possibly be a commercial success. The theater without poetry? What nonsense. But if they said so, they were wrong. It was a splendid experiment while it lasted, and now it seems to me it's time to be reactionary and get on with the native language of the theater. I wonder if I might just quote from myself about this. Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement. It is the language in which he says heaven and earth in one word. It is the language in which he speaks of himself and his predicament, as though

for the first time, it has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time. And the drawback, if you don't happen to give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time. [Speaker 2] Where do you work Mr. Fry? Do you shut yourself away from the world? [Fry] Well, yes, I work mainly in the country in a cottage and not content with that in the middle of the night when everybody else is shut away and asleep. [Speaker 2] And do work by candlelight? [Fry] by candlelight and oil lamps, usually from 10:00 or 10:30 at night until about 4:00 in the morning. [Speaker 2] And is that how you wrote "The Lady's Not for Burning"? [Fry] Yes, I think the whole of the Lady was written down there. [Speaker 2] In the Cotswolds. [Fry] in the Cotswolds [Speaker 2] Yes, that's a lovely part of England. How did you come to write "The Lady's Not for Burning"? [Fry] That's a very big question. So many things combine to make a play come into shape.

But I know that I had one particularly strong thought in writing it. I felt that we were getting into a trough of despair about the world and ourselves. We were understandably depressed and self-analytical. We were very much in the state of mind in which Thomas Mendip finds himself at the beginning of the play. But those were hardly the kind of spirits in which to face the terrible complications ahead of us. Wasn't it possible, I thought, to see the full measure of darkness that were plunging about him and yet have comedy too? The world, I believe, is fundamentally a spiritual one. And laughter is a unique talent of man. It lifts him at one gaffaw into a different sphere from all the other animals. It is one of his freedoms. Laughter, Thomas Mendip says in the play, is an irrelevancy that almost amounts to revelation.

And somewhere else, he says, shall we not suffer as wittily as we can? And then when Jennet, the heroine of "The Lady's Not for Burning", knowing she is condemned to death, says, "If I could sleep," Thomas answers, "that is the heaven to come. "We should be like stars, now that it's dark. Use ourselves up to the last bright dregs and vanish in the morning. Come, don't purse your lips up like a little prude at the humor of annihilation." It is somewhat broad, I admit, but we are not children. There were many other things I wanted to say in the play. For instance, a very important scene to me is the scene in Act III when Humphrey, the mayor's nephew, offers to rescue her from being burned at the stake on condition that she agrees to be his mistress. In that scene, Jennet, who has been trying to take an entirely material and rational view of the world, finds herself aware of certain

compulsions in her nature which cannot be explained materially and rationally. What is deep as love is deep? I'll have deeply. What is good as love is good? I'll have well. Thomas has also noticed strangely disturbing mysteries about the world, which he was determined to leave. "Something condones the world incorrigibly," he says. Both are restlessly aware of forces beyond their knowledge and begin to know that it is worth living through the damnable for the sake of the mystery. I don't want to lay out in front of you every reason I had for writing as I did. I think that poetry should try to speak as an experience, not as a sermon. And in this case, in the case of "The Lady's Not for Burning", as an experience of comedy, but I should like to think that audiences

will trust me on one point. I should like them to believe that I mean the words I say and I've chosen them and what music they carry with them to try and create as an exact an experience as I can. The jokes are not only there for a joke, but for what the joke says. Let me give a single and perhaps rather obvious example. The play begins with Thomas Mendip crawling through a window to Richard the clerk who is working at a desk, he calls, "Soul, hey, soul" and then when Richard, muttering over his account, says "and the plasterer, that's 15 groats, for stopping the draught in the privy-" Thomas shouts shouts, "Body! , you're calculating piece of clay!" Now, I wrote this opening so that everybody should know what the play was about as soon as possible.

Soul. Body. The argument and conflict between these two, between soul and body, which is the main drama of human existence and so on through the play/ It's very simple. If the audience will only believe that the words are there on purpose jokes and all. But when I said that the play remains a comedy, not something to be worried about. It is a comedy of April on a complicated world and there to be enjoyed, I hope. Enjoyed as we would enjoy an April day, showers and all. [Speaker 2] Thank you very much, Mr. Fry, for being with us this evening. This is Maureen Mosher and [Fry] Christopher Fry [Speaker 2] signing off on the studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation in London. [Speaker 1] And now just one brief footnote to this interview with Christopher Fry. During this interview, he spoke, of course, in rather precise terms about his particular

production, "The Lady's Not for Burning". Yet we played it along with our presentation of his production of "A Phoenix Too Frequent" where we felt it just as important to introduce our audience to Christopher Fry, the man, as well as to introduce them for the first time, incidentally on American radio, to Christopher Fry, the playwright.