TO RALPH RICHARDSON

Greene’s play Carving a Statue, directed by Peter Wood, had its first performances in Brighton, then opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 17 September 1964. It closed after a month and Graham believed that the biggest problem with the play was Ralph Richardson’s humourless interpretation of the lead role as a man in search of God.

14 September 1964

My dear Ralph,

I feel that in the last weeks I have been very patient, but my patience is now exhausted. Only once have I had an experience comparable to the last fortnight at Brighton, and on that occasion the leading actor had at least the excuse of drink.

You have been sacrificing the whole cast in order to build up – with a minimum of effort – your own idea of your own image. Peter Wood and I have done our best to enlighten you about your part, but you have consistently turned a deaf ear, though it seems reasonable to suppose that the author and the director understand a good deal more than you do about the play. Alas, you fancy yourself as a literary man, and I have as little faith in your literary ability as in your capacity to judge a play. I have found you – not for the first time – incapable of understanding even your own part. Last Friday in your dressing-room after a performance in which you had not shown the elementary courtesy of knowing or playing my lines, we agreed on a text together in the presence of Peter Wood and Binkie.⁵I now hear you have changed the dialogue agreed and introduced lines snatched out of context for your exit at the end of the first act, thus killing the curtain for your young and less experienced colleague. I am sure this should be attributed to stupidity and not to jealousy, but since you waited to break our agreement till I had left for France I cannot acquit you of cowardice.

The time has come to call an end to the selfishness, the laziness and the obstinacy which has impeded nearly every rehearsal. In France there is a law which protects the author’s rights. In England the author must defend himself, and I assure you that if you do not from now on speak the lines which I have written, I will see that the gist of this letter has a wide circulation – and I don’t exclude the press. The vanity of an ageing ‘star’ can do far more damage to the living theatre than any censorship exercised by the Lord Chamberlain.

Yours sincerely,
Graham

Greene and Richardson quickly patched up their personal differences, but reviewers were appalled by the play. Greene continued to believe that the failure was due to Richardson’s handling of his part. Reprintings contain his ‘Epitaph for a Play’, insisting that the work is farcical, not symbolic.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 642