Mr Prohack

Monday, November 18th., Cadogan Square, London.

I have written to Knoblock to give him my thoughts on the play, and I may as well set them down here also.

Laughton had a great triumph as Mr. Prohack, after being very bad and wrong at all the later rehearsals. The second act didn't go very well but that was a fault of the production rather than of the play. The third act undoubtedly went very well indeed. Sidney Bernstein (the film man) one of our directors, had not cared much for the play when he read it, but he was positively enthusiastic about it when he saw it performed. There were laughs throughout. Advance booking is vey bad, but I do not see how it can be anything else. I think the play will take some time to reach the public consciousness, but I think that it will succeed in doing so.
 
One or two of the morning notices were bad, especially that of The Times, but some of the others were decidedly good, and the rest decent. The notices in the three evening papers are all admirable. Laughton was the focus of most of the notices. I am told that he was made up to look like me and that he copies some of my gestures etc. Whether this is true or not I do not know. It is in nearly all the papers, so I suppose there must be something in it. He took care not to do this in rehearsals. I don't know if I should feel flattered or aggrieved.

Dorothy got some decent notices which will be good for her self-esteem.

Period piece

Saturday, January 7th., Cadogan Square, London.

Sir Charles Cochran

At Dorothy's urgent request, I went over to the Court Theatre where "Mr. Prohack" is in performance. The atmosphere was of the last night of a run, but, although no other theatre has yet been obtained, we trust it is not the last night of the run. Evelyn Cochran came round after the performance, and Charles was really enthusiastic about the play. He said he hadn't liked a play so much for years. Evelyn said she had never seen Charlie so happy in a theatre, which is certainly saying something. He also liked the acting, especially Laughton. It seemed impossible not to believe that this play, in the West End, and kept on for a bit, should not develop into a very great success. And yet, I wonder if we have not been left behind, Knoblock and I, by changing taste in drama. When I look at this play I have to admit it could have been put on ten or even twenty years ago; it seems to me now a sort of period piece. I suppose I am something of a period piece myself! 

All the packing up had to be finished in Dorothy's dressing room. More goodbyes. Sally, the dresser, is really a very nice old woman, with a voice as thin as a piece of paper. We got home at midnight. Then searchings in the larder for food for Dorothy. If I am honest, I feel too old for this sort of thing. If not for Dorothy and the child I would be leading a simpler, quieter, and more dignified life than I do. The expense of this household is staggering, but not through my extravagance. Where will it all end?

Theatre things

Sunday, November 27th., Cadogan Square, London.

Strawberry House

We lunched at Norman Wilkinson's. He lives alone at Strawberry House, Chiswick Mall. Very nice and tasteful. Several old harpsichords and similar instruments, in perfect order, on which he plays nicely. He is charming, sensible and has taste. A pleasure to spend time with an 'old school' sort. So different from some of the flashy stage types one is forced into company with. I am inclined to think that if it were not for Dorothy's continuing infatuation with all things theatre I might put it all behind me. Feeling a bit dissatisfied with life generally - probably presages some digestive disorder. I don't seem to have much time for myself. Busier than ever but not doing things I particularly want to do. Of course I have free will and could decline some invitations but one becomes involved in a social round and I have to think about Dorothy as well as myself. I envy Wilkinson who seems to lead a life of quiet contentment. But perhaps he envies me. Strange world!

We dined at the Ivy, and saw there the St. John Ervines, Hutchinsons, Lytton Strachey, the Basil Deans, etc., etc.Then to the first night of the Sitwell entertainment, "First Class Passengers Only", at the Arts Theatre Club. Packed. Some part amusing. More parts tedious. Some fine acting. Some rotten. It was a sort of Revue in backchat.

"Mr. Prohack" starring Charles Laughton seems to be doing well at the Court. Better than I expected at least.

Tea and mystery

Thursday, September 8th., Cadogan Square, London.

Dorothy and the Swinnertons for lunch, and we settled our course of conduct - I mean F.S. and me, - to be followed when Doran at last wrote to us to say that he had sold his business to Doubledays.
See also, 'Russia and revivals' - March 9th.,
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/russia-and-revivals.html

Harriet Cohen came for tea - hadn't seen her for months. I had to leave her, and Dorothy had to leave her to see the actor Charles Laughton, whom I had to pass as a possible "Prohack". He passed with honours in about 5 minutes.
See also, 'First night adventurers' - November 16th., 
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/first-night-adventurers.html

DAME HARRIET COHEN (1895-1967) was a giant figure in the musical world of the first half of the 20th century. She gave many world premiere performances including Ralph Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto (which was written for her), and made the first recording of Edward Elgar's Piano Quintet with the Stratton Quartet under the composer's supervision. A number of the important composers of the day composed works for her, including John Ireland, Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, Ernest Bloch, Dmitri Kabalevsky and E. J. Moeran. And Sir Arnold Bax, who was Harriet Cohen's lover, wrote most of his piano music for her. In the 1930s, she was actively involved in making the plight of the Austrian and German Jews known to the world. She played concerts to raise money to help Jewish scientists get out of Germany. Her efforts won her the friendship of such notables as Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, Eleanor Roosevelt and Ramsay MacDonald. Harriet Cohen numbered among her close friends the likes of Elgar, Walton, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and D. H. Lawrence, and Arnold Bennett, as well as many important politicians and businessmen. She was certainly one of the most famous musicians of her day and was was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1938. As a pianist, Harriet Cohen had a tremendous range, from Orlando Gibbons up to the music that was still being written as she practised.

http://www.forte-piano-pianissimo.com/Harriet-Cohen.html

In my Evening Standard article this week I have been writing about the art of the crime story. For years past I have been disastrously disappointed with my adventures among mystery fiction. I think that even Poe is over-praised as a mystery novelist, for the reason that the interest of his tales is too exclusively limited to detection. I want more than merely detective ratiocination in my mystery stories. I want love, romances, and all sorts of things besides.

The finest of all mystery novels is in my opinion "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" by Gaston Leroux, which I regard as a masterpiece of its kind. The solution of it turns on one single moment of misapprehension, a moment which requires, and which gets, the very nicest skill for the success of its effect on the reader. 

Then of course there is Conan Doyle, whose early work really thrilled me. I gladly admit it! But Sir Arthur never (so far as I know) wrote a full-length crime novel. He excels in the short story, which demands far less power and invention and ingenuity than a novel, for the maintenance of interest at full-strength throughout. Chiefly I admire Sir Arthur for his Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson is an authentic human creation. Sherlock Holmes himself is not.

Additionally for September 8th., see 'Alpine heat' - http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/alpine-heat.html

This was our hottest day so far. I began a rough preliminary sketch of my new film and I did about a third of it in the morning before a bathe. We bathed with Diana Cooper, Lady Horner, who had her two grand-daughters, Lady Helen and Lady Perdita Asquith with her, and the boy, Lord Oxford. I talked to the old lady while on the raft. The Diana-Horner party went off to lunch at Talloires. Duff Cooper had arrived in the early afternoon from Geneva. He and Diana were returning from a rowing excursion (and reading Wells's new novel aloud to one another on the lake) just as Dorothy and I were finishing tea on the terrace.

First night adventurers

Wednesday, November 16th., London.

I dressed, and went off to entertain Major and Mrs. Whittall at the Yacht Club. It is a fact that between 8.15 and 10.15 or 10.20 I never once remembered that the first performance of "Mr. Prohack" was going on at the Court Theatre.

The Whittalls left about 10.35. I smoked a cigarette after a cigar, and then drove down to the theatre. The curtain had just fallen. It kept going up again while I was in the wings or near the wings. Much satisfaction in the wings, on the staircases, and in the dressing rooms.

Charles Laughton very pleased with himself, as he had the right to be, seeing he had had a great triumph.

Born, July 1, 1899, and from working class roots - his parents managed a Scarborough hotel -  Laughton served in the First World War, where he was gassed, and then went into the family business after that, not entering Drama School until 1925. He had his first professional work the following year and as soon as 1927 would make a name for himself during a year which saw him appear in seven new West End productions, the last of which, Mr. Prohack, would bring Laughton fame and begin his complicated relationship with Elsa Lanchester, his wife from 1929 until his death in 1962.

Everybody who 'came round' professed the greatest enjoyment of the play. I almost believed in a success. Especially as, going into the theatre, I saw Komisarjevsky outside in the dark entry.

Theodore Komisarjevsky (1882 - 1954) was a Russian theatrical director and designer. He began his career in Moscow, but had his greatest influence in London. He was noted for groundbreaking productions of plays by Chekhov and Shakespeare.

I said: "Is it all right?" He said: "Oh yes, it's all right." Dorothy said she had not played very well, but she was not depressed.
She said: "You and I are great adventurers."