Stage history will doubtless rank her as a tragedienne, spare and intense, she had a voice that reminded one critic of a taut violin-string. Totally uncompromising and with an extraordinary sense of the macabre, certain of her creations stay in the mind as frightening figures slightly out of drawing. Yet, when she wished, she could turn with relish to comedy, and her land-lady (“I am fully occupied”) in the 1964 revival of Ben Traver’s A cuckoo in the nest at the Royal Court remains as a collector’s piece.
Probably this will have to be in the background when her work is finally assessed, for she wore the tragic mask far more often – for example as Lavinia in O’Neill’s Mourning become Electra, Greek tragedy in a New England frame. (Curiously she appeared only once in Greek tragedy proper). She was Mrs Alving in Ghosts, and in her comparative youth an Emily Bronte (Wild Decembers) who overwhelmed all else in the play: she had too, the gift of striking terror, something few of her contemporaries achieved. Though she appeared three or four times in Shakespeare, her true place was elsewhere, on the haunted shadowy margins of the drama.
Born on July 1 1903, she was the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and her elder sister of Roasmond and John Lehmann, the writers. Trained at RADA in her early years and on the stage she twice (and surprisingly) understudied Tallulah Bankhead: little affinity there. She had important experience with Peter Godfrey in days when the Gate Theatre was the centre of London’s avant-garde and she made her first strong mark with the critics as the fanatical Susie in O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie (Apollo 1929). During the early summer of 1933 she drove at Emily Bronte (Wild Decembers) like a wind across the moor, and though the play failed itself her reputation from that moment was sure; not unfortunately that there were parts enough to fortify it. Quietly and touchingly she played the actress at home again in Priestley’s Eden End (1934) and in 1937 (Westminister) she was the definitive Lavinia of her period in the tragic scheme of Mourning becomes Electra. Soon afterwards she had two other major successes: the crazed maidservant in the thriller called They walk alone (1939) and back at the Westminster (1940) Abbie in O’Neill’s cold comfort farm melodrama Desire under the elms.
She was Mrs Alving (Ghosts) for the first time at the Duke of York’s (1943): three years later she had a brief period as director producer of the Arts Council Midland Theatre Company at Coventry, and in London later that year she played with a chilling terror the lesbian in Vicious circle (Sartre’s Hui-clos). Peter Brook directed this; it was natural, no doubt – though the casting seemed to be odd – that she should go on to act an angular, gaunt Nurse in his production of Romeo and Juliet at Stratford in 1947; her other parts though as testing as Viola and Isabella, seemed to matter less. Through ensuing years we were never sure when Beatrix Lehmann would be acting again at her apogee: few plays could offer the chance, though she did find one at last in The waltz of the Toreadors (1956) when she appeared as the mad wife. The domestic drudge in Pinter’s mediocre, The birthday party (Lyric Hammersmith 1958) gave little opportunity; then she came back, grandly if briefly, to Shakespeare as a coldly ambitious Lady Macbeth at the Old Vic (also 1958). In the following summer she was the enigmatic old woman in The Aspern Papers (Queens).
Five years passed before she returned to the stage untypically in, A cuckoo in the nest. Later she had only a few parts of quality, though she was in the National Theatre production of The Storm (Old Vic 1966), governed The Trojan Wars (Mermaid 1967) as Hecuba, and reverted to the nurse in the RSC’s Romeo and Juliet (Stratford 1973). Her final part was the dowager in Eliot’s The family reunion at Manchester.
She acted in films and on television (where she was Volumnia in Coriolanus) and also wrote two novels. In 1945 she was President of the British Actors’ Equity Association.
She was Mrs Alving (Ghosts) for the first time at the Duke of York’s (1943): three years later she had a brief period as director producer of the Arts Council Midland Theatre Company at Coventry, and in London later that year she played with a chilling terror the lesbian in Vicious circle (Sartre’s Hui-clos). Peter Brook directed this; it was natural, no doubt – though the casting seemed to be odd – that she should go on to act an angular, gaunt Nurse in his production of Romeo and Juliet at Stratford in 1947; her other parts though as testing as Viola and Isabella, seemed to matter less. Through ensuing years we were never sure when Beatrix Lehmann would be acting again at her apogee: few plays could offer the chance, though she did find one at last in The waltz of the Toreadors (1956) when she appeared as the mad wife. The domestic drudge in Pinter’s mediocre, The birthday party (Lyric Hammersmith 1958) gave little opportunity; then she came back, grandly if briefly, to Shakespeare as a coldly ambitious Lady Macbeth at the Old Vic (also 1958). In the following summer she was the enigmatic old woman in The Aspern Papers (Queens).
Five years passed before she returned to the stage untypically in, A cuckoo in the nest. Later she had only a few parts of quality, though she was in the National Theatre production of The Storm (Old Vic 1966), governed The Trojan Wars (Mermaid 1967) as Hecuba, and reverted to the nurse in the RSC’s Romeo and Juliet (Stratford 1973). Her final part was the dowager in Eliot’s The family reunion at Manchester.
She acted in films and on television (where she was Volumnia in Coriolanus) and also wrote two novels. In 1945 she was President of the British Actors’ Equity Association.
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