Our time – 1941 -1949
Edited by Beatrix Lehmann and 3 others
Beatrix contributed several articles, including vol 2. no. 7
(on sale on abe for 15) The theatre and its audience
Our time 1941-1949
Comrade heart a life of randall swingler by andy croft
p. 122 “early in 1941 Swingler wrote to Edgell Rickword,
outlining plans for new magazines.
p. 123 “”the paper will cover architecture, medicine,
education, art, literature, etc. and the general plan is to devote the space to
four or five quite substantial pieces per month rather than attempt by scraps
and bits to cover the whole ground every time. One should, for instance,
include a central article every month up to about 6000 words with critical and
constructive work really thoroughly done… The great thing is that the field is
now ours undisputed. …
The first issue of the new magazine, Our time, appeared in
February 1941 (incorporating Poetry and the people). Edited for the first seven
issues by Swingler, Banting, Frankel and Beatrix Lehmann, the magazine ran to
twenty-eight pages and cost just 6d. A short editorial in the first issues
announced the magazine’s wider remit, arguing that the arts “are not luxieries
or decorations on the border of social life” but “necessities to its
development as essential as food and sleep. And like food and sleep there is
now too little of them”. …”a short story by Beatrix Lehmann”.
Blood Sweat and Toil: Remaking the British working class
1939-1945 by Geoffrey G Field, quotes
p. 243 “Communist actress Beatrix Lehmann pondered the
difficulty of surmounting these social and cultural barriers. Workers with
little education and long experience of unemployment, she wrote, wanted “to
laugh, to relax and to remain intellectually unstirred”; they had little idea
of “how to approach an art (ie drama) that wakes up the intelligence rather
than putting it to sleep”.
Ref BL The theatre and the audience Our Time 2(7) Nov 1942
p. 25
The Church Militant – (The sword of the spirit) (1943)
Comrade heart a life of randall swingler by andy croft
p. 134 broadcast in censored form on 25 March 1943 starting
Walter Hudd and Beatrix Lehmann, old friends and comrades both.
p. 120 “The Saturday night concert [1940] opened with a
prologue written by Swingler and spoken by Beatrix Lehmann and Walter Hudd,
followed by Terina and her.” The show was reported in the Daily Worker, 23
December 1940, Swingler wrote a two-hander for BL and Walter Hudd called
Freedom on trial, produced some time in 1939 by Andre Van Gyseghem, with the
Hendon and Hampstead Choir conducted by David ellenburg . p.270
p. 113 in 1939, “another time I remember staggering into his
office at the Workers Music Assocation off Charing Cross Road, being sobered up
by a single glance from the extremely intense eyes of Beatrix Lehman. “
Witch of Edmonton
1936/37
Introductions, notes and commentaries to texts in The
dramatic works of…
By Cyrus Henry Hoy
p. 239 Thirteen years later Edith Evans assumed the title
role in the production of the Witch of Edmonton directed by Michel St Denis at
the Old Vic
Theatre in London during the season 1936.7. Dekker’s
name appeared along as author on the Old Vic program, a point duly noted by the
reviewer in the London Times, who pointed out that the claims of Ford and
Rowley had been passed over. The program carried a statement to the effect that
“The dog should be accepted as the symbol of mental and emotional conflicts
which can still torment us to-day” While the Times reviewer found this a
reasonable suggestion, he considered it to lead “to difficulties of subjective
and objective interpretation if it be pushed too far.”
p. 240 “For him it was “better to think of the play as a
plainly melodratmatic morality… He had words of praise as well for Marius
Goring as Frank Thorney, for Beatrix Lehmann as Winnifried (Playing “an
awkwardly confused part with a successful determination to give it a clear
outline”.
“There is a picture of Marius Goring and Beatrix Lehamann as
Frank Thorney and Winnifride In Harcourt Williams’ Old Vic Saga. (London 1949) p. 148
The Master Builder (1936)
Ibsen plays 1 Ghosts, the wild duck, the master builder by
Henrik Ibsen Pub A&C Black 2014 (Which translation?) From introduction to
the Master Builder by Michael Meyer
p. 242 “The most admired English Hildes have been Elizabeth
Robins (1893) Octavia Kenmore (1907 and 1918) whom C. E. Montague rated the
finest he had seen, Lillah McCarthy (1911) Beatrix Lehmann (1936) and Mary
Miller (1962). … Of Beatrix Lehmann’s performance, Ivor Brown commented [She]
Is perfectly cast as Hilde Wangel, for, with her sharp, expressive profile, and
her eyes all eloquence, she can be at once the ecstatic worshipper and
remorseless bird of prey. Many HIldes have been industriously “fey”; none, in
my experience, so essentially the falcon, a thing of air as well as of fire,
demonic, taloned, soaring.”
Reference to Ibsen cycle in London (including Bea in the master builder)
Theatre Arts MAY 1936; Vol. XX, No. 5
Macbeth (1958)
Macbeth and the players by Dennis Bartholomeusz
p. 267 “In December 1958 at the Old Vic, Michael Hordern and
Beatrix Lehmann, both “brilliant exponents of the mock-heroic” seemed to the
dramatic critic of the Times to rely too much on “tricks of delivery” and
“sonorous rhetorix” To the dramatic critic of the Daily Telegraph [Dec 19 1958]
Hordern, as Macbeth, gave “a distinct impression of artifice rather than nature”,
though the “true voice of feeling was heard in the “tomorrow and tomorrow
soliloquy”. The critic of the Manchester Guardian [Dec 191958] quarrelled,
however,
p. 268 with “the enormous pause” after “hereafter” which
“while being magnificent in its audacity’ dissipated rather than intensified
the initial emotion. Michael Horden and Beatrix Lehmann appear to have been
most convincing, in fact, during the banquet scene. In this scene Hordern
successfully used, with a slight
variation, a piece of business first invented by Benson. Their playing subtly
disclosed the opposite courses the characters were to take. After the departure
of the guests both slumped in exhaustion. When they at last broke the silence,
every speech seemed to widen the gulf between them. At the end of the scene,
Macbeth emphasised his blood-thirst resolution by driving his knife into the
table, while his wife reached a nadir of dumb despair. In Beatrix Lehmann’s
hands, the character of Lady Macbeth “declined from initial hardness to something
like sweetness”. [Daily Telegraph Dec 19 1958] The sleep walking scene was
played at unusual speed. Beatrix Lehmann saw Lady Macbeth as mad and
Ophelia-like in her last moments. To Miss Lehmann it seemed that Lady Macbeth’s
eventual suicide could only be explained in terms of the fact that she’d lost
her reason. [stated in conversation with the author] .
When Beatrix Lehmann and Michael Hordern played at the Old
Vic, the nature of the stage and the acoustics of the theatre made it difficult
for the player to project Shakespeare’s verse naturally and be heard [also
stated by Bea in conversation with the author] This was probably one reason for
the artificial delivery noted by the critics.
Relationship with Isherwood
W.H. Auden a biography by Humphrey Carpenter
The two had grown tired of the Group Theatre and were
wanting to plan a new play that would be a hit in the west end, “In this they
were encouraged by two of Isherwood’s friends, the film director Berthold
Viertel and the actress Beatrix Lehmann. (1937ish?)
Garden District (1958)
Patricia Neal an unquiet life by Stephen Shearer
p. 197 “By the end of August, Patricia was deeply involved
in stage rehersals of Garden District, a new work by American playwright
Tennessee Williams, first presented on the American stage earlier in the year
in New York. Garden District consisted of two one-act plays, Something unspoken
and Suddenly last summer. She had been asked by director Herbet Machiz to
appear in Suddenly last summer and was eager to make her British stage debut.
Garden district opened at the Arts Theatre Club on Great Newport Street in London on Tuesday, September 16, 1958.
Suddenly last summer opens in the tropical, lush garden of
the home of the wealthy Mrs Violet Venable (Beatrix Lehmann). She has asked Dr.
Cukrowicz (David Cameron) to her home to talk about her niece, Catharine Holly
(Neal). Mrs Venable wants Catharine to submit to a lobotomy to rid her of her
delusions.
p. 198 “about the death of Venable’s son Sebastian, a poet.
Catharine has accompanied Sebastain to the small island of Cabez
de Lobos during the last summer of his life. She says his death is too terrible
to imagine. Her suggestions about what happened to him are too vile to believe.
Catharine has been released from an asylum and arrives at
her aunt Violet’s home, where she is joined by her mother (Beryl Measor) and
her brother, George (Philip Bond). George tells Catharine that Aunt Violet will
give them $50,000 if Catharine agrees to be admitted to the asylum and submit
to a lobotomy. Dr. Cukrowitz administers a truth serum to Catharine, and the
horrific story emerges.
Catharine’s memory gives up the horror she has witnessed:
Sebastian used her, and possibly his own mother, to procure young boys for his
sexual appetite during annual summer excursions. At Cabeza de Lobo the young
boys lived naked and hungry on the beach. Suddenly last summer, Catharine
witnessed those hungry youths turn on Sebastian, chase him through the white
hot streets of the town, and eventually catch him. His naked body is
discovered, parts of it devoured by the hungry young men. The young doctor
believes Catharine and realises it is Mrs Venable who is deranged.
“how I wanted to do that role” Patricia wrote “if for no
other reason than the last scene, which is in fact a fifteen minute monologue.
I was back to my roots. Herbert staged the scene very simply, with only a
single spotlight on my face. I remember I acted my heart out on that single
beam of light shinging down on me.
“On opening night, the curtain went down slowly and there
was what seemed an eternity of silence. Then the applause came, rolling over us
like thunder. It was the crowning moment of what was, for me, the most
thrilling acting experience of my life. [ref missing]
Garden district, especially Suddenly Last summer, did indeed
create a sensation. London’s West End sported
more than forty active theatres, comparted to New York’s twenty-odd. Tickets in London
were still around $3, and audiences were hungry for new and exciting
productions, which were scares – so scarce that theatre critic Kenneth Tynan
had told Holiday magazine a couple of years before, “There is nothing wrong
with the London theatre that a couple of masterpieces couldn’t cure.” Garden
District was one such production, and it stunned London audiences, although its combination of
homosexuality, cannibalism, and insanity was not for everyone.
Patricia received the strongest reviews of her career. One
critic wrote, “British theatre critics squirmed.. [and] termed the play
‘squalid’ ‘slimy’ and ‘lurid’. But they praised the dramatic power of the work
and raved about
p. 199 the performance of Hollywood actress Patricia Neal,
who made her London
debut in the role of Catharine Holly [10]. Said Cecil Wilson in his London
Daily Mail review, “one thing to be said at once for Suddenly Last Summer, the
longer, grimmer and better of these two plays in one, is that it introduceds
Patricia Neal to the London stage. We have suffered with this American actress
in films like The hasty heart and a face in the crowd. We have admired her
intelligent beauty on tv. And last night we saw her playing, quite brilliantly,
one of the most tortured women Tennese Williams ever created… The strength of
Patricia Neal’s performance last night lay in her agonized and agonizing
picture of a maligned person protesting her sanity to the very edge of sanity.
[11].
Other reviews were in much the same vein. Milton Shulamn in
the London Evening Standard said, “Patricia Neal brings a quivering intensity
to the role of the niece that haunts like a high-pitched scream in the
night. [12] John Barber, the Daily
Express, “an unscripted cry of Help, tore from the throat of actress Patricia
Neal last night to climax the latest melodrama by Tennesee Williams. She seemed
to have terrified herself with the horror of what she was saying.” Suddenly
last summer, Barber wrote, “is the most insane, the most lurid, and the most
shock creating [play] that even this author has achieved. It held the audience
frozen stiff in the black sorcery of explosive words, most of the spoken by…
Miss Neal.” 13
And Harold Conroy, of the London Daily Sketch, said of the
concluding monologue, “Brilliantly spoken and acted, it was the most horrible,
loathsome speech I have heard in the theatre.” 14
In the London Tribute reviewer Weyland Young wrote,
“sometimes in a torrent of velocity which reminded me of the records of Sarah
Bernhardt, sometimes convulsed, gurgling after the loaded word, sometime
dispersing her whole personality among the characters whose words she was
repeating, so that she had for a moment in her throat an angry man or a
frightened little girl, and sometimes laying out across us like a bell tolling
the life-slow death simple monosyllables which crown this awful vision, she
brought a range and a control to the job which we do not often see on the
London stage. 15
It was left to London Observer critic Kenneth Tynan to place
Patricia among the demigods of the theatre, “I must pause here to alute
Patricia Neal, the American Method actress who plays the girl. The power and
variety of her dark brown voice, on which she plays like a master on the cello,
enable her to separate the cadenza from its context and make of it a plangent
cry from the depths of memory. Rhetoric and realism, in this harrowing performance,
not only fuse but fertilize each other… Mr. Williams, whose speciality is
hysteria
p. 200 precariously held in check by formal habits of
speech, has given Miss Neal some of his richest prose – a symphonie en blanc
majeur, in which image after imageof blazing pallor evokes the climate of
Sebastian’s death. 16
During the six week run of the play, the audiences, too,
were mesmberised by Patricia’s performance. Wrote one admirier:
When I read the criticisms of Suddenly last simmer I had no
idea that I was going to see a performance I would always remember.
Whatever the difficulties of writing the part of Catharine
Holly they could hardly compare with the arduous task of acting it. That you
accomplished it goes without saying, but what needs to be said is that you did
it magnificently.
From the moment you came on the stage you imprisoned everybody’s attention, and it is no exaggeration to say that when the other characters spoke they appeared as impertinent interrupters.
From the moment you came on the stage you imprisoned everybody’s attention, and it is no exaggeration to say that when the other characters spoke they appeared as impertinent interrupters.
One can only thank you for what must be described as a soul
stirring performance and great revelations 17
So impressed by Patricia’s performance in Suddenly last
summer was film producer Sam Speigel that he purchased the movie rights, with
the idea of filming Patricia in the role for Columbia pictures in London in
1959. He sent people over from the states to watch Patricia in every
performance, and Gore Vidal was assigned to write the screenplay. So it was
with great shock that Patricia read on the flight home to the US that the
part had been given to Elizabeth Taylor. “Losing that film was the hardest
professional blow of my life” she wrote. 18
Pysche 59 (filmed July 1962)
Patricia Neal an unquiet life by Stephen Shearer
p. 233 “filming went smoothly and briskly. The plot of the adult melodrama involves beautiful Alison Crawford (Neal), wife of industrialist Eric Crawford (Cutr Jurgens). She has been blind for five years; doctors believe that Alison’s condition is physchosomatic, due to some traumatic event of her past. Alison’tsyounger sister Robin (Samantha Eggar) comes to London for a visit, and Alison senses a certain tension between her sister and Eric. Family friend Paul (Ian Bannen) arrives, and Robin and he are attracted to each other. Eric discloses to Paul that he seduced Robin when she was a schoolgirl. Alison begins to regain her sight after a fall in the garden, but she does not tell anyone, not even her annoyingly odd grandmother (Beatrix Lehmann). After Robin announcers her engagement to Paul, Alison finds Robin and Eric in bed together. She suddenly realises her blindness was caused by her having witnesses a similar scene between them years before. Paul leaves Robin and Alison leaves Eric. Off with the glasses, bright sunny sky, and The End.
p. 233 “filming went smoothly and briskly. The plot of the adult melodrama involves beautiful Alison Crawford (Neal), wife of industrialist Eric Crawford (Cutr Jurgens). She has been blind for five years; doctors believe that Alison’s condition is physchosomatic, due to some traumatic event of her past. Alison’tsyounger sister Robin (Samantha Eggar) comes to London for a visit, and Alison senses a certain tension between her sister and Eric. Family friend Paul (Ian Bannen) arrives, and Robin and he are attracted to each other. Eric discloses to Paul that he seduced Robin when she was a schoolgirl. Alison begins to regain her sight after a fall in the garden, but she does not tell anyone, not even her annoyingly odd grandmother (Beatrix Lehmann). After Robin announcers her engagement to Paul, Alison finds Robin and Eric in bed together. She suddenly realises her blindness was caused by her having witnesses a similar scene between them years before. Paul leaves Robin and Alison leaves Eric. Off with the glasses, bright sunny sky, and The End.
Commie friends (1943)
British writers and MI5 surveillance 1930-1960 by James
Smith
p. 57 “Continued surveillance
“Even when these individuals were judged to be politically
safe for sensitive work, the routine entry of security information in their
files did not cease. At around the same time MI5 was vetting Day-Lewis for PWE
work, other sections of the agency were recording the fallout within the CPGB
since Day-Lewis removed himself from activisim. A January 1943 NORTH report (as
the intellirgence from the bugging of the King Street CPGB headquartes was
called) recorded Emile Burns and a visitor discussing the current standing of
Day-Lewis. The visitor had been discussing the case of Day Lewis with Beatrix
Lehmann and the following information was unwittingly relayed:
Visitor: Day [Lewis] has really dropped out of the party not
because of any anti-party line. He was worried about the Finnish business that
was the final thing but he’d practically disappeared before then because he
felt that the party was taking an anti-cultural line and he was rushing about
speaking and doing this that and the other and not being allowed to write
poetry. It’s probably not true but –
Burns: You tell Beatrix that I tried every conceivable
method when I heard that he was drifting away to get him to meet either rme or
Harry and never got an answer out of him. The fact of the matter is he was
completely antagonistic to the party’s line on the question of the war as well
as on the question of Finland
and the result of it was that he just deliberately refused to meet leading
party people who were wanting to make an effort to talk it over with him. He
may be sorry he did it now, but don’t let him put that kind of thing up. He
wasn’t doing any speaking for us.”
(also includes a brief history of the Communist Party Great
Britain)
Shakespeare festival (1947)
As she likes it Shakespeare’s unruly women by Penny Gay
Twelth night
p. 19 “The most striking unconventional casting was that of
Viola the 44 year old Beatrix Lehmann. Since her debut in 1924, she had made
her name as an actress of modern ‘strong’ roles, those of Tennessee Williams,
for instance. [Am pretty sure her TW plays were after 1947] She became president of the Acotrs Equity in
1945. Lehmann had not played Shakespeare professionally until this Stratford season, when
her roles were Portia, Isabella, Viola and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. She
was a strongchinned, short-haired, modern-looking woman despite the Caroline
costume for Cesario (photographs give the impression that she looked more
‘masculine’ than Sebastian, which opens up charming possibilities in the
cross-gender comedy). The critics were surprised but pleased:
“one must say of Miss Lehmann that her Cesario is every inch
a man… If you will put by any preference for the openly wistful, Miss Lehmann seems
here superlatively well cast and well spoke: here may be the nearest thing to
the Violas that Shakespeare saw since the part ceased to be played by boys of
flesh and blood. (Guardian 26 April 1947)
p. 20 (Every inch a man? This delightfully naïve response,
relying as it does on outward signs of gender, has already been deconstructed
by Viola’s A little thing would make me tell them hou much I lack of a man)
She laughs at Olivia more readily than she sighs for Orsino,
and would obviously have much pleasure in trouncing Sir Andrew if the text
allowed. She greets her brother with cool, sisterly affection, and the
betrothal to the Duke seems a comfortable settlement rather than the
realistation of the heart’s desire (Ruth Ellis) – [but no citation]
This was a production not intent on foregrounding sexual
confusion, but confidently presentint an image of the emotionally independent,
self-reliant, and rather interestingly ‘masculine’ woman whom the social
disruptions of the second world war had brought into being. At the same time it
reasserted, through the marriages and the ultimately unthreatening
Malvolio-Olivia axis, an ideal of a mutually interdependent (though still
strongly hierarchical) community ablte to heal itself and to find a place for
all types and conditions of people in the post-war world.
p. 26 (“touchingly young and boyish” comment on a play from
the 60;’s) Contrast this use of the “true Shakespearean” criterion with that of
the comment on Beatrix Lehmann’s admirable mannishness in 1947. Fashions in
gender performance are as much subject to historical change as other fashions.
Measure for Measure
p. 122 “Revived in 1947 with some cast changes, it gave
Beatrix Lehmann as Isabella another Shakespearean role in this season. As the
critics obviously expected from the president of Actors’ Equity, it was a
performance of feminist worldly authority. The Birmingham Gazette (12 April
1947) said, “She is hard, even calculating, and we get the impression that here
is a woman – chaste or not, as you will – who knows her world and her men”. The
Birmigham Post (12 April 1947) spoke of her “intense intelligence and
assurance”, her ‘pos[ing] a cold detachment against Angelo’s smouldering plea’
(the previous year’s Isabella, Ruth Lodge, was sweet and tearful and did not
impress the critics). Unfortunately neither the Angelo nor the Duke presented a
real challenge to this Isabella; the production remained what punch called ‘ a
kind of ethical fantasy” September 1946.
Passing of the third floor back (1935)
Destination London:
German-speaking Emigrés and British Cinema, 1925-1950 edited by Tim
Bergfelder, Christian Cargnelli
Has discussion of the film and Conrad Veidt’s British
film-making
The Birthday Party (1958)
Harold Pinter by William Baker
The first performance of The Birthday Party took place on 28
April 1958 at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge.
Directed by Peter Wood, Meg was performed by Beatrix Lehmann, Stanley by
Richard Pearson and Goldberg by John Slater. The play then moved to Oxford where it was well
received, moving to the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on 19 May and closing after
one week. The influential drama critic of the London Evening Standard, Milton
Shulman wrote a review entitled, “Sorry Mr Pinter, you’re just not funny
enouhg’” that @sitting through the Birthday Party at the Lyric Hammersmith, is
like trying to solve a crossword puzzle where every vertical clue is designed
to put you off the horizontal.” Shulman continutes, “it will be best enjoyed by
those who believe that obscurity is its own reward. Others may not feel up to
the mental effort needed to illuminate the coy corners of this opaque,
sometimes maracbre comedy’. (20 May 1958).
However, Harold Hobson reviewing the Birthday Party in the
Sunday Times shortly after Shulman’s negative comments defended the play.
Hobson writes, ‘Mr Pinter has got hold of a primary fact of existence. We live
on the verge of disaster.’ Hobson’s observations titled, The screw turns again,
penetrate with remarkable insight to the core of much of Pinter’s work:
“There is something in you past – it does not matter what –
which will catch up with you. Through you go to the uttermost parts of the
earth, and hide yourself in the most obscure lodgings in the least popular of
towns, one day there is a possibility that two men will appear. And someone
will be looking for them too. There is terror everywhere… the fact that no one
can say precisely what it is about, or give the address from which the
intruding Goldberg and McCann come, or say precisely why it is that Stanley is so
frightened by them is, of course, one of its greatest merits. It is exactly in
this vagueness that its spine-chilling quality lies (25 May 1958).
(Pinter’s quotes on the nature of Stanley as a character and discussion on the
nature of the play)
Punch 1952 review of something (?)
The Illustrated London
News, Volume 233, Issue 1; Volume 233, Issues 6213-6225 1958
Theatre World, Volume 54 (1958) for garden district review
Relationship with Isherwood
Isherwood By Peter Parker (2005)
Xiii Roland Philips for BL [who is that and can I talk to
him?]
224 “The actress and writer Beatrix Lehmann, was bisexual
[but no references to back this up]
250 Isherwood was therefore delighted when John Lehmann’s
sister Beatrix arrived in the city. Like Jean Ross before her, she came in
forlorn hope of finding work with Ufa as an
actress [However unlike Jean she has already toured Germany working as an actress].
Beatrix had looked forward to dining with Isherwood on her first day in the
city, but he couldn’t make this. Instead she ‘went to his slum for tea’ a
description of Nollendorfstrasse that would have mortally offended Frl. Thurau.
‘And was I glad to she him!’ she told her hister Rosamond. [so guessing this is
quoted from one of her letters at the archive]. She found him ‘sympathetic and
amused’ [it is worth pointing out that they were already friends at this point
and had met previously]. When she told him of the difficulties in her personal
life. [which were???] Unlike Rosamond, ‘Peggy’ Lehmann was no great beauty, [!}
but she was certainly striking in appearance. Fiercely left-wing, funny, a
gifted actress and mimic,
p. 251 and an admirer of his writing, she represented for
Isherwood ‘woman in an acceptable form’ as Spender put it. Isherwood himself
though he and Peggy were ‘much alike in temperament, a natural elder sister and
elder brother’ which was indeed the only relationship with a woman Isherwood
wanted. They shared a sense of humour and brought out the best in each other.
That first day they ‘made dates for future cheap fun’ and thereafter met
regularly. ‘I see a lot of Christopher and like him more and more,’ she told
Rosamond. ‘He is just a spot tragic I think. And undeveloped in a way that
doesn’t disgust but only makes one’s heart ache. He and I and a peculiar
be-wigged, Edwardian Oscar Wildeish perscon called Gerald Hamilton (ask John)
lunch together in a a filthy pension most days. Three giant courses for one
mark! It’s all very funny and slightly nightmare.’ She also met Wilfrid Israel, whom
she described as ‘aristocratic and more beautiful than anything I’ve ever
seen’. She rather shared Isherwood’s view of him as tantilzingly mysterious and
almost impossibly refined. ‘Quite certainly homo, but nobody really knows
anything about him’, she told Roasamond. ‘He took me out the other evening and
I felt dirty-fingered and clumsy. He is so princely and exquisite. But it gave
me a deeper insight into the Jewish character than ever before.’
Despairing of making any money by acting, Beatrix thought
she might take another look at a novel she had written, hoping that she would
be inspired by Isherwood’s company and example. She became his closest woman
friend, but she was due to return to England at the beginning of 1933
and this added to Isherwood’s sense of gloom.
p. 269 ‘Over the next few days Heinz had lunch with Hector
Wintle and his fiancée, tea with William Plomer and Humphrey Spender, saw
Beatrix Lehmann in a play [figure out which one] went on a motoring trip to
Windsor…
p,278 “there was very little work to be done on the script,
and to Isherwood’s annoyance the shoot was dealayed for another week while the
cast was being finalized. Eventually a cast was assembled,… Isherwood had tried
to use his influence to get Beatrix Although he was unsuccessful, the meeting
p. 279 between Lehmann and Viertel had an unexpected result:
they embarked on an affair. [Jan-Feb of which year1934?]
p.288 “in the wistful list he provided for Lehman of those
he would invite to his birthday part if he was having one, You Stephen, Wystan,
Edard Wiliam [Plomer], Forster, Roasamond, Beatrix, Wogan [Philips], Gertald,
The Tonys [Lehmann and Spender’s boyfriends] and Olive Mnageot.
p. 354 Wystand and Christopher arrived late in the
afternoon, accompanied by Beatrix Lehmann and Bertold Viertel, like two black
corws, an univited professional backing. Medley recalled in 1983 with a
bitterness the invervening forty six years…
p. 360 Lehamann and his sister Beatrix were to be the book’s
dedicatees.
p. 385 Spender came round for an early cold supper and then
accompanied Kathleen and Christopher to the Westminster theatre, where Beatrix Lehmann
gave a remarkable solo performance in an English translation of Cocteau’s La
Voix Humaine…
p. 412 On 15 January he had lunch with Upward and tea with
Forster, then went to the Café Royal for a farewell dinner with Viertel and
Beatrix Lehmann. …
p.464
p. 530 “Beatrix, the latter represented for Isherwood “woman
in an acceptable form”
p., 533
p. 576” “If that sounds brutal, here’s what Beatrix Lehman
wrote to C many years earlier (19387) while she was having a sort of
love-affair with Viertel, “absence of poor old b.V. for a few days – really
like coming out of a mad house into a green field.
Photo of Beatrix published in the Sketch 29 Dec 1937
Desire under the elms (1940)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
DUE Westminster
24/1/40-4/4/40 86 performances
Illustrated London
news 10.2.40
New Statesman 3/2/40 133-134
Observer 28/1/40 p. 11
Spectator 2/2/40 p.144
Stage 1/2/40 8
Sunday Times 28/1/40 4
Times 25/1/40 4
Comment: a bad performance would reveal the play’s
weaknesses, but a good performance such as this one can be persuasive
(Spectator), New statesman observed that the play is ‘a play of poetic realism’
but that O’Neill ‘has not a poet’s command of words’. On the censorship o fhte
play, see Aldgate, 8-11. Paul Scofield’s professional daebut in an unidentified
role. The NY production ran for 420 performances (including transfers to
different theatres).
Close quarters (1941)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Apollo 31/7/41-23/8/41 28 performances.
New statesman 9/8/41
Observer 3/8/41
Stage 7/8/41
Times 2/8/41
Comment: New statesman commented on the restrictions imposed
by the duologue format. Karel Stepanek’s successful London debut.
Jam to day (1942)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
St. Martins 19/2/42-9/5/42 92 performances
Observer 22/2/42
Spectator 27/2/42
Stage 26/2/42
Sunday times 22/2/42
Times 21/2/42
Comment A comedy about infidelity.
Ghosts (1943)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Duke of Yorks 25/6/43-28/8/43 74 performances
New statesman 10/7.43
Observer 27/6/43
Spectator 2/7/43
Stage 1/7/43
Times 26/6/43
Comment; Poor performances by the supporting cast rendered
Beatrix Lehmann’s Mrs Alving ‘ less a tragic heroine than the luckless heroine
of a thriller (times) However spectator thought that the acting was ‘good and
efficient’.
Uncle Harry (1944)
Garrick
29/3/44-8/7/44 121 performances
New statesman 8/4/44 29/4/44
Observer 2/4/44
Spectator 7/4/44
Stage 6/4/44
Sunday times 2/4/44
Times 30/3/44
Comment Michael Redgrave and Beatrix Lehmann both gave
‘virtuoso performances’ in a play that ‘does not bear close examination’ (new
statesman 8/4)
Uncle Harry (1944-1945)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Garrick 7/9/44-17/2/45 188 performances
Vicious Circle (no exit) (1946)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Art theatre 16/7/46-11/8/46 27 performances
New statesman 27/7/46
Observer 21/7/46
Stage 18/7/46
Sunday times 21/7/46
Times 17/7/46
Times found the production unimaginative. New statesman
praised the ‘beautifully sensitive acting’ but found the play unengaging. On
the production and Peter Brook’s particular involvement see Trewin 22, 24 [I
have]
On the way by Helge Krog(1946)
Arts 10/10/46-20/10/46 14 performances
Observer 13/10/46
Stage 17/10/46
Sunday times 13/10/46
Times 11/10/46
Comment a doctor discovers she is pregnant and refuses to
marry the father.
The rising sun (1946) - producer
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Lyric Hammersmith
Pd Beatrix Lehamn (PD?) [producer? First produced with Alec
Clunes, might be worth investing his biographies?]
Times thought that the performances obscured this play about
the relationship between a failing businessman and his family. Stage said the
performances were generally ‘consientious’ but with Michael gwynn being ‘most
striking’.
Fatal Curiosity (1946) - producer
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
Arts theatre dir alec clunes
5.12.46-29/12/46
Comment on the production see Trewin, 25 [I should!]
Romeo and Juliet (1947)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
His Majesty’s Theatre
6/10/47-11/10 (20 17/10-18/10 (2) 22/10 (2)-23/10 (2) 11
performances
Illustrated Lonndon news 11/10/47
New satesman 18/10/47
Observer 12/10/47
Stage 9/10/47
Sunday times 12/10/47
Times 7/10/47
Shakespeare memorial theatre company. Only the visual
elements of the production attracted
critical praise. New statesman noted that the last scene was cut drastically
and a black clocked chorus quietly enunciated the last words given by
Shakespeare to the Prince of Verona.
Twelfth night or what you will (1947)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
His Majesty’s 8/10/47-10/10; 15/10; 16/10; (2) 20/10-21/10
47
Illustrated London
News 11/10/47
New statesman 18/10/47
Observer 12/10/47
Stage 16/10/47
Sunday times 12/10/47
Times 9/10/47
Shakespeaere Memorial Theatre Company. Stage also praised
Scofield but found much else unsatisfactory.
No trees in the street (1948)
The London
Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel By
J. P. Wearing
[missing notes for appareances]
New statesman 7/8/48
Observer 1/8/48
Stage 29/7/48
Sunday times 1/8/48
Times 28/7/48
The play was about working class life in East
London and the violence it engendered. John Stratton’s London debut.
1938 BEATRIX. LEHMANN. THE. TWO-THOUSAND-POUND. RASPBERRY. I
was new to film-making. I never saw the script — they said there wasn't one. I
asked why they made me count six to myself before turning my head and speaking
in one of ...
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The plays of Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller
and Tennessee Williams on the London
stage, 1945-1960.
|
Author:
|
1965 PHd thesis
Mentions Bea’s thoughts on O’neill’s writing.
Theatre World Annual (1965)
A cuckoo in the nest
Stratford
scene (1946) [though must be 1947]
For Bea’s Shakespeare scenes 15 references no preview check
at BL.
Drama: The Quarterly Theatre Review,
(1947) for Shakesperare festival
Charlotte Corday (1936)
Drama : the quarterly theatre review, Issues 65-75 1962
“I may be permitted a personal reminiscence.
When my Charlotte Cordway was produced at the enterpiring Q theatre in 1936
(with Beatrix Lehman as the heroine) I was cautioned against…
At my suggestion he entrusted the chief part
to Beatrix
Lehmann, then in the early stages of a brilliant
career. She possessed a stark simplicity combined with a rare power of
evocation that enabled her to convey by a mere glance or gesture ...
Flirting with women (Jan 1935)
The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys (Bloomsbury
Lives of Women)
By Lilian Pizzichini
“Jean accepted an
invitation for tea at Rosamund’s house. Roasamund’s sister [note the
misspelling of her name] Beatrix, a well known actress, and Mrs Violet
Hammersley, [a name to look up] the widow of a rich banker and patron of the
arts, joined them. All three women were looking forward to meeting this daring
new writer who had clearly drawn on her life for her work. Jean turned up
dressed like an Edwardian matron in dusty black. She wore an old-fashioned hat
and lacy gloves that she refused to remove. She sipped at her tea priml and
spoke little. This was the act she had prepared and she was sticking to it. Mrs
hammersley tried drawing her out with risqué stories of Paris where she had lived. Beatrix winked at
her saucily. Roasmund had no cohhice but to accept her new friend’s show of
respectability.
Although Jean had not been ale to remove her disguise she
had like R and wrote to say so. R wrote back to her saying, I guesed and now am
sure that you are frightened of people. This was an invitation to drop the act.
The next time she saw her, Jean had a black eye. The last time she saw her, Jean was too drunk to speak.
The next time she saw her, Jean had a black eye. The last time she saw her, Jean was too drunk to speak.
Michael redgrave autobiography – 2 mentions
Mask or face: reflections in an actor's mirror
The Book Review Digest, Volume 30
1935 review of Rumour of heaven
Ivy Compton-Burnett
(who Bea did all the radio plays for)
Ivy Compton-Burnett: a memoir Cicely
Greig
“Now, however, she was pleased to tell us
that Manservant and Maidservant was to be broadcast. Ivy liked Beatrix
Lehmann to play the parts of her elderly women
tyrants, but there would be no part for her in Manservant and Maidservant,
nor, ...”
The Stratford
festival: a history of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
3 mentions
Affair with Viertel (1930s)
Berthold Viertel: Leben und künstlerische Arbeit im Exil
Irene
Jansen 1992 15 mentions
p. 209 1934 Bekanntschaft mit Beatrix Lehmann
1937 Kirse in der Beziehung zu Beatrix Lehmann
Angus McBean: Facemaker
13 matches to Bea
“he requested some special publicity shots of his new “find”
Beatrix Lehmann. She had stolen all the notices in Mourning becomes Electra,
and ..
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