The Captive Reader

Four Plays by A.A. Milne is a collection of (surprise!) four plays Milne wrote during the mid-1920s.  Having only read one play by Milne before (the charming Miss Elizabeth Bennet), I was so excited to read more.  These four plays have little in common but they all display Milne’s playful wit and gift for dialogue.  Detailed notes and directions also injected a bit of Milne’s distinctive style of narration into each play, which I particularly adored and which made me very thankful that I was reading these plays rather than seeing them, else all of that would have been missed! 

To Have the Honour (1924), a dizzying farce, starts the book.  It opens as the Battersbys (father and daughter) are preparing to host a dinner party for Prince Michael of Neo-Slavonia, who they met a few months before in the South of France.  But it is obvious from the start that neither Battersby is going to be our hero or heroine.  No, from the moment their neighbour Jennifer drops by just before the party, it is clear she is our female lead.  Milne would not waste such a marvellous introduction on a supporting player:

The room is empty for a moment, and then JENNIFER appears at the garden door.  She is 30, and so overflowing with vitality that some of it has got into her figure, and led to the word ‘buxom’ being used.  But she is tall enough, and big enough, mentally and physically, to carry it off with an air.  She enjoys her word; she enjoys herself.  It is jolly being JENNIFER.

It is notes and directions like these that make reading plays so fun and Milne’s ‘extra’ material is particularly fanciful and entertaining.  I was torn while reading this play in particular over the question of whether I would prefer reading the play or seeing it performed.  On the one hand, the exchanges in To Have the Honour really need to be seen to be properly appreciated.  On the other, you would miss so many fabulous authorial asides about the past and future lives of the characters.  Unsurprisingly, I did not come to a conclusion on that particular question.  Since I’ve never had the chance to see any of Milne’s plays staged, it was a strictly academic point anyways.

Eventually, the guests arrive and when Jennifer spots Prince Michael there is a moment of shocked recognition.  They are, we soon discover, neither of them who they say they are.  Prince Michael is simply Michael Brown, who ran out on his wife Jennifer years previously and hasn’t been heard of since.  He has been running about inventing buffer states (everyone is still confused about the geography of Europe in the wake of World War I) and appointing himself prince of them, using his impressive charm and more impressive title to smooth his way through the world.  Jennifer has also been masquerading, having invented a deceased Colonel Bulger and claimed status as his widow – far more respectable than admitting to being an abandoned wife who has lost track of her husband.  Jennifer demands Michael leave but Michael has decided he wants his wife back.  We are treated to some excellent ‘inventing’ (as Michael calls it) as he begins to dismantle the character of Prince Michael (for the benefit of the Battersbys and their equally confused guests) and some wonderful banter as Jennifer attempts to convince Michael that she has no interest in being with him again:

JENNIFER. You seem to have provided from everything.
PRINCE. I tried to.
JENNIFER. And yet there was one possibility you overlooked.
PRINCE. Good Heavens, what?
JENNIFER. In your extraordinary delicacy you didn’t allow for the fact that I might want to be left alone.
PRINCE (looking at his watch). For how long?
JENNIFER (a little crossly). What do you mean, for how long?  When a woman says that she wants to be left alone, you don’t ask her for how long.
PRINCE. Why not?
JENNIFER. I don’t know why not.  One doesn’t.  It’s a ridiculous question.  Naturally, I mean that I want to be left alone for ever.
PRINCE. I see.  You mean till you’re about ninety.
JENNIFER. No, I don’t.  I wasn’t thinking about being ninety.
PRINCE. Good!  Then what about eighty-nine?  Suppose I drop in on your eighty-ninth birthday –
JENNIFER. I shall not be at home.
PRINCE. Not if I came in the afternoon – with a few flowers?

Watching Michael try to extricate himself from his princely persona, spinning lie after lie, each one quite absurdly magnificent, is wonderful.  There is nothing modest or retiring about Michael, that’s for certain, and it is hard not to admire someone so quick-witted.

Equally quick-witted is Ariadne Winters, heroine of Ariadne, or Business First (1925).  Ariadne is tired of her husband John always prioritizing his work over her.  When the play opens, the Winters are preparing to host a dinner party.  One of the guests, Horace Meldrum, has been invited against Ariadne’s wishes.  He is one of John’s most important clients and, even though Ariadne finds his propositions repulsive, John is intent on keeping and getting more of Meldrum’s business.  So Ariadne flirts with Meldrum and makes plans for an assignation with him in London the following day – leaving the reader a bit confused for a moment.  This is a woman giving as good as she gets, showing a marked inclination rather than dislike for Meldrum.  But it is all just a farce, Ariadne’s attempt to enrage her husband’s jealousy.  She is willing to do anything – even make her husband believe she has run away with another man – to get him to adjust his priorities and to finally place her ahead of his work.

The third act, where Ariadne’s ambition is revealed, is amusing, mostly because of how well Meldrum handles the situation once he is let in on the ‘joke’.  That sense of humour makes him a poor villain and it is hard to feel much sympathy for Ariadne after that.  Why make such a fuss over a man so easily handled?  Still, the real enemy is John’s obviousness and she certainly shakes that out of him.  This was my least favourite of the four plays.  It is a comedy but it strikes some rather cruel notes that make it uncomfortable at times.  On the other hand, I would welcome a play about Horace Meldrum’s disastrous romantic entanglements.  Doesn’t Milne’s introduction of him make him sound like the perfect comedic anti-hero?:

Enter HORACE – handsome, if you like that style – dashing, as far as his weight will allow – a supreme egoist, without a wonder or a misgiving in him.  A bounder undoubtedly, but in the heroic manner.

The third play, Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926), is very short: just one act, whereas the others are all three-act plays.  It is slight but it is the most obviously funny piece in the book, with every other line making me laugh.  His Majesty King Hilary XXIV (‘aged 30, shall we say?’) is the perfect storybook king:

He is all the Kings that there have been in fairy tales and history.  All the stories which have been told of the condescension of Kings were first told of him.  When the workman’s little child falls down in front of the carriage; when the intoxicated reveller, unaware of his identity, treats him as a boon companion and a fellow-republican; when the sentry challenges him at the Palace gates, and refuses to let him pass; in these and a hundred emergencies none so conventionally royal as HILARY.  He sees himself always as the hero of a royal story, or as a sitter for a royal portrait.

At the moment he is the King condescending to his faithful servant – one of his favourite poses.  We must assume that he is wearing his crown – or will be as soon as OTHO has finished with him.  In those days they always did.

This introduction (again, something that would be sadly missed if you were seeing the play performed) immediately brought to mind the fabulous commentary by the narrator in Once On A Time.

A stranger brings the King a mirror on the eve of his wedding, one that shows a reflection of the viewer’s true self.  The King is very certain he knows what he will see:

[…] I have, perhaps, an impetuosity which I do not show my people; a nature capable of more passion than I will let be seen.  At heart I am indolent; I would gladly spend my days listening to music, or in contemplation of nature.  I am rash; it may be that I jump to conclusions too quickly.  Extravagant, yes; those who really knew me would say ‘Recklessly so.’  Ah yes, sir, there is indeed a very humble fellow beneath the King.

Of course, there isn’t and the King’s dismay at what he sees (and his fiancée Princess Amaril’s delight at what she sees in him) makes for an amusing little tale.

The final play, Success (1926), was my favourite by far of the four, the only drama among comedies.  The Rt. Hon. R. Selby Mannock, MP, ‘that rising young Cabinet Minister in the late forties’ is magnificently introduced:

Probably he was human once, but now the official manner has descended on him.  He can say things like ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we have nailed our colours to the mast,’ or ‘Our glorious Empire on which the sun never sets,’ without feeling uncomfortable.  He is obviously an important man; not pompously so, but with the quiet assurance which only middle-aged politicians can bring to the pretence that any of us matters more to Heaven than another.  There was a time when he had a conscience, but it gave up the struggle some years ago, and is now as departmental as his manner.

Mannock has what most would call a very good life: a promising career, a lovely daughter, an intelligent son, and a wife even more invested in his career than he.  Great Things are expected of him.  But a brief visit with a friend from his youth followed by an encounter with the woman he had loved as a boy and once hoped to marry has him deeply regretting the path he has taken.  After an emotional dream sequence (which I would love to see staged just to see how it is handled), Mannock resolves to throw it all in and run off with his childhood sweetheart, to start anew and to finally pursue the kind of life he wants rather than the one he has been forced into by his wife and his political party.  But when your entire life has been focused on success and measured by the attainment of ever-more impressive and respected positions, it is not easy to abandon that way of thinking:

MANNOCK.  Success!  It closes in on you […] I tried to get free – I did try, Sally – but I couldn’t.  It had got me.  It closes in on you.

This is assuredly a drama but it also has its comedic moments, mostly provided by Mannock’s family.  I was particularly amused by the proposal scene between Freda (Mannock’s daughter) and Bertie (the PM’s Principal Private Secretary and a close family friend).  It is typical Milne dialogue and just a delightful way to showcase his characters.  It is not difficult to imagine this quick-witted, practical-minded duo having difficulty understanding Mannock’s desire to abandon all he has worked for:

BERTIE (after a pause). Did I tell you that my Uncle Joseph died the other day?
FREDA. No…My sister’s small baby has just been vaccinated.
BERTIE (reproachfully). He was the rich one, you know.
FREDA. Oh, I beg his pardon! (Tactfully) Did he – was his mind clear at the last?
BERTIE. Perfectly, I’m glad to say.
FREDA. How clear?
BERTIE. About a hundred and twenty thousand.
FREDA (delighted). Bertie, what a brain!

I find those two delightful.  They will never have the problem Mannock had, of wanting a life so at odds with his reality.  That way, Mannock’s wife Lady Jane points out sensibly but not sensitively, can only bring disappointment:

LADY JANE. […] You’ve got to take the world as you find it.  When you’re young, you think that you’re going to make a wonderful new world of it, all by yourself.  As you grow up, you realise that you can’t, and that, as you haven’t very long to be in it, you’ll be happier if you make the best you can of the old world.

I really enjoyed reading all of the plays and was entertained, to varying degrees, by each one.  Honestly though, I think Success is the only one that will stick in my head.  It has the strongest characters, including the supporting cast, and the most intriguing themes.  Still, I would really like to see To Have the Honour performed – I would love to see actors do justice to some of Michael and Jennifer’s exchanges!