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Edward, My Son
by Robert Morley & Noel Langley
DIRECTED BY HARRIS YULIN
Saturday, Apr. 18 @ 2:00 and 7:30
Sunday, Apr. 19 @ 2:00
Monday, Apr. 20 @ 7:30
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| OVERVIEW |
Can power, money and influence change the course of heredity? Arnold, an ambitious and unscrupulous business tycoon, uses his power and wealth to smooth the life path of his beloved son, the off-stage Edward. As Arnold's plan unravels, it becomes clear that instead of benefiting from his unethical advantages, Edward is inheriting his father's tendencies. Arnold drifts into insurance fraud, extramarital affairs, and strong-headed bullying, destroying several lives in the process. Will one of those lives be his son, and will one of them be his own? Morley starred in the original production with Peggy Ashcroft as his long-suffering wife.
"A play of distinction and inherent theatrical excitement." New York Herald-Tribune
"A beautifully staged, splendidly acted drama-a must for playgoers." New York Daily News
"An evening of expert theater that seems all too short." New York World-Telegram
"It is an actor's play the theatre once more looks like something worth respecting." The New York Times |
| CAST/CREW |
MAIA DANZIGER+
Evelyn Holt
CHRISTOPHER BURNS
Dr. Larry Parker
JOHN PLUMPIS+
Harry Soames
MARK ALHADEFF+
Cunningham
JAMES PRENDERGAST+
Hanray
LYNN WRIGHT+
Elieen Perry
MARK ALHADEFF+
Mr. Prothero
JAMES PRENDERGAST+
Burton
SARAH JADIN
Phyllis Maxwell
MARGOT WHITE+
Betty Fowler
E. SARA BARNES
Stage Manager
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| DRAMATURGY |
"I had had the idea for Edward at the back of my mind for some time, ever since I had seen my elder son in his bath one evening, and felt the extraordinary mixture of pride and humility a father feels when he tries to evaluate himself as a parent: a sensation, in my case, of smugness and apprehension. What I wanted to say in Edward, and I think I never managed to say clearly, was that a child who could quote his father when he grew up was likely to be happier than one who couldn't, or didn't choose to. It was as simple as that."
-Robert Morley (with Sewell Stokes), Responsible Gentlemen
Robert Morley knew a thing or two about fathers and sons. He had three children, a daughter named Annabel and two sons, Sheridan and Wilton. Sheridan, the elder son in the bath who was the starting point for Edward, My Son, became a well-known theater critic and biographer (including one book about his father appropriately named Robert, My Father). Morley described the experience of having a close blood relation become a critic, the actor's natural born enemy, "like being head of the Israeli army and waking to find your son is an Arab." Despite the joking, Morley and his son got along well, although Sheridan describes their relationship as emotionally distant and unresolved. At the time of Robert Morley's death, there was, like the father-son relationship in Edward, My Son, a lot unsaid between Sheridan and his father. This was a lesson Robert Morley didn't or couldn't take from his own play, and one he evidently passed on to his son. In an epilogue to Robert, My Father, Sheridan receives scathing criticism from a friend given the rough manuscript: "You've spent this entire book describing what your father was and did with his life, and still not faced up to the most important issue of all-what he did to you." As much as Morley cared for his family and sought the best education and life for his children, the lessons he taught Sheridan were not about love and care. In Sheridan's words, "Of course he conditioned me. He conditioned me to flee in terror from any really emotional situation."
Running from difficult circumstances was something Robert Morley had learned first from his father (Sheridan's paternal grandfather), dubbed "The Major" in Sheridan's book. The Major was a former army officer who, after fighting in the Boer War, spent the rest of his life fighting creditors. To be truthful, he spent more time dodging them than fighting. An eccentric with an addiction to gambling in all its forms: cards, roulette, horses, and others, the Major continually cajoled his extended family into paying off his debts. In addition, he darted around from one moneymaking scheme to the next, trying on professions such as a café owner or a street singer (if miming phonograph records for passersby can be counted as street singing). In one ludicrously brilliant scheme, the Major, considering himself a bit of a poet, attempted to make some extra cash by selling his spiritual poetry through an ad in The Times reading, "Is there an after-life? If in doubt, send three shillings to Major Morley at the following address." Of course, he became a multi-millionaire (and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you).
Most importantly for the young Robert Morley, his father squired him about Europe on extended jaunts, usually a pretext to run away from his debts. Somehow, they always found themselves in cities near casinos. After a miserable stint at Wellington College, the Major's alma mater, Morley toured Italy and Germany on a bizarre notion the Major had of turning his son into a diplomat. With no aptitude for foreign languages, Morley turned to other job options: journalism, selling lager, and finally, in 1926, an audition at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, arranged through the Major's acquaintance with the RADA director's sister. By this time, Morley's mother had split from the larger-than-life Major, taking Morley's sister Margaret in tow. A whirlwind childhood and an entrance into the world of acting would change Morley's life and he had his father to thank for all of it.
Born in 1908, Morley began his career at age 19 in repertory companies, performing Shakespeare and other classics with touring troupes. It was the last time he would ever play Shakespeare - Morley repeatedly turned down opportunities throughout his career (including an offer to play Falstaff from Peter Hall and an early opportunity to play Claudius opposite Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, rejected in favor of a film that Morley was later fired from). Morley insisted that Shakespeare was simply not fun, and the only reason he had ever entered the theater was for personal enjoyment. Instead, Morley preferred George Bernard Shaw, his hero and favorite playwright. Shaw was the person who inspired Morley to pursue a theater career after Morley saw a performance of The Doctor's Dilemma. One of the highlights of Morley's career was playing Professor Higgins in a 1937 production of Pygmalion at the Old Vic, a role made possible after Morley's breakthrough as the lead in Oscar Wilde one year earlier, a compromised last minute replacement when the previous lead was fired. Throughout his career, Morley remained a star on the stage but a character actor on screen, relegated to sidekicks in films such as John Huston's The African Queen (1952) and an Oscar nominated Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette (1938). Other film highlights for Morley included The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953), Road to Hong Kong (1962), Theatre of Blood (1973), Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1978), and the film version of Oscar Wilde (1960). None of these roles, however, could compare with the best of his stage work, which included the aforementioned Oscar Wilde (London 1936, New York 1938), Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner (London 1941, TACT/1995), The First Gentleman (1945), A Majority of One (1960), Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (1970), and his final stage role, Hilary in Alan Bennett's The Old Country (1980). Yet of his theatre career, Arnold Holt in Edward, My Son remains not only his best work as a playwright but one of his greatest roles.
After getting the idea for the play, Morley enlisted the help of his friend, the South African writer Noel Langley, to flesh out and structure the story. Morley had written a few plays before but none on the scale of Edward. He had met Langley in Hollywood while making Marie Antoinette. Langley was one of the screenwriters on The Wizard of Oz, a job he landed partly on the basis of a popular children's book he had written in 1937, The Land of Green Ginger. Hoping to channel G.B. Shaw's spirit, Morley and Langley worked out the epic script in a hut built in Morley's backyard modeled on a similar hut used by Shaw. While Langley brought the Citizen Kane-like aspects to the play (a cautious indictment of the excesses of power), Morley maintained the emotional core: the father-son relationship. Never intending to play the lead himself, Morley was drafted for the role by default when Ian Hunter, the choice for lead, was deemed unsuitable (Hunter later took the part of Larry Parker). While the play is tightly written, it owes a large part of its success to the two lead performances, Morley as Arnold Holt and Peggy Ashcroft as his wife.
A hit in London, the play was brought to Broadway in 1948 in a rocky partnership between two very headstrong producers, Henry Sherek and Gilbert Miller. Despite the clashing personalities, more a good-natured rivalry than a bitter dispute, the play, directed by Peter Ashmore, was a major success, gaining positive notices and playing for 260 performances. Morley was noted for his rare ability to play a charming and likeable villain with a "mirthless smile" in "a play of distinction and inherent theatrical excitement" (New York Herald Tribune). The New York Post called Ashcroft "at the height of her skill as an actress" in a role that requires her to go from optimistic young wife to bitter, drink-ridden old age. One of the most glowing reviews came from Brooks Atkison at The New York Times, writing that the cast "are masters of their craft and they fill their performances with gleam, wit, and delight." The play was so successful that it was continued in a tour of Australia and New Zealand and, in 1949, the play was made into a movie directed by George Cukor and starring Spencer Tracey as Holt. Seen by most critics as a misguided bowdlerization of the play, Tracey was unfavorably compared to Morley"s stage performance and issue was taken with several changes in the storyline.
One person never got to see Edward, My Son. The Major, Morley's father, had died a few years previously. If he had seen it, he might have recognized some of himself in the role. Make no mistake, Arnold Holt in Edward, My Son, is not the Major. Arnold is ambitious, unscrupulous, cutthroat, obsessed with success, and willing to do anything to get ahead or get his son ahead; the Major was usually bankrupt, fickle, and often careless (he once almost let his son drown through inattention and defended himself afterwards by saying children shouldn't be coddled). Yet the Major creeps around the edges of Arnold's personality, in his theatricality and sense of drama, his unique ability to get money when needed (while Arnold lies and cheats, the Major threw fits and threatened suicide until relatives anteed up), and, above all, a misguided dedication to one's son. The Major cared deeply for Morley, but thought the proper way to help one's son was pushing him into a career or schools instead of showing genuine love and affection. Not that Morley would ever approve of looking to his childhood for insight into a dramatic work like Edward, My Son. He spent his entire career insisting the theater was fun, the only reason he entered the business - no dark emotional demons here. Yet it seems impossible to take Morley completely at his word on this.
It might have been fun to Morley, but Edward, My Son says some serious things about parenthood. On the one hand a time-spanning saga of success and decline, a rise-and-fall story, the play is also a warning against emotional frigidity. Arnold thinks he is showing love for Edward, but instead he is giving Edward external niceties - money, good health, and an education. In trying to make Edward a success, Arnold manages to spoil his own life and the life of his son by leaving out the most important part of a child-parent relationship. At the end of his father's biography, Sheridan Morley compares the art of acting to raising children (Sheridan, who passed away in early 2007, is survived by three children of his own). Being a father was a role like any other, a thoroughly enjoyable one to watch according to Sheridan, who delighted in the performance his father called life. Edward, My Son's warning is that when the performance goes sour or lines are forgotten, a Robert Morley can turn into an Arnold Holt. Unseen in its original form since the 1948 production and recorded only in a modified film version, TACT is delighted to unearth this gem, a play with enduring resonance to parents and children alike.
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