Fry: Plays Two

Christopher Fry

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781840027723
• eBook ISBN: 9781849437462
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Performance Art
• Index: Literature

Includes the plays Venus Observed, The Dark is Light Enough and Curtmantle This volume of Christopher Fry's original stage work concludes his 'Season Plays' with Venus Observed ('Autumn') and The Dark is Light Enough ('Winter').
In the first of these, commissioned by Laurence Olivier, a confident but ageing duke asks his grown-up son to choose a new wife for him. Written with a superbly light touch, this is a surprisingly reflective play about love, power and forgiveness.
The Dark is Light Enough, set during Hungary's revolt against Austria in the 1850s, concerns an imperious, inscrutable aristocrat who seems prepared to sacrifice family and household for the sake of her daughter's scapegrace ex-husband.
Also included is Fry's biographical play about King henry II, Curtmantle. Working with the 'epic' theatrical style of the time and utilising a new, leaner verse language, Fry captures Henry's energy, quick wit and quick temper, his relationship with Thomas Becket - Chancellor and friend, Archbishop and enemy - and his ultimately tragic struggles with his four ambitious sons.

THE DARK IS LIGHT ENOUGH

The weather was stormy; the sky heavily clouded; the darkness…profound… It was across this maze of leafage, and in absolute darkness, that the butterflies had to find their way in order to attain the end of their pilgrimage.

Under such conditions the screech-owl would not dare to forsake its olive-tree. The butterfly…goes forward without hesitation… So well it directs its tortuous flight that, in spite if all the obstacles to be evaded, it arrives in a state of perfect freshness, its great wings intact…

The darkness is light enough…

J H Fabre

Characters

JAKOB

KASSEL

BELMANN

STEFAN

BELLA

WILLI

GELDA

RICHARD GETTNER

COUNTESS ROSMARIN OSTENBURG

COLONEL JANIK

COUNT PETER ZICHY

1ST SOLDIER

2ND SOLDIER

3RD SOLDIER

1ST GUARD

2ND GUARD

Scene: An Austrian country-house near the Hungarian border

Time: The winter of 1848–9

The Dark is Light Enough was first performed on 30 April 1954 at the Aldwych Theatre, London, with the following cast:

JAKOB, John Moffat

KASSEL, Peter Bull

BELMANN, Hugh Griffith

STEFAN, Peter Barkworth

BELLA, Violet Farebrother

WILLI, David Spenser

GELDA, Margaret Johnston

RICHARD GETTNER, James Donald

COUNTESS ROSMARIN OSTENBURG, Edith Evans

COLONEL JANIK, John Glen

COUNT PETER ZICHY, Jack Gwillim

1ST SOLDIER, Peter Sallis

2ND SOLDIER, Frederick Treeves

3RD SOLDIER, Churton Fairman

1ST GUARD, Peter Halliday

2ND GUARD, George Murcell

Director Peter Brook

Scenery and costumes Oliver Messel

ACT ONE

(A room and a great staircase. JAKOB, KASSEL. Enter BELMANN.)

JAKOB: Tell us, then, what in the world has happened?

Are we never to have any more Thursdays, Belmann?

BELMANN: The Countess is nowhere in the house.

KASSEL: I guessed as much

Before I was over the threshold. In fact

I had the thought of it half a mile away.

‘I suppose this is Thursday’, I said to myself,

And looked at my watch.

BELMANN: She drove away, alone,

Before light this morning.

JAKOB: Alone?

BELMANN: All the servants

Swear by heaven it’s impossible, and by God

There’s no doubt of it. One of them woke,

Or dreamt he woke, and heard, or thought he heard,

The great sleigh making for the Thiereck gate.

But now the snow’s so deep there’s no way of telling.

JAKOB: Not even towards Vienna? Towards Thiereck?

I wonder if she knows where the Hungarian troops are.

Surely she must have heard they’re advancing?

KASSEL: With

A son-in-law in the War Ministry, she may well believe

They’re where they were two months ago, still

Fighting the Serbs.

JAKOB: Do you think this is the time

To joke, Dr Kassel? Think of the Countess.

KASSEL: I do, and the snow immediately melts

And all the Hungarians are dead.

JAKOB: But she left in absolute secret, before light,

Quite alone, and in this weather –

KASSEL: And on a Thursday,

That’s the worst of it.

JAKOB: What are you mocking, Kassel?

KASSEL: I? Mocking? Dear fellow, my dear boy,

Nothing that doesn’t mock me in return.

JAKOB: Isn’t it true that in more than twenty years

She has only once before failed her Thursday,

When her son Stefan was born?

KASSEL: Not even once.

‘Good God’, she said, ‘I think the monkey

Means to be born on Thursday evening.’

But she received us all at seven o’clock,

And at nine, when Gyorki was saying, as usual,

That there is no clear truth except the present

Which alters as we grasp it,

She bowed to us in the doorway, and said

‘We must freely admit the future’, and withdrew

To give birth to Stefan.

JAKOB: But what future

Can make her withdraw today and abandon her Thursday?

A message of two lines would have put our minds

At rest.

KASSEL: Do you think so? I have always found

Her handwriting to be her way, not

Of giving but of withholding information.

Don’t we hear her now?

(Enter STEFAN.)

KASSEL: Well, Stefan, where’s your mother?

STEFAN: That’s just it,

Doctor Kassel, where’s my mother?

The whole day I’ve been riding the countryside...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• VENUS OBSERVED
• THE DARK IS LIGHT ENOUGH
• CURTMANTLE