The inability of these men to find refuge from their own desires is perceived by the men as their tragedy, but in fact provides the comedy of the play. While men like Kit and Brian are distracted from their work by women, Alan’s conflict, as was Rattigan’s at Wimereux, is between work and his own writing. Alan, the confirmed bachelor, refers to his rejected novel as having ‘come home to father’, implying a non-sexual surrogate for his sexuality (p. 40). But when Diana threatens his celibate integrity, he has to make a choice between her and his writing, and forces Diana to make the decision for him. At the end of the play, Alan is leaving to pursue his writing career, but Diana sets off to pursue him to England. Nowhere is safe for the man fleeing his own desires: ‘Stop laughing, you idiots,’ he cries. ‘It isn’t funny. It’s a bloody tragedy’ (p. 80).
Now plainly French Without Tears is not a Strindbergian tragedy of sexual paranoia. But it deals with these themes through the medium of comedy, and, as Michael Billington observed of the Young Vic revival, ‘mocks certain durable aspects of the English character’ in ways that would be explored further in plays like The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea and Separate Tables. Rattigan had considerable experience of all-male environments, and we may speculate that setting the atmosphere of Harrow against the rather different gay male set that he mixed with when visiting Gielgud and John Perry at their home in Henley-on-Thames gave Rattigan the lever he needed to develop an ironic distance on some of the more exotic alibis of heterosexual male behaviour.
Aside from theatrical revivals, French Without Tears enjoyed a successful film production in 1939, directed by Anthony Asquith, a radio revival in 1957 and a television production as part of BBC1’s ‘Play of the Month’ series in 1976.
Perhaps the most curious, certainly the least successful, version of the play was as a musical, entitled Joie de Vivre (the play’s very first title), which premièred in 1960 at the Queen’s Theatre, London. Unlike the adaptation of his play, The Sleeping Prince, turned into a musical by Noël Coward as The Girl Who Came to Supper in 1962, Rattigan wrote the book himself, collaborating with the composer Robert Stolz, and his Oxford contemporary, the lyricist Paul Dehn. It starred Donald Sinden as Brian, Barry Ingham as Alan, Joanne Rigby as Diana, and Joan Heal as Chi-Chi, and featured a large chorus of dancers, including Lindsay Kemp.
It was relocated to the Île de Tourterelles, off the French mainland, rewritten to include a subplot about the island being cursed by the spirit of Venus, and brought the off-stage Chi-Chi on-stage, filling the soubrette role of musical theatre convention. In place of the simplicity of the original conception, Rattigan used the resources of a large theatre and a revolving stage to include scenes in the ruined temple of Venus and on the boat leaving for England. The play was also updated by some rather feeble references to the nuclear threat and, even more unwisely, given the direction of the theatrical tide, some sniping jokes at the expense of the Royal Court dramatists. Brian sings a song in which he confesses that ‘I ought to strip myself / So as to whip myself / Into a sharp, short Royal Court rage. / I ought to so-und off / Because I’m bro-wned off / With the errors and the terrors of an angry modern stage’ but cannot because ‘I’m sorry – But I’m Happy’.32 Even worse, Rattigan abandoned the witty ambiguities of the original to endorse the mystical powers of Venus, who intervenes on Diana’s behalf, and occasionally comments clumsily on the action with rolls of thunder and mysterious, echoing laughter.
Parts of this musical are wittily done. In an extra scene added on the end, Chi-Chi has accumulated enough money to travel to London to ply her trade there, and Alan is racing for the boat, hoping Diana will miss it. He hurls himself on board and the boat moves off; just at that moment, Diana appears over the edge of the boat, lifted by two sailors from a launch, looking like Venus rising from the sea. The most successful musical number is sung by Chi-Chi who, in broken English, imagines the fun she will have in London exploring ‘Le West End’. A series of witty idealisations of London include delighted speculations about the theatre, as she looks forward to ‘Ze ‘Bravo!” and ze ‘Boo!”’.33
Sadly for Rattigan, Joie de Vivre received very much more Boo than Bravo. For the first time in his career, a play was actually booed at the curtain. Written in a pre-war musical style, it was unfavourably compared to a series of successful American imports, and the critics were scathing, describing it as ‘schoolboyish’ (Observer), ‘a bore’ (Guardian), ‘the most misconceived, miscast, mis-managed show of 1960’ (Sunday Despatch), and ‘the saddest evening I have spent in the theatre this year’ (Daily Telegraph). Rattigan was stoical, driving to Ascot the next day, where, he said, ‘nobody mentioned the play at all. They all behaved as though my mother had just died. Most peculiar’.34 The play closed after just four performances.
But French Without Tears was a triumph for Rattigan. Although, he would later resent his work being judged against this play, the play retains the exuberance and energy of its youthful origin. The play ran during a time of escalating European crisis, and although the play refers occasionally to Hitler’s rise in Germany, and Alan’s novel is a partial defence of Rattigan’s own pacifism, the political context of the play is kept very much in the wings. Rattigan would soon take a very different direction, his work becoming increasingly complicated by social questions, his tone darkened by explorations in the more desolate fields of love and desire.
DAN REBELLATO
Notes.
1. Michael Darlow and Gillian Hodson. Terence Rattigan: The Man and His Work. London and New York: Quartet Books, 1979, pp. 47-48. Rattigan’s own recollections may be found in Philip Oakes. ‘Comédie Anglaise.’ Radio Times. (13 May 1976), p. 60.
2. Philip Oakes, ibid., pp. 60-61.
3. Darlow and Hodson, op. cit., p. 72.
4. Anthony Powell. To Keep the Ball Rolling – Memoirs Volume Three: Faces in My Time. London: Heinemann, 1980, p. 39.
5. Darlow and Hodson, op. cit., p. 75.
6. Anthony Powell, op. cit., pp. 39-40.
7. Harold French. I Thought I Never Could. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973, p. 151.
8. Ibid., p. 154.
9. Roland Culver. Not Quite a Gentleman. London: William Kimber, 1979, p. 86; Rex Harrison. A Damned Serious Business. London: Bantam, 1990, p. 55. See also Nicholas Wapshott. Rex Harrison: A Biography. London: Chatto & Windus, 1991, p. 49.
10. Harold French, op. cit., p. 155.
11. Terence Rattigan. Foreword. in Harold French, op. cit., pp. vii-viii.
12. Alexander Walker. Fatal Charm: The Life of Rex Harrison. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992, p. 67. See also Roy Moseley and Philip and Martin Masheter. Rex Harrison: The First Biography. London: New English Library, 1987, p. 34, and Nicholas Wapshott. op. cit., p. 50.
13. Terence Rattigan. French Without Tears. Typescript. Lord Chamberlain Play Collection: 1936/44. [British Library]. pp. III, 37-38.
14. Rattigan, quoted in Harold French, op. cit., pp. 156-8.
15. Roland Culver, op. cit., p. 86.
16. Harold French, op. cit., p. 158.
17. Ibid., p. 160.
18. Ibid., p. 161.
19. Ibid., p. 162.
20. B. A. Young. The Rattigan Version: Sir Terence Rattigan and the Theatre of Character. Hamish Hamilton: London, 1986, p. 25.
21. Roland Culver, op. cit., p. 87.
22. B. A. Young, op. cit., p. 26; and Darlow and Hodson, op. cit., pp. 88-89. Reviews quoted from B. A. Young, p. 25, or from the Production File for French Without Tears. Criterion Theatre. 6 November 1936, in the Theatre Museum, London.
23. Rex Harrison, op. cit., p. 57.
24. Philip Oakes, op. cit., p. 60.
25. See note 22.
26. Rex Harrison. Rex: An Autobiography, London: Macmillan, 1974, p. 82; Culver, op. cit., p. 106; Moseley and Masheter, op. cit., p. 79. The production starred Harrison, Culver and Walsh, with Anna Neagle taking Hammond’s rôle. It toured Holland, Belgium and France, playing to troops still stationed in Europe.
27. Reviews quoted from the Production File for French Without Tears. Vaudeville Theatre. 15 June 1949, in the Theatre Museum, London.
28. Reviews quoted from the Production File for French Without Tears. Young Vic Theatre. 27 July 1973, in the Theatre Museum, London.
29. Philip Oakes, op. cit., p. 60.
30. Reviews can be found in London Theatre Record. ii, 25/26 (2-31 December 1982), pp. 693-694.
31. Mikhail Bakhtin. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 376, 411.
32. Terence Rattigan and Paul Dehn. Joie de Vivre. Typescript. Lord Chamberlain Play Collection: 1960/15. [British Library.] INSERT, p. II, 34.
33. Ibid., p. II, 31.
34. Reviews and interview quoted from the Production File for Joie de Vivre. Queen’s Theatre. 14 July 1960, in the Theatre Museum, London.
List of Rattigan’s Produced Plays
TITLE
BRITISH PREMIERE
NEW YORK PREMIERE
First Episode
(with Philip Heimann)
Q Theatre, Kew,
11 Sept 1933
(transferred to Comedy Theatre,
26 Jan 1934
Ritz Theatre,
17 Sept 1934
French Without Tears
Criterion Theatre,
6 Nov 1936
Henry Miller Theatre,
28 Sept 1937
After the Dance
St James’s Theatre,
21 June 1939
Follow My Leader
(with Anthony Maurice, alias
Tony Goldschmidt)
Apollo Theatre,
16 Jan 1940
Grey Farm
(with Hector Bolitho)
Hudson Theatre,
3 May 1940
Flare Path
Apollo Theatre,
13 Aug 1932
Henry Miller Theatre,
23 Dec 1942
While the Sun Shines
Globe Theatre,
24 Dec 1943
Lyceum Theatre,
19 Sept 1944
Love in Idleness
Lyric Theatre,
20 Dec 1944
Empire Theatre
(as O Mistress Mine),
23 Jan 1946
The Winslow Boy
Lyric Theatre,
23 May 1946
Empire Theatre,
29 Oct 1947
Playbill (The Browning
Version and Harlequinade)
Phoenix Theatre,
8 Sept 1948
Coronet Theatre,
12 Oct 1949
Adventure Story
St James’s Theatre,
17 March 1949
A Tale of Two Cities
(from Charles Dickens,
with John Gielgud)
St Brendan’s College
Dramatic Society,
Clifton, 23 Jan 1950
Who is Sylvia?
Criterion Theatre,
24 Oct 1950
Final Test (TV)
BBC TV, 29 July 1951
The Deep Blue Sea
Duchess Theatre,
6 Mar 1952
Morosco Theatre,
5 Nov 1952
The Sleeping Prince
Phoenix Theatre,
5 Nov 1953
Coronet Theatre,
1 Nov 1956
Seperate Tables (The Table
by the Window and Table
Number Seven)
St James’s Theatre,
22 Sept 1954
Music Box Theatre,
25 Oct 1956
Variation on a Theme
Globe Theatre,
8 May 1958
Ross
Theatre Royal
Haymarket
Eugene O’Neill Theatre
12 May 1960
26 Dec 1961
Joie de Vivre (with Robert
Stolz and Paul Dehn)
Queen’s Theatre,
14 July 1960
Heart to Heart (TV)
BBC TV, 6 Dec 1962
Man and Boy
Queen’s Theatre,
4 Sept 1963
Brooks Atkinson
Theatre, 12 Nov 1963
Ninety Years On (TV)
BBC TV, 29 Nov 1964
Nelson – A Portrait in Miniature (TV)
Associated Television,
21 Mar 1966
All On Her Own (TV)
(adapted for the stage
as Duologue)
BBC 2, 25 Sept 1968
A Bequest to the Nation
Theatre Royal Haymarket
23 Sept 1970
High Summer (TV)
Thames TV, 12 Sept 1972
In Praise of Love
(After Lydia and Before Dawn)
Duchess Theatre,
27 Sept 1973
Morosco Theatre,
10 Dec 1974
Cause Célèbre (radio)
BBC Radio 4,
27 Oct 1975
Duologue
King’s Head Theatre,
21 Feb 1976
Cause Célèbre (stage)
Her Majesty’s Theatre,
4 July 1977
Less Than Kind
Jermyn Street Theatre,
20 January 2011
This edition of French Without Tears was published alongside the revival at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, from 8 October 2015, with the following cast:
KENNETH LAKE
Patrick McNamee
BRIAN CURTIS
Tom Hanson
HON. ALAN HOWARD
Alex Bhat
MARIANNE
Laila Alj
MONSIEUR MAINGOT
David Whitworth
LT.-CMDR. ROGERS
William Belchambers
DIANA LAKE
Genevieve Gaunt
KIT NEILAN
Joe Eyre
JACQUELINE MAINGOT
Sarah Winter
Director
Paul Miller
Designer
Simon Daw
Lighting Designer
Mark Doubleday
Composer
David Shrubsole
Costume Supervisor
Holly Rose Henshaw
Fight Director
Terry King
Casting Consultant
Ellie Collyer-Bristow
French Without Tears was first produced at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 6 November 1936, with the following cast:
KENNETH LAKE
Trevor Howard
BRIAN CURTIS
Guy Middleton
HON. ALAN HOWARD
Rex Harrison
MARIANNE
Yvonne Andre
MONSIEUR MAINGOT
Percy Walsh
LT.-CMDR. ROGERS
Roland Culver
DIANA LAKE
Kay Hammond
KIT NEILAN
Robert Flemyng
JACQUELINE MAINGOT
Jessica Tandy
LORD HEYBROOK
William Dear
Director
Harold French
FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS
Characters
KENNETH LAKE
BRIAN CURTIS
HON. ALAN HOWARD
MARIANNE
MONSIEUR MAINGOT
LT.-CMDR. ROGERS
DIANA LAKE
KIT NEILAN
JACQUELINE MAINGOT
LORD HEYBROOK
Act One
July 1st. Morning
Act Two, Scene One
July 14th. Afternoon
Act Two, Scene Two
The same evening
Act Three, Scene One
Later the same night
Act Three, Scene Two
The following morning
The action passes in the living-room at ‘Miramar’, a villa in a small seaside to
wn on the west coast of France.
Act One
Scene: The living-room at ‘Miramar’, a villa in a small seaside town on the west coast of France.
Time: July Ist, about 9 a.m.
The room is rather bare of furniture. There is a large, plain table in the centre, surrounded by eight kitchen chairs. There are two dilapidated armchairs against the back wall. The wallpaper is grey and dirty-looking.
On the left, two French windows open out on to a small garden. They are open at the moment, and the sun is streaming through. There is a door back right leading into the hall, and another down-stage right leading into the kitchen.
The table is laid for breakfast, with an enormous coffee-pot in the middle and a quantity of rolls.
As the curtain rises KENNETH is discovered sitting at the table. He is about twenty, good-looking in a rather vacuous way. At the moment he is engaged in writing in a notebook with one hand, while with the other he is nibbling a roll. A dictionary lies open before him.
There is the sound of someone heavily descending the stairs. The door at the back opens and BRIAN comes in. He is older than KENNETH, about twenty-three or twenty-four, large, thick-set, and red-faced. He wears an incredibly dirty pair of grey flannel trousers, a battered brown tweed coat, and a white sweater.
French Without Tears Page 5