J. B. PRIESTLEY'S PLAYS Also by Holger Klein WYCHERLEY, THE COUNTRY WIFE (editor and translator) SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET (editor and translator) THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN FICTION (editor) THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN FICTION (editor, with John Flower and Eric Hornberger) J. B. Priestley's Plays Holger Klein Senior Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature University of East Anglia M MACMILLAN PRESS ©H. M. Klein 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-21669-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Typeset by Vine & Gorfin Ltd Exmouth, Devon British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Klein, Holger J. B. Priestley's plays. 1. Priestley. J. B.-Dramatic works I. Title 822'.912 PR6031.R621 ISBN 978-1-349-03292-1 ISBN 978-1-349-03290-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-03290-7 Contents Acknowledgements vi Preface Vll 1 The Material and its Inspiration 1 2 Main Text, Side Text, Frame Text 25 3 Time, Place, and Unity 48 4 Characters and Configurations 63 5 Language, Characters and Situations 83 6 Structure, Techniques, Modes 127 7 Ideas and Issues 160 Men and Women 161 Society 170 Time 205 8 Genre Affinity-Dominant Mood 231 9 Developments and Achievement 245 Notes and References 259 Bibliography 289 Index 298 Abbreviations 315 v Acknowledgements Extracts from Priestley's plays, published by William Heinemann, from Man and Time, published by W. H. Allen, and from Theatre Outlook, published by Nicholson & Watson, are reprinted by permission of A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd; extracts from journey down a Rainbow, Literature and Western Man, Midnight on the Desert, Thoughts in the Wilderness, published by William Heinemann and Harper & Row, are reprinted by permission of William Heinemann Ltd and of A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd; extracts from Instead of the Trees, published by William Heinemann, are reprinted by permission of William Heinemann Ltd and of Stein & Day; extracts from The Art of the Dramatist, Margin Released, The Moments and Other Pieces, Outcries and Asides, Out of the People, Over the Long High Wall, Postscripts, Rain upon Godshill, Topside, published by William Heinemann, are reprinted by permission of William Heinemann Ltd; the extract from Susan Cooper's]. B. Priestley, published by William Heinemann, is reprinted by permission of William Heinemann Ltd and Harper & Row; extracts from Gareth Lloyd Evans,]. B. Priestley The Dramatist, published by William Heinemann, are reprinted by permission of William Heinemann Ltd and of A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd; the extract from J. S. R. Goodlad, A Sociology of Popular Drama, published by Heinemann Educational Books, is reprinted by permission of Rowman & Littlewood; the extract from David John Hughes,]. B. Priestley, published by Rupert Hart-Davis, is reprinted by permission of Grafton Books, a division of William Collins & Co. Ltd. vi Preface Many years ago I was asked "What do you want to do next?". Without hesitation I replied "A book on Priestley" and was told "All right; go ahead and do it". This kind of opening does not offer itself every day. I record it with pleasure and gratitude. I must also express my gratitude to Mr Tim Farmiloe, who extended this invitation, as well as to Mrs Julia Steward and Miss Frances Arnold, his colleagues, for the patience with which they awaited the result and to Mrs Margaret Leach, who carefully copy-edited the text and made many helpful suggestions. I went ahead, but for various reasons the Priestley project turned out not to be the next one after all; others kept intervening. Yet I continued to work on Priestley, began to evolve plans and also applied to him, hoping he might find time to talk to me. One could fill an amusing page with his dicta about academics who teach literature in institutions of higher education and turn out works of "Lit. Crit". I knew his general opinion of our tribe and had no reason to expect that an unknown member of it from an establishment not unlike the 'University of Brockshire' in Out of Town (Vol.I of The Image Men) would fare particularly well with him. Thus it was with considerable trepidation that I presented myself at Kissing Tree House in Alveston near Stratford - only to be received with great kindness and generous hospitality by Priestley and his wife, Jacquetta Hawkes. I was even allowed to come again for a second talk, and I treasure the memory of those hours. We soon found out that our views of his work did not exactly coincide; he seemed not to mind, patiently answered my questions, such as they were, and threw out very interesting observations on some larger aspects of literature. I came away with my approach unaltered, but enriched by various valuable hints, and above all filled with vivid impressions of his personality, immensely grateful for having seen and heard him speak. When my book, at long last the "next" thing to be done, was actually taking shape (too late, alas, for him to see), Mrs Priestley allowed me to work at Kissing Tree House, reading such typescripts as were still there. This was again a gesture of great kindness, and I am profoundly grateful to her, also to Priestley's secretary, Mrs Batten. Day's Bibliography had alerted me to the existence of unpublished plays, and now I found not only most of vii viii Preface those he lists but many more. Although I cannot discuss them in detail, they have given me new perspectives on Priestley's work for the theatre. Why had I spontaneously said I wanted to write about Priestley? The reasons for which critics choose their subjects form an interesting field for speculation and even, as a learned colleague recently suggested in conversation, for research, though I myself would not wish to undertake it; it seems more suitable for a sociologist. In this case the answer is simple-well, relatively so. At the time I knew a good deal of his work (though not enough by half). And I liked many novels and plays very much, was puzzled by others. Moreover, I knew that he was not thought of highly among my colleagues and was generally passed over in the universities. This gap between immense productivity and indisputable succes ses on the one hand and scholarly neglect on the other intrigued me. I was old enough to have realised that scholarship and criticism, far from being immutably impartial and following some mysterious but just laws of their own, are subject to fashion and its moods, nay whims, as much as any other sphere of human activity. Rather than the nth book on some figure in modem literature, I felt a contribution on Priestley might be interesting and useful. All this lay behind my reply to Mr Farmiloe. The literature on Priestley has been of four kinds in the main. There are innumerable brief portraits, apen;us and sketches-of the Yorkshireman, of the 'National Institution', the Grumbler, the Don Quixote, the author of The Good Companions, the Anti-Nuclear Campaigner, the Time theorist and so on, frequently of all these and other facets of a rich and ebullient personality together. Then there exist chapters and sections devoted to his novels and plays in surveys of these genres (not in all by any means), but surprisingly few articles studying the one or other work or some aspect of his oeuvre in detail. Thirdly there are some unpublished doctoral theses (mainly American and German). Finally, a small, in my view far too small, number of books. Let me say immediately that I have greatly benefited from whatever previous criticism I was able to read, and in particular from the works wholly devoted to Priestley. In offering another such study I do not pretend to replace them - that hardly ever happens in literary criticism anyway, it accumulates rather than substitutes perspectives - but to complement them by a different approach. The books by Hughes, Cooper, Braine and Atkins are perceptive and stimulating 'life and works' appreciations. In such a frame of Preface ix reference individual works inevitably receive less than full attention, and questions of literary technique regarding his work in an entire genre cannot occupy very much space; moreover, these authors disclaim any kinship to scholarly analysis. Brown and Young do not, yet their booklets, published for the British Council, are perforce too slender to offer more than outlines; and even though DeVitis/Kalson have more space at their disposal, their all-round treatment again precludes much detailed discussion. Megede (Prose Style) and Lob (Ideas) offer specialised investiga tions. This leaves two books on Priestley's drama. Pogson's is short; published in 1947, it could only cover the plays that had appeared by that date. Evans, publishing his much more extensive and very illuminating book in 1964, chose to be highly selective. Seeing that Priestley's life had already been so ably presented several times over, I decided at an early date to concentrate on his work. And in the course of my research my conviction grew that the best service one can render this author now is not to add another global description, but to concentrate on one genre, in this case drama. The present study of Priestley's plays uses throughout all his dramatic works that have so far been published and is based on a knowledge of nearly all others. The aim is to explore his art as a dramatist. To achieve this end, frequent reference to other playwrights and to aspects of dramatic theory was necessary. As opposed to my predecessors I do not go through one play after another. That has great attractions, but impedes systematic discussion and illustration of his dramatic methods. In both kinds of treatment one is confronted with two difficulties. One has to discuss separately and consecutively aspects that are intimately joined in each work; and a certain amount of overlap is unavoidable. The first problem increases by working with cross-sections. In order to let an individual work's totality appear as well, I also offer many wider interpretations, inserted under the aspect or aspects for which the play in question is especially noteworthy. The second problem only appears to increase. Had Pogson and Evans pursued the same overall objectives, they would, I suspect, have been forced into even more overlaps and recapitulations. Ever and again I realised that thorough studies of specific areas have yet to be carried out. Any book can only achieve a certain amount within its given space, and I trust that others, noticing the gaps, or perhaps provoked by certain conclusions of mine, will continue the work where I leave off or fall short. Two points remain to be touched. Some schools of criticism claim