Where was I?….Oh, yes:
Ben Jonson was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s but I guess he didn’t have as good an agent. Well, the fact is he was too contemporary. He wrote in his time, as did Shakespeare (witness Shrew and Shylock, and other biases), but his language was denser and less accessible. He needed a little tweaking, that is, editing and translating, for today’s audiences. Today is even hard for Shakespeare-lovers, even with all those clichés that make it easier.. I’m talking about 50 years ago now when the S-lovers understood a little more. (Sorry, but have you looked at the faces of today’s audiences? They are worshipping at the feet/pen of an alien god, who doesn’t speak their language, or barely, and they have to tune in. Picnics and wine help.) I offered to help but I was ignored.
I took a (third year Honours) Renaissance course that included Ben Jonson as well as Shakespeare, and my fifth year Shakespeare course included Shakespeare and his contemporaries—again Jonson. We didn’t talk about male chauvinism in the theatre, or anywhere else, in those days. MCP had scarcely come into common usage.
[Male chauvinism is the belief that men are superior to women. The first documented use of the phrase "male chauvinism" is in the 1935 Clifford Odets play Till the Day I Die. Wikipedia
A male chauvinist pig (MCP) was a term used in the late 1960s and early 1970s among some feminists for some men, usually men with some power (such as an employer or professor), who believed that men were superior and expressed that opinion freely in word and action.]
It’s common knowledge now but it still doesn’t help much. MCPs still thrive.
A writer named Jack Ludwig was assigned to do the tweaking. I remember the name only because he was hired instead of me. I have to look him up: “Jack Barry Ludwig (August 30, 1922 – February 12, 2018) was a Canadian-born American-resident novelist, short story writer, and sportswriter. He was most highly regarded for his journalism, which concentrated almost exclusively on sportswriting following the publication of Hockey Night in Moscow in 1972. ]
Why?
Well, this is supposed to be about our halcyon years in Stratford., and it is, they were. But I continued with my play-writing efforts. I wrote a play about Signy, a significant woman from the Norse sagas (no pun intended) , and I had the temerity to show it to Michael Langham (1919-2011), Gascon’s immediate predecessor as artistic director, who had moved on to take over the new Guthrie Theatre (again succeeding Guthrie), in Minneapolis and whom I kew well before he left Stratford. He kept coming back as a guest director. Michael was very courteous and generous and gave me some good tips for my later drafts. Ultimately, I sent it to Mavor Moore (1919-2006), and I don’t have to tell you who he was, do I? Anyway, I knew him well enough to show him Signy.
His response was generous and enthusiastic. I still remember what he wrote: “This is a wonderful play and must be done!” How could I forget? So I sent it to to Gascon at the Festival and to Leon Major at Toronto Arts productions (St. Lawrence Centre) , with notes from Mavor. Leon responded by asking me to write a second adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. My first one had been produced at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1963., directed by John HIrsch. This one was produced by TAP in 1972, I think, directed by Leon Major.
Jean Gascon responded by not making passes at me any more. He didn’t like smart women, not that smart. I saw his reaction when he put his habitual gesture together with the person he was making it to. At a party (always a party) one night he began to greet me with his customary sexy hug but then then he remembered (“My God, she writes plays!”), cut his gesture abruptly and moved away as quickly as he could.
This is more about me than you care to know. I will go on with Stratford and Bill Wylie.
Tomorrow.