''Land's End'' is a stage thriller in three acts set in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
in the mid 1930s, by British playwright
F. L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucas (28 December 1894 – 1 June 1967) was an English Classics, classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and intelligence officer at Bletchley Pa ...
. First produced in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
in 1935, it was premiered in London in 1938.
Characters (and actors in first London production)
*Mrs Newsome —
Deirdre Doyle
*Valentine Galbraith — Mary MacOwan
*Vernon, her brother — George Astley
*Judith, her mother —
Cathleen Nesbitt
Cathleen Nesbitt (born Kathleen Mary Nesbitt; 24 November 18882 August 1982) was an English actress.
Early life and education
Kathleen Mary Nesbitt was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, in 1888. She was of Welsh and Irish descent.Before ...
*Hugh Gifford —
Alan Napier
Alan William Napier-Clavering (7 January 1903 – 8 August 1988), better known as Alan Napier, was an English actor. After a decade in West End theatre, he had a long film career in Britain and later on in Hollywood. Napier is best remembered f ...
*Hector Galbraith —
Cecil Trouncer
Cecil Stallard Trouncer (5 April 1898 – 15 December 1953) was an English actor. His daughter Ruth Trouncer also took up acting.
Early life
Cecil Trouncer was born in Southport on 5 April 1898 and was educated at Clifton College. During the Fir ...
*a fisherman
Plot summary
Land's End
Land's End ( or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it is ...
, Cornwall. A remote old cliff-top house, rocked by equinoctial gales. It belongs to explorer and hunter, Hector Galbraith, who is away in Africa. His charwoman, the macabre Mrs Newsome, warns her favourite, Hector's daughter Valentine, 20, a student home from Oxford, that her mother Judith (who has been out shooting) is having an affair with her visitor, the writer Hugh Gifford. Valentine, a hard virginal individualist, devoted to her father and hostile to Gifford, is indignant. Her brother Vernon, 19, a student home from Cambridge, is indifferent to bourgeois morality; he is a Communist, dislikes his father, and finds Hugh charming. Judith has grown estranged from her husband since he pressured their elder son, Ivor, into an Amazon expedition, in which Ivor died. Relations between mother and daughter are also strained. Now Mrs Newsome confides in Valentine: she has written to the absent master, and the latter has just returned secretly to England to surprise the adulterous pair. He is on his way to Cornwall. She persuades Valentine not to tell the others. (End of Act One.)
That evening, while Valentine and Vernon are in
Penzance
Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...
at a dance and the two lovers are alone in the gale-buffeted house (the scene never changes from this cluttered claustrophobic drawing-room), Galbraith walks in. After amusing himself by toying with the trapped lovers, he takes control of his house, downing brandy, throwing open the windows, brandishing a revolver, telling Judith she is starting for Africa with him (a plane is standing by at
Lympne aerodrome
Lympne Airport was a military and later civil airfield , at Lympne, Kent, United Kingdom, which operated from 1916 to 1984. The airfield was built out of necessity in the First World War. During the World War I, First World War RFC Lympne was ...
), and giving Gifford five minutes to get out. Judith and Hugh refuse to separate. Galbraith locks Judith out of the room, tosses a second revolver at Hugh, and reminds him of the rules of duelling. If Hugh is killed, he is told, his petrol-drenched motor will be rolled off the cliff road with his body inside. Galbraith counts to three. Hugh, a veteran of the Western Front, fires well wide, in the honourable Turgenev tradition. Galbraith levels his revolver for the kill. A shotgun barrel is seen at the window. Judith blasts Galbraith.
[A change introduced, with the playwright's approval, in the 1938 West-End production. In the text, Judith bursts in though another door and shoots Hector.] The shaken lovers hurriedly discuss their options, and decide that, as no one is likely to have seen Hector arrive, they should dispose of him as he had planned to dispose of Hugh. They drag his body out. (End of Act Two.)
An hour and a half later the pair return from the deed, to clean up bloodstains. Just in time: Valentine and Vernon come back early from the dance, full of news: a car has gone over the cliff and is still burning in the cove! Vernon tells how he clambered down and managed to poke some burnt luggage out of the wreck. The luggage is examined: it contains an African death-mask. The distraught Valentine now realises who the victim of the "accident" was, and confesses she knew her father was coming home. Judith and Hugh feign shock. By ill luck, Valentine sees in the grate a tell-tale Russian cigarette stub, discarded by Hector before the duel – and recognises its significance. She confronts her mother. Judith, finding evasion impossible, confesses to killing her husband in defence of Hugh. Valentine, near-hysterical, decides she must call the police. Judith and Hugh try to dissuade her, as does Vernon. All three argue that concealment is possible, but that confession will be catastrophic. Valentine is anguished and torn. At that moment Mrs Newsome and a grizzled fisherman arrive, to ask if everyone is all right (the latter had seen the fire and gone straight to the Galbraiths' housekeeper). Valentine, sickened by Mrs Newsome's meddling, sends her packing, and picks up the telephone to call the police. To the end, we do not know what she will tell them.
Productions and publication
''Land's End'' was first staged by the
People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne
The People's Theatre is an amateur theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Originally located in the city centre, the People's Theatre moved to its current site, adjacent to the A1058 road, Coast Road in Heaton, Newcastle, Heaton, in 1962. It sh ...
, from 4 – 11 May 1935, with
Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern CBE (22 May 1907, in Newcastle, England – 30 January 1963, in Buckinghamshire, England) was a British broadcasting executive, who initially worked for BBC Radio before transferring to BBC Television in the late 1940s. From 1950 ...
as Hector Galbraith.
[Lucas, F. L., ''Four Plays'' (Cambridge, 1935)] The text was published by the
University Press, Cambridge, and by the
Macmillan Company
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd in the United Kingdom and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the United States) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be on ...
, New York, in Lucas's ''Four Plays'', in October 1935. (
Christabel Marshall
Christabel Gertrude Marshall (aka Christopher Marie St John) (24 October 1871 – 20 October 1960) was a British campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author. Marshall lived in a ménage à trois with the artist Clare Atwood a ...
, who had not seen the plays performed, declared them "very good reading".) Anmer Hall and
Leon M. Lion
Leon Marks Lion (12 March 1879 – 28 March 1947) was an English stage and film actor, playwright, theatrical director and producer. He starred in Joseph Jefferson Farjeon's 1925 hit play '' Number 17'' as well as its subsequent 1932 film adapta ...
directed an amended text
[Lucas, F. L., ''Journal Under the Terror, 1938'' (London, 1939), p.89-90, 94-95, 97-98] in a
West End production at the
Westminster Theatre
The Westminster Theatre was a theatre in London, on Palace Street in Westminster.
History
The structure on the site was originally built as the Charlotte Chapel in 1766, by William Dodd with money from his wife Mary Perkins. Through Peter Ri ...
, 23 February to March 1938 (29 performances), with
Cathleen Nesbitt
Cathleen Nesbitt (born Kathleen Mary Nesbitt; 24 November 18882 August 1982) was an English actress.
Early life and education
Kathleen Mary Nesbitt was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, in 1888. She was of Welsh and Irish descent.Before ...
,
Cecil Trouncer
Cecil Stallard Trouncer (5 April 1898 – 15 December 1953) was an English actor. His daughter Ruth Trouncer also took up acting.
Early life
Cecil Trouncer was born in Southport on 5 April 1898 and was educated at Clifton College. During the Fir ...
and
Alan Napier
Alan William Napier-Clavering (7 January 1903 – 8 August 1988), better known as Alan Napier, was an English actor. After a decade in West End theatre, he had a long film career in Britain and later on in Hollywood. Napier is best remembered f ...
among the cast, and with decor by
Peter Goffin.
An account of rehearsals is contained in Lucas's ''Journal Under the Terror, 1938'' (1939).
On the first night at the Westminster, "the author was much called for at the close, but failed to appear".
['']The Stage
''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. Founded in 1880, ''The Stage'' contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at thos ...
'', 3 March 1938; p.10 Alan Napier in his autobiography recalled one stage mishap. The pool of blood was managed by a piece of wet red cloth on the floor. In one performance, when Cathleen Nesbitt wrung her hands and asked "What are we to do about the blood?", her long skirt caught the edge of the cloth and as she walked on "rolled it up into a neat little sausage" – to the delight of the balcony and the puzzlement of the groundlings, who couldn't see what had happened. One of
Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an English actor. During a six-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award for his work. Scofield ...
's earliest roles was in the
Birmingham Rep
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre ...
's revival of the play in 1945 (13 March – 14 April), with
Gwen Nelson
Gwendoline Alexandra Nelson (30 June 1901 – 15 October 1990) was an English actress who was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre Company.
Born in Muswell Hill, Middlesex, she originally intended to be a s ...
and
Scott Sunderland among the cast.
Reception
''Land's End'', the most successful of Lucas's six plays, received mixed reviews. ''
The Stage
''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. Founded in 1880, ''The Stage'' contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at thos ...
'' declared it "as full of drama as an egg is full of meat", after, however, a first act "the reverse of exhilarating".
"It is the first act that drags, and needs tightening up", agreed the ''
London Mercury
''The London Mercury'' was the name of several periodicals published in London from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The earliest was a newspaper that appeared during the Exclusion Bill crisis; it lasted only 56 issues (1682). (Earlier periodical ...
''.
Una Ellis-Fermor was more positive. "At its best," she wrote, "Mr Lucas's dialogue convinces us that it is the talk of people of high intelligence when all their faculties are working at top pressure: wise, incisive, and sometimes memorable." But she had reservations about Lucas's method (a reversal of Ibsen's) of airing family ghosts at the ''start'' rather than end.
The reviewers of the London production found Cecil Trouncer's Hector Galbraith "truly terrifying",
Cathleen Nesbitt's Mrs Galbraith "magnificent",
and Alan Napier's Hugh Gifford "that rare person on the stage, a writer of quick intelligence".
[A. V. Cookman in the ''London Mercury'', 1938, p.634] George Astley's Vernon was memorable, "fluttering through the story as a Communistic young flower of University life".
A. V. Cookman, theatre-critic of the ''
London Mercury
''The London Mercury'' was the name of several periodicals published in London from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The earliest was a newspaper that appeared during the Exclusion Bill crisis; it lasted only 56 issues (1682). (Earlier periodical ...
'', thought it "a bad play" because melodramatic, but nevertheless "full of interesting talk and subtle psychological cross-lights".
Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen ( ; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer notable for her books about "The Big House in Ireland, the Big House" of Irish Landed gentry, landed ...
in the ''
New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
'' agreed: "Mr Lucas has attempted to rush the barrier that divides the discursive from the melodramatic play", to combine "ideas not his own but dramatically plausible, and ideas his own but not dramatic". Still, "There are moments of fine theatre – for instance, Mrs Galbraith's languorous, intimate greeting, as she lies on the sofa with her back to the door, to someone she takes to be her lover back from the post, who is in fact her husband back, for blood, from Africa... The quickness and tension of the third act, when everyone's future hangs on the girl Valentine, an Electra with a green conscience, lasts to the final curtain."
[Elizabeth Bowen, 'Island Life', in ''The New Statesman and Nation'', 1938, reprinted in her ''Collected Impressions'' (London, 1950), p.206-209]
Background
Lucas's first play, ''
The Bear Dances'' (1932), also directed by Leon M. Lion, had been criticised for its discursiveness and lack of action. The melodramatic ''Land's End'' was the playwright's reply, as was his
Cowardesque romantic comedy, ''Surrender to Discretion'', first produced by the
People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne
The People's Theatre is an amateur theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Originally located in the city centre, the People's Theatre moved to its current site, adjacent to the A1058 road, Coast Road in Heaton, Newcastle, Heaton, in 1962. It sh ...
, from 18 – 25 November 1933.
['Community Drama', ''Timaru Herald'', Vol.137, Issue 19685, 30 December 1933, p.12](_blank)
/ref> Another in-joke in ''Land's End'' is the black-hatted, Montaigne
Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as ...
-reading Hugh Gifford, a self-portrait:
:VERNON: Hugh? Oh, he's charming. Complete fossil, of course, intellectually and politically – about as up to date as Shaw. But who expects a man to have ideas at forty-five? ''Ruined'' by a public-school classical education – but charming – like some ironical French essayist, from the days before essays went hopelessly out of date. Yet fought in the War – God ''only'' knows why – and isn't ashamed of it, even now. But – apart from that excursion into militarism – you know the sort of thing: comfortable scepticism, psychological armchair – lie back, light a cigarette and let this tiresome world rip, while you manicure your polished little ego. Still, he ''has'' polished his. He's rather charming. I like him. (''Hugh Gifford enters, a tall, slim figure in blue tweed coat and grey trousers, with greying hair and hawk-like face.'')
The Cambridge University Press, however, advertised ''Land's End'' as a tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...
(Valentine's).[Lucas, F. L., ''Four Plays'' (Cambridge, 1935), dust-jacket]
Notes
References
{{F. L. Lucas
1935 plays
British plays
Thriller plays
Plays set in England
Plays set in the 1930s
West End plays
Cambridge University Press books