Bernard Shaw - Candida & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

[Richard Mansfield]

19/ To Janet Achurch

13th April 1895

[My dear Janet]

I have just come up from Beachy Head, where I am spending Easter week, for one night to see a piece at the Adelphi [ The Girl I Left Behind Me by Franklyn Fyles and David Belasco]. I find a letter from you waiting for me—the one in which you describe Mansfield’s Bluntschli [in Arms and the Man ] and so on: also his objection to put his head on Candida’s knees, which I propose to get over by putting his head beneath Candida’s feet presently. I have just ten minutes before post hour to send you a line.

Miss Marbury has, I suppose, told you, as I asked her to, that you can now cable to “Socialist, London,” which is my registered address. I have sent you a couple of cables—no, perhaps only one—addressed “Candida, New York”; but C. C. [Charles Charrington] did not tell me to put Via Commercial on it. Anyhow, it was only about the letter which I addressed to the New Copenhagen Hotel instead of New Amsterdam.

C.C. told me the other day that you cabled him about shewing “ Candida ” to Mrs [Madge] Kendal. Ah, if you dare, Janet Achurch, IF YOU DARE. Shew it to whom you please; but part with it to nobody; and remember, no Janet, no Candida . You had better get some intelligent manager to engage you and [Henry] Esmond and [Herbert] Waring for the winter season to produce the play.

This is a horribly slow method of corresponding: letters are obsolete before they arrive.

At Beachy Head I have been trying to learn the bicycle; and after a desperate struggle, renewed on two successive days, I will do twenty yards and a destructive fall against any professional in England. My God, the stiffness, the blisters, the bruises, the pains in every twisted muscle, the crashes against the chalk road that I have endured—and at my age too. But I shall come like gold from the furnace: I will not be beaten by that hellish machine. When you return, you will be proud of my ability to sit gracefully on a wheel; and you need not trouble about my health.

Oh, the spring, the spring, and Janet miles and miles away.

C. C. telegraphs that he is coming at midnight to see me. He will tell me a lot of news no doubt. I will write again when I get back to Beachy Head.

GBS

20/ Richard Mansfield to Bernard Shaw

14th April 1895

My dear Shaw.

If we,—by we I mean [my wife] Beatrice and I,—had lost a very near and dear friend we could not have sorrowed more than when we discovered ‘ Candida ’ to be of , the impossible.

It has been read—read—read—read,—and reading it would revive our courage,— rehearsed and hope, faith & even charity dropped below zero. My personal regard for you (—which reckoned by the average consideration one male being will bear for another in these business times is really extra-ordinary—) could carry me a long way into the domain of folly and would undoubtedly have slipped me across the frontier in this instance—if dire necessity, and a crisis, hadnt just in the (to you perhaps) unfortunate nick of time built a doublerow prickly-pear hedge which won’t let ‘ Candida ’ thro’. Shaw—my light is perhaps very small and very dim—a mere farthing rush or a tallow dip—but viewed by it, and I have no other to view it by,—your play of Candida is lacking in all the essential qualities.

The stage is not for sermons— Not my stage —no matter how charming—how bright—how clever—how trenchant those sermons may be—

Candida is charming—it is more than charming—it is delightful, and I can well see how you have put into it much that is the best of yourself—but—pardon me—it is not a play—at least I do not think that it is a play—which thinking does not make it any more or any less of a play—it’s just only what I think and I happen to be skipper of this ship at this time of thinking. Here are three long acts of talk—talk—talk—no matter how clever that talk is—it is talk—talk—talk.

There isn’t a creature who seeing the play would not apply Eugene’s observations concerning Morell’s lecturing propensities to the play itself. If you think a bustling—striving—hustling—pushing—stirring American audience will sit out calmly two hours of deliberate talk you are mistaken—and I’m not to be sacrificed to their just vengeance.

It isn’t right to try and build a play out of a mere incident. Candida is only an incident—it doesn’t matter how you wad it or pad it or dress it or bedizen it—it’s an incident—nothing more. All the world is crying out for deeds—for action! When I step upon the stage I want to act—I’m willing to talk a little to oblige a man like you—but I must act—and hugging my ankles for three mortal hours won’t satisfy me in this regard. I can’t fool myself and I can’t fool my audience. I will gather together any afternoon you please a charming assemblage at our Garrick Theatre and read your play to them or play it—as best we may—but I can’t put it on for dinner in the evening—people are not satisfied with only the hors d’oeuvres at dinner—where is the soup & the fish & the roast & the game and the salad and the fruit? Shaw—if you will write for me a strong, hearty—earnest—noble—genuine play—I’ll play it. Plays used to be written for actors— actors who could stir and thrill—and that is what I want now—because I can do that—the world is tired of theories and arguments and philosophy and morbid sentiment. To be frank & to go further—I am not in sympathy with a young, delicate, morbid and altogether exceptional young man who falls in love with a massive middleaged lady who peels onions. I couldn’t have made love to your Candida (Miss Janet Achurch) if I had taken ether.

I never fall in love with fuzzy-haired persons who purr and are businesslike and take a drop when they feel disposed and have weak feminine voices. My ideal is something quite different. I detest an aroma of stale tobacco and gin. I detest intrigue and slyness and sham ambitions. I don’t like women who sit on the floor—or kneel by your side and have designs on your shirtbosom—I don’t like women who comb their tawny locks with their fingers, and claw their necks and scratch the air with their chins.

You’ll have to write a play that a man can play and about a woman that heroes fought for and a bit of ribbon that a knight tied to his lance.

The stage is for romance and love and truth and honor. To make men better and nobler. To cheer them on the way—

Life is real. Life is earnest. And the grave is not its goal.

.. . . . .

Be not like dumb, driven cattle

Be a hero in the fight!

Go on, Shaw; Beatrice & I are with you—you will be always as welcome as a brother.—We want a great work from you.—

Candida is beautiful—don’t mistake me—we both understand it and we both appreciate it—There are fine things here—but—we are paid—alas—Shaw—we are paid to act .

Yours, Shaw, truly

Richard Mansfield

[PS] I am perfectly aware that you will not read this letter—you will gather that I am not about to produce Candida—& there your interest will cease—you would like to have Candida presented—if I don’t present it—I’m damned—but also—I’m damned if I do. Ah Shaw Wir hatten gebauet ein stattleches Haus [German commercium song from 1819]. I don’t want to ruin it all.

21/ To a British actor-manager and a barrister Charles Charrington

16th April 1895

Telegram just received from Mansfield “Am opening Garrick with Arms and the Man [on the 23rd April] will produce Candida if I need not appear.” The benevolent object here is to produce the play with a bad cast, and by making it a failure, at one stroke prevent any other manager from getting it and prevent Janet from making a success in New York. I have not yet made up my mind whether to cable, or to leave Miss Marbury to carry out her instructions & get the play from him. Probably I shall cable to her & not to him at all. The effect will be, anyhow, that he may not now produce the play on any terms whatever. Am posting this bit of news to Janet. Back tomorrow evening.