5.5.2 Crises in Savoy Hill over 'The White Chateau'; stage productions in 1927; casts
5.5.3 Production of 'The White Chateau': Studio No. 1 or 'Second Studio (1924-6)' and Studio No. 3 or 'First Studio (1923-4)' in the Second Phase of Savoy Hill (autumn 1924 to early 1926)
5.5.6 Slide projection of script and other big productions in 1925
5.5.7 Other large productions in Savoy Hill during 1925
5.5.8 'Hassan' and 'The White Chateau'
5.5.9 Background to 'The White Chateau', biography of Berkeley
5.5.10 The 'White Chateau' in WW1
5.5.11 Characters
5.5.12 Note on emendations to the script
5.5.13 Summary of the play
5.5.13 Prologue and Scene 1
5.5.14 Scene 2
5.5.15 Scene 3
5.5.19 Analysis of 'The White Chateau': three advances - movement ('we got with'), use of sound effects, a 'Chronicle play'
5.5.20 The 'we go with' convention
5.5.31 Influence of John Drinkwater
Wednesday 11 November 1925 2LO London 8.30-9.30 (Armistice Day)
'The White Chateau' (Reginald Berkeley)presented by R.E. Jeffrey
characters (in order of speaking)
Chronicler - Henry Oscar
Julie (maid) - Peggie Robb-Smith
Chatelaine - Mary Rorke
Jacques - Reginald Denham
Violet - Phyllis Panting
Van Eysen - Herbert Ross
Diane - Cathleen Nesbitt
General - Edmund Willard
Philip - Donald Calthrop
Spirit - Milton Rosmer
Minister for War - Victor Lewisohn
Badger - Michael Hogan
Braithwaite - Austin Trevor
The Chronicler - Henry Oscar
Private Cossington - Norman Shelley
Chancellor / Braithwaite - Douglas Jeffries
Sergeant Harvey - Eric Lugg
Colonel - Allan Wade
'The Radio Times' 9 October 1925 p 101:
The feature of the programme will be a Radio Drama entitled "The White Chateau" specially written for the occasion by Captain Reginald Berkeley. "The White Chateau" will be remembered by all ex-Service listeners who remember Hooge. This Radio Drama promises to provide a powerful interpretation of the transition from war to peace.
5.5.1
'The White Chateau' was cited again and again as the first great radio origination and it was an hour long. It had a cast of 17 including Henry Oscar, Milton Rosmer, Victor Lewisohn, Cathleen Nesbitt and Phyllis Panting. In 1928, R.E. Jeffrey noted those aspects of it specific to radio:
Was not 'The White Chateau' – specially written for us by Captain Berkeley, who for its framework used a form unknown to the modern stage – a most successful radio play? Yet that same play in the same form was a stage success, and was hailed by several critics as a great war play.
('The Radio Times' 28 September 1928 p 617)
The message is: wireless scores over the stage. Val Gielgud also saw its place in history:
Finally, as the coping-stone to the progress of Radio Drama in 1925, Rose produced, on Armistice Day, the first full-length play specially written for the medium - The White Chateau, by Reginald Berkeley.
(Gielgud, 1957, 22)
5.5.2
I have questioned the veracity of this credit for Howard Rose in 2.1.13 following. I will take it that R.E. Jeffrey directed 'Chateau', as credited in 'The Radio Times' and in Berkeley 1925. Briggs, 1961, 282 says: 'but The White Chateau was the limit of achievement in the days of the Company'. Also, as mentioned in 2.1.15, 'The White Chateau' had to survive two internal Savoy Hill crises (Reginald Berkeley in the introduction to his 'Machines' play text, Berkeley, 1928, 20-21). The 'Programme Board stepped in' and demanded it be cut down to half-an-hour and then, in response to the international signing of the Treaty of Locarno, the play was cancelled for a while. Cecil Lewis was still Chairman of the Programme Board at this time, till he left the permanent staff of the B.B.C. in May 1926.
In 1927, Berkeley transformed 'The White Chateau' into a stage play and it ran at the Everyman for thirteen performances (29 March – 9 April 1927) and then at the St. Martin's Theatre for thirty-six (28 April – 28 May 1927). He had a cast of twenty-six and some were from the 1925 wireless production: Henry Oscar, Norman Shelley, Douglas Jefferies, Allan Wade.
MacQueen-Pope commented:
The White Chateau at the St Martin's was a most interesting play by that imaginative author Reginald Berkeley. It only ran for 36 performances but it deserved to do much better. It was before its time.
MacQueen-Pope, 1959, 184
The most famous World War 1 stage play is now taken to be the classic 'Journey's End' by R.C. Sherriff. But this premiered later, at the Apollo on 9 December 1928 and then became a hit from January 1929, running for 594 performances. 'The White Chateau' will always be overshadowed by 'Journey's End', but also by its own conventions such as the Chronicler and its style of Georgian poetry, dated to modern ears. A comparison will be made below.
The original text of the 1925 'Chateau' was published as The White Chateau, The Play Broadcasted by the B.B.C., Armistice Night (Berkeley 1925). This enterprising initiative, by Berkeley and probably not by the B.B.C., was in an age when more playscripts were published, often for performance by amateur companies. Savoy Hill was to do this in August 1928, when the Twelve Great Plays series began ('The Radio Times' 24 August 1928 p 322). 'Chateau' also became available in print in 1929, in the anthology of Great Modern British Plays (Marriott, 1929, 807). The Marriott 1929 text has some additions to the Berkeley 1925, to guide readers and later stagings.
5.5.3
Production of 'The White Chateau' was in Savoy Hill, and in Studio No. 1, or what I also term 'Second Studio (1924-6)' (1.4). There is a photograph of this Studio in Briggs (illustration no. 35). I will repeat details as production in 'Chateau' is an important topic – to what extent was this an 'achieved' wireless play or 'unachieved'? This Studio No. 1 was the second, larger studio, built in the autumn of 1924, less damped down as regards sound, and further modified in 1925. Here is 'The Radio Times' description:
The difficulties to artists were partially removed by the erection of a second studio. This was a much larger room and had only one layer of sacking behind the draping. The result of the freer atmosphere enabled artists to give much greater expression and individuality to their performances.
('The Radio Times' 5 February 1926 p 292)
Briggs (1961) 212 also describes it:
Studio Number One on the first floor, immediately above the Institution Council Chamber, was a larger room of about 45 feet by 30 feet. Large orchestras and a chorus could now be more reasonably housed, but the Company had to enter into an agreement not to play music during the meetings of the Council of the Institution.
5.5.4
There had been a further modification of Studio No. 1:
This large studio was subsequently modified by removing the layer of sacking, and it has been used in that condition as the chief studio for transmissions from London right up to the present time.
(West, A.G.D., 'Programmes from Five Studios', 'The Radio Times', 5 February 1926 p 292)
Production of 'Chateau' was in what I have termed the Second and Third Phases of drama at Savoy Hill (autumn 1924 to early 1926). Multi-studio production was now invented, with a separate Control Room. So there was use also of the original studio (Studio No. 3 or 'First Studio (1923-4)'). A slightly later description of production explains where technicians worked on effects during this time:
…. Until 1926 we had merely two studios, and these had to suffice for all the transmissions, rehearsals and engineering tests. … When extra "effects" were required an additional microphone was placed in the passage outside the studio, and many interesting transmissions, including the Military Tattoo and "The White Chateau" were broadcast using two microphones in this fashion.
(Chilman, H. Lea, 'A Tour Round Savoy Hill. Part VII', The Wireless World 30 March 1927, Vol 20 No 13, 388-92)
5.5.5
An effects studio was not built until the next phase in Savoy Hill. That was the small ancillary Studio No. 2 (B), in early 1926. So it is important at the outset to envisage, in so far as one can, the multi-studio set-up for 'The White Chateau': mainly in Studio No. 1 (45 ft by 30 ft), also in Studio No. 3 (the old studio), and effects in the studios and in the passage outside, where two microphones were used.
The first attempts at multi-studio technique had been necessitated by the need to separate orchestra and actors (Gielgud, Val, Theatre Arts Monthly, June 1931, 479). The orchestra must have been in Studio No. 3 and the cast of seventeen in Studio No. 1 on the first floor, with some of the effects. The noisiest bombing effects were in the passage outside, most likely. During transmission, the producer, R.E. Jeffrey, was invisible to these Studios in the new 'central Control Room', perhaps 200 foot away ('The Radio Times', 20 February 1925 p 409).
5.5.6
These Second and Third Phases (autumn 1924 to early 1926) were also the time when lantern slide projection onto a screen of the script was tried out:
To enable the actors to look up as they speak and to obviate the holding of books.
(The B.B.C. Year-Book 1930, 1930, 234 caption with photo)
Modern Wireless, in an interview with Val Gielgud adds:
At one time the players read from a script, or from a lantern slide projected on the wall, while the orchestra and effects men were packed into distant corners.
('Putting Over Radio Drama', Modern Wireless, March 1931, pp 256)
'The White Chateau' was published as a paperback at the time (Berkeley 1925), as mentioned above, and this light-weight script must also have been available to the cast. Fading in and out of effects (gramophone records and Spot), and speech, had been developed in 1924.
5.5.7
Other large productions in this Second Phase in Savoy Hill will be quickly surveyed here to illustrate the importance of 'Chateau', which had a cast of eighteen. It raises further issues about scheduling and resources.
There was 'Westward Ho!' (7 April 1925 London S.B. to all stations 7.30-9.15) , described as 'Ten Radioviews from Charles Kingsley's famous novel' and directed by R.E. Jeffrey. Although taken to be technically innovate, no actors are listed. Berkeley's 'The Dweller in the Darkness', his first wireless play, was broadcast on 14 April 1925 5XX 9.15-9.45 and again on 16 April 1925 London 9.15-9.40, directed by R.E. Jeffrey, with a cast of six.
Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', also produced by Jeffrey, went out on 23 June 1925 (London all stations except 5XX relayed from London 8-9.50) with a cast of fourteen, in a cut-down version of the text. On 6 July, there was the first 'Radio Radiance Revue' of this successful series, with six variety artists credited and the 'Chorus of Dancing Radios' (photo in Briggs, 1961, no. 39). There were further in the series during the year. 'She Stoops to Conquer' (Oliver Goldsmith) had a cast of twelve (1 October 1925 London 8.20-9.20). The double bill of 13 October 1925 (London 8.10-8.40 and 9.15-9.45) had casts of six ('The Little Stone House' (George Calderon)) and seven (* 'Bright Gold' (R.E. Jeffrey and Frank H. Shaw)).
But by far the biggest production yet in Savoy Hill happened shortly before 'Chateau'. This was the adaptation of the famous stage poetic drama 'Hassan' (James Elroy Flecker), with music by Delius, and a cast of twenty-four, and a full chorus. This was directed by R.E. Jeffrey and Donald Calthrop. The special resources and rehearsal time for this have already been discussed in 5.2.8, along with this unusually busy week – Sunday afternoon for 'Hassan', and Tuesday for the 'Trial Scene' from Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, performed by amateur members of the Dickens Fellowship (10 November 1925 London 8.30-9.35). The following day, Wednesday, Armistice Day, the 'Chateau'.
5.5.8
So the resources for 'Hassan' (Sunday 8 November 1925 London 3.30-5.30) with its cast of twenty-four, music and chorus, were greater than for 'The White Chateau' (cast of eighteen). These two plays are cited in the histories of B.B.C. radio drama, but their significance in production resources, one (two hours) after the other (one hour), has not been pointed out.
There is also the question of rehearsals and here the picture may have been different. Some of the wireless 'Hassan' cast were repeating their roles from the revival in His Majesty's (20 September 1923 – 24 May 1924, 282 performances): Henry Ainley as Hassan, Ernest Milton as the Caliph, Leon Quartermaine as Ishak, Laura Cowie as Pervaneh, and Cathleen Nesbitt as Yasmin. So rehearsals may have been limited. This 'Hassan' was almost uniquely on a Sunday afternoon, probably because of the availability of this large cast, chorus and players. Savoy Hill had not, up to this, been so crowded with actors, singers and musicians. Just as actors gathered for one-off productions in the Sunday performing societies, so for the first time, and not for a considerable time after, Savoy Hill offered this Sunday afternoon entertainment. Rehearsals were now possible because in the Second Phase there were two studios.
There is little overlap between the casts of 'Hassan' and 'The White Chateau'. Cathleen Nesbitt was Yasmin in 'Hassan' and received a lot of critical praise for this, and she also played the demanding role of Diane in 'Chateau'. Diane is the daughter of the house in Scene 1, the nurse in Scene 5 and has the greatest role in the final Scene 6. She brings the play together. Donald Calthrop had been engaged as part-time B.B.C. producer from October 1925 to January 1925 (5.2.6). He was assistant director or co-director on 'Hassan' and played Philip in 'The White Chateau', again a demanding role (Scenes 4,5 6). Presumably he had been taken on with these productions in view.
5.5.9
Before my analysis of 'The White Chateau', here is some background on Reginald Berkeley. It comes from Archibald Haddon's Green Room Gossip (Haddon 1922) and the page of biography in Marriott, 1929, 808.
Reginald Berkeley (1870-1935) came from New Zealand just before WW1. He was a young barrister, a member of the Inner Temple and of the New Zealand Bar. In WW1 he was a brigade-major in the Rifle Brigade of the Fourth Army and wrote his play, 'French Leave' while invalided behind the lines during the Battle of the Somme (Haddon, 1922, 123). So his first success on the London stage was the comedy 'French Leave' (Globe and Apollo 15 July – 19 March 1921, 283 performances). Haddon says that it 'went with a roar. There was a laugh or a smile in almost every line' (ib.) and he lists Berkeley in his chapter on promising new playwrights. Early plays included 'Eight o'Clock' (Little Theatre 1921) and 'Mango Island'. After the War he joined the staff of the League of Nations. He was a member of Parliament from 1922-4. Haddon noted, in a wireless talk, which MPs were then connected with the theatre as playwrights etc. and that 'the dramatist Captain Reginald Berkeley' had been returned as a Liberal Free Trader MP by Nottingham (Haddon, 1924, 131).
'The Radio Times' publicity for the forthcoming 'The White Chateau' was this:
The feature of the programme will be a Radio Drama entitled "The White Chateau" specially written for the occasion by Captain Reginald Berkeley. "The White Chateau" will be remembered by all ex-Service listeners who remember Hooge. This Radio Drama promises to provide a powerful interpretation of the transition from war to peace.
('The Radio Times' 9 October 1925 p 101)
The source for this is the Foreword by Berkeley to the printed play (Berkeley, 1925, 5-6).
5.5.10
Berkeley is careful to make the setting imaginary and representative of all destruction, and the Van Eysen family was representative 'of all the civilian victims of war of all ages'. He says:
The play is inspired by the Great War, but does not pretend to be historical. … Nothing is to be gained by labouring the causes of the Great War, and reviving the animosities that it bred.
(Berkeley, 1925, 6)
But he mentions that 'the Fourth British Army was preparing to force the Sambre-and-Oise Canal' and, of course, that was his wartime experience. The White Chateau was not that 'of Hollebeke, nor that of Ypres [Hooge], nor any in particular'. However, it is useful to point out what this original 1925 audience would have known about the very name, the 'White Chateau'. This became for a while 1st Army Headquarters in 1914, before being destroyed:
The Chateau of Hooge where the 1st Army Headquarters were situated has long since been erased from the face of the earth in the severe fighting around it. But as I found it on that October afternoon, it was a typical modern red brick chateau approached by a gate and a short avenue from the road. Shells were falling around the place, and the chateau was already beginning to show the effects of artillery fire.
(Viscount French of Ypres, 1914, 249)
It took a direct artillery hit while still Headquarters. There are photographs of Hooge Chateau in Lyn Macdonald's volume on 1915, ruined in the early stages of the Second Battle of Ypres, and then seventy years on, a modern more modest replacement, with the mine craters made into an ornamental garden (Macdonald, 1993, opposite page 484 and map on page 281). There was an ornamental lake and woodland around it, and a ridge. Before the War, the Baron de Vinck kept trout stocked there and a boat, swans and peacocks.
Hooge was alongside the strategic Menin Road. When the Germans took the Chateau in June 1915, 'only two walls were left standing', and the British held on to the Chateau stables, fifty yards away (390). For modern ears, this gives more of the connotations of the 'White Chateau' and the significance of its wireless premiere on Armistice Day 1925 (Wednesday 11 November 1925 2LO London 8.30-9.30). Manchester Station broadcast, before 'Chateau', its own 'Commemoration Fantasy' by the Station Dramatic Company, a play, 'The Spirit of the Cenotaph' (H. Topliss), directed by Victor Smythe (11 November 1925 Birmingham 10.30-11). And later in the evening, Birmingham broadcast 'Peace', 'a protean interlude' (11 November 1925 Birmingham 10.30-11). This was 'specially written by John Overton [Kathleen Baker] for Percy Edgar' – a monologue perhaps.
5.5.11
I will now give an analysis of the play, firstly by listing the characters and the scenes in which they appear.
Chronicler
Scene 1 Location: Breakfast in the White Chateau
Household of the White Chateau:
Charles Van Eysen (father)
Madame van Eysen
Jacques (son, returned from Cambridge)
Violet (engaged to Jacques)
Diane (daughter)
Maid
Officer of the B troop of the Black Skull Hussars
Orderly
Scene 2 Location: Army Headquarters in the White Chateau
Sentry
The Secretary
The A.D.C.
Commander-in-Chief
Commander-of-Staff
Minister
Voice (of soldier)
Orderly
Scene 3 Location: Dug-Out and Trenches near the White Chateau
Courtenay
Matheson
Waters (orderly)
Company Commander
Badger Barrington
A Signaller
Captain Braithwaite
Colonel
Artillery Liaison Officer Williams
Stretcher-Bearer
Scene 4 Location: Ruins of the White Chateau
Officer Luttrell
Sergeant Major
Guide
Phil Luttrell (Officer's younger brother)
Sergeant Harvey
Voices of soldiers
Rebel Soldier
Doctor
Nurse (Diane)
General
Scene 5 Location: Two years later in the hospital beside the ruins of the White Chateau
Diane Van Eysen (Nurse)
Phil
General
Doctor
Voice
Scene 6 Location: The White Chateau in the process of rebuilding a year after the War
Diane
Phil
Voice
5.5.12
But firstly a minor note on the allocations of characters in the script. There is a stage convention in the all printed playscripts of the time to indicate a character's lines said offstage – 'A Voice'. When the character, enters, and is seen by the audience onstage and also identified in the dialogue, this changes to their character name.
Here is an example from 'Simon Stylites' (F. Sladen-Smith), a one-act stage play which was also broadcast (16 February 1925 Manchester 10-10.30). The new character is first called 'Voice' and then this changes to 'Sedulius':
A VOICE. [below] Simeon! Simeon!
SIMEON. Who calls me?
THE VOICE. [coming nearer]. Sedulius, the pilgrim, calls you.
SIMEON. Has Sedulius the pilgrim brought an offering?
THE VOICE. Yes; two baskets of dates has Sedulius brought.
SIMEON. Two baskets of dates? [Thinks for a moment, then shrugs his shoulders.] Well-you may come.
[After a pause a head is seen coming up the ladder.]
THE HEAD. Hail, mighty Simeon, hail!
SIMEON. [with profound indifference]. Hail! It is a great pity, young man, to waste your breath before you've reached the top of the ladder.
SEDULIUS. [appearing more fully]. It's a stiff climb, certainly.
[He arrives on top, and stands looking at SIMEON with great curiosity. He is young, pale, and enthusiastic. Dressed in a coarse pilgrim costume.)
SEDULIUS. So you are the great Saint Simeon, and this your holy column! [Suddenly kneeling with great reverence] Oh, praise be to the angels that I have lived to see this day!
SIMEON. Young man, if you're not careful you'll fall off. That railing is by no means invincible. Also, I have not yet been canonized. What was that about dates?
(Marriott, 1928, 136-7)
So the script makes it clear to director and to stage management, and to the actor, that, while Sedulius is VOICE, he is 'off' and not seen by the audience. This is not only a useful convention in shorthand for accuracy, but also in rehearsal, when confusion is more likely. So, for example in 'Chateau', at the beginning of Scene 3, A VOICE is listed for the second speaker in the scene:
FX:(THE MUFFLED THUMP OF A SHELL OVERHEAD)
A VOICE:(plaintively) I wish they wouldn't. It puts the candle out every time
It is clear soon, according to this stage convention, that this character has to be COURTENAY. So I have emended my version of the text to:
FX:(THE MUFFLED THUMP OF A SHELL OVERHEAD)
VOICE [COURTENAY]:(plaintively) I wish they wouldn't. It puts the candle out every time.
Another example is where a character is first listed as DIANA'S VOICE rather than DIANA.
This convention could cause confusion to the modern reader of 'Chateau', and the beginning pages of the Third Scene dialogue are particularly confusing (Berkeley, 1925, 38-40). Berkeley is merely using the current print convention for his text even though this was a wireless play. We are to imagine in our 'mind picture' as they called it then, that VOICE [COURTENAY] was not yet 'revealed'. Berkeley must also have intended his print version of the play to encourage stage production.
So I differ with Chothia (Chothia, 1996, 251-2) over the interpretation of the opening of Scene 3. As I outlined, this is merely a convention of 1920s printed play scripts. But Chothia quotes Scene Three beginning and sees deeper:
(The nondescript sound of a quiet day in the trenches.)
A VOICE (dolefully humming): If you want ter find the Sergeant, I know where 'e is, I know where 'e is, I know where 'e is
(The muffled thump of a shell overhead.)
A VOICE (plaintively):I wish they wouldn't. It puts the candle out every time.
ANOTHER:To say nothing of waking up weary Company Commanders.
(A prodigious yawn.)
The voices, intercutting, stoical, wryly humorous, excited, create a powerful effect of individuals within the mass, momentarily heard, then lost. It is a sequence remarkably attuned to the possibilities of radio. The sound effects required in this short scene seem now, by comparison, excessive, overanxious.
(Chothia, 1996, 252)
On my understanding, this is just not so. It is not a short expressionist scene. Courtenay, A VOICE, sings the trenches song about the Sergeant in a mocking tone as if he were just an ordinary Cockney Tommy, which he is not. Then Courtenay ANOTHER, complains about the candle. The characters are 'on stage' (if that makes sense in a wireless play) here but not fully revealed to the listeners or audience. I do not find in this an expressionist montage of anonymous soldiers 'momentarily heard, then lost' (Chothia). This is not the 'forerunner' of Sean O'Casey's expressionist WW1 play, 'The Silver Tassie' (written 1928), mentioned also by Chothia.
This is a realist scene and although the printed script is rather obtuse about allocating characters here, one has to work through the 1920s convention. Berkeley did innovate remarkably, with effects, etc., as I discuss below, but not here. To repeat, he must have intended the 1925 text for potential stage production and he – and his editor – used the common currency of the printed text. It has also to be said that Chothia is helpfully perceptive on the 'excessive, over-anxious' sound effects of 'Chateau' and 'the attempt to supply an equivalent of stage set and visual action'
(Chothia, 1996, 252).
5.5.13
Detailed summary of 'The White Chateau'
There is a small prologue to establish The Chronicler:
CHRONICLER:
This story of the White Chateau
That, in the thriving Flanders plain,
Was builded centuries ago.
And ever, through succeeding years,
Destroyed, and builded up once more,
Shall come familiarly to ears
Attuned to the din of war.
Scene 1 of 'The White Chateau'
It is breakfast time in the White Chateau on the brink of war (similar to the First World War), unbeknownst to the family of the Van Eysens. They are situated on the border, in the cockpit of hostilities and the play opens:
FX: (THE CHEERFUL SOUNDS OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. A BELL IS STRUCK.)
MAID'S VOICE: Madame rang?
MADAME: Bring in a fresh pot of coffee.
MAID: Yes, Madame.
MADAME: Jacques, I like this English breakfast you've brought back from Oxford.
JACQUES: Of course. Everybody pretends to despise breakfast and everyone eats it if they get a chance.
FX: (FOOTSTEPS ENTERING THE ROOM)
Hullo, Violet!
VIOLET: Hullo! What a topping day! Good-morning, Madame Van Eysen .... Good-morning.
MADAME: Good-morning. ... Charles, Violet is saying good-morning to you.
VAN EYSEN: I beg pardon. I was so engrossed in my letter. Good-morning my dear.
VIOLET: Where's Diane?
JACQUES: Not down yet.
Jacques plans to visit the nearby town 'something like Bruges, only older' with Violet, his fiancée. Diane arrives and there is banter over the father monopolizing the newspaper. The paper gets handed round and each reader distinctively reflects another aspect of the domestic scene:
JACQUES: Diabolo's scratched for the Grand Prix.
DIANE: Hooray! I win my bet with the gardener.
And:
JACQUES: Good Lord! What's this? ...
DIANE: There's going to be a state ball this winter.
MADAME: Prices are coming down
VIOLET: England's gone dry.
JACQUES: (soberly) No ... And it's too serious for playing the fool. There's a war.
DIANE: Oh yes, between Greenland and Patagonia. You don't catch me, Jacques.
JACQUES: Seriously. There's a war.
VAN EYSEN: What? This country isn't involved, surely? ... Here, give me the paper.
JACQUES: No. But we're between them ... Here you are!
VAN EYSEN: (A little relieved) Oh, well, it's only an ultimatum. This won't come to anything, you know. The financial world won't permit wars nowadays. Can't afford it. Civilisation's far too complex and interlocked. Countries have to do this kind of thing from time to time to blow off steam. But there's always a way out. They leave a loop-hole. Statesmen aren't fools.
The family wonder whether they ought to move to America but the father still has confidence in 'statesmen' while Jacques cynically quotes Shelley. But disaster is about to fall on them:
MADAME: My husband, our children and I are good Catholics. Please don't say things it will be our duty to tell Father Lawrence; and make yourself look silly when the good father comes to dinner next Sunday.
MAID: Oh, sir! Oh, madam! There's foreign soldiers in the kitchen taking the eggs and butter and carrying on terrible ...
MADAME: But they can't be foreigners, Julie.
JULIE: (tearfully) But they are, madam. You can't understand a word they say -
VAN EYSEN: (furiously) This is too much of a good thing altogether.
FX: (TRAMP OF FEET - SPURS)
JULIE: Oh, there's one of them coming in.
OFFICER: (stern, quiet) Is this the White Chateau?
(A STRANGER IN UNIFORM HAS ENTERED THE ROOM)
This is the officer in charge of the B troop of the Black Skull Hussars and when Van Eysen puts up resistance:
VAN EYSEN: Black fiddlesticks! Some ridiculous prank! What? - Black stuff and nonsense!
OFFICER: (hotly) If you insult my uniform I'll have you thrashed with the flat of a sabre.
(A gasp of astonishment from Van Eysen.)
I advise you to be civil and answer my questions. What is your name?
The others are ordered out into the garden but not beyond, and the Officer explains that they are on their way across the territory to surprise the enemy. He requisitions the house, leaving two bedrooms and a sitting-room to the family, and then the stables and the valuable horses.
Then:
FX: (A SUDDEN UPROAR FROM THE BACK OF THE HOUSE. THE SOUND OF A SHOT; AND A WAIL)
OFFICER: What the devil's this? If your servants are giving trouble, sir, they'll pay for it.
FX: (THE UPROAR CONTINUES. SOMEONE IS SHOUTING "LET ME GO! LET ME GO, I SAY!")
VAN EYSEN: If your men are misbehaving I shall complain - I shall complain -
The son is taken prisoner and threatened with death for resisting, then shot dead, and as the Officer is given the message that they are soon to march. The Mother does not know that he has already been lost:
MADAME: He'll be brave. I know he'll be brave.
(A few bars of a Dead March.)
(End of Scene 1)
5.5.14
Scene 2 of 'The White Chateau'
Berkeley gives directions for the musical interlude (music specially composed by Norman O'Neill, the Music Director.)
(A great slow theme, given out by the basses and taken up by the rest of the strings, suggests the steady forward march of a mighty army. A few bars indicate the cantering of the cavalry patrols, broken in upon by the chatter of machine-guns and the sharp bark of field artillery. Always the army moves onward like some relentless piece of machinery. This theme dies away and is replaced by one suggesting the distant boom of the sea breaking on a reef The voice of the CHRONICLER is heard speaking through the music.)
CHRONICLER:
Roll onward like an angry sea,
Wave upon wave and host on host,
Hurling your strength at the enemy
As the hurricane batters a rock-bound coast!
Though the seas sweep on, yet the rocks remain,
And the sea is thrown back where the cliff stands fast;
For the sea and your legions, that storm in vain,
Failing alike shall fall at last.
Behold the tide of marching men
The High Command keeps sleepless ward,
Serenely proving that the pen
Is ever mightier than the sword.
The Grand Headquarters Over All
In some great mansion - once alight
With children's voices, loud and small -
Now bare and bleak, directs the fight ...
Clipped grey hair for a baby's curls,
Gleam of weapons for gleam of pearls,
And in my lady's deserted bed
A grim old General in gold and red.
FX: (A BAR OF MARTIAL MUSIC FADING AWAY. THE QUICK STEP OF A SENTRY ON A GRAVEL PATH OUTSIDE. THE CLICK OF A TYPEWRITER. THE UNDERTONES OF A MAN DICTATING A MILITARY REPORT. FAR OFF THE HOOT AND PURR OF A POWERFUL CAR. THE RATTLE OF A SENTRY'S EQUIPMENT OUTSIDE AS HE PREPARES TO TURN THE GUARD OUT.)
SENTRY'S VOICE: (outside) Stand by, the Guard!
FX: (THE PURRING OF THE MOTOR AS IT TURNS UP THE DRIVE)
SENTRY'S VOICE: Guard - turn out!
FX: (HURRYING FOOTSTEPS AS THE GUARD OBEYS)
SENTRY'S VOICE: Present - arms!
FX: (DISTANT TRUMPETS. THE TYPEWRITER AND THE DICTATION CEASE ABRUPTLY)
SECRETARY: That's the Commander-in-Chief. You'd better go and tell the Chief of Staff.
A.D.C.: Right. Will you fetch the Minister for War when he's ready?
SECRETARY: Yes.
FX: (FOOTSTEPS RECEDING. THE TYPING IS RESUMED. SHORT PAUSE. THE DOOR IS OPENED. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ENTERS WITH HEAVY TREAD. THE SECRETARY ABANDONS HIS TYPING AND SPRINGS TO ATTENTION.)
C-IN-C: Good morning .... Where's the Chief of Staff?
SECRETARY: He's coming now, sir. I've a lot of papers for you to see.
C-IN-C: (sitting heavily) They must wait. When is the War Minister arriving?
The Chief of Staff arrives with the news that the advance is slowing down and detailed orders are sent out to extensive forces, nearly two million - the Seventh Army, and the Right and Left Group of Armies. The War Minister enters and asks how the 'great offensive' is going. He is told to keep the Parliament in order:
C-IN-C: ... It affects my men. Undermines their confidence in their leaders and makes them think about their own skins. If irresponsible Deputies can't have the patriotism to hold their tongues they ought to be imprisoned till the war's over.
MINISTER: (drily) That sort of thing's very easy for a soldier to say and impossible for a democratic government to do. Besides, the casualties are heavy. It's unsettling the nation.
C.-IN-C.: They'll be far heavier before long. They're nothing to worry about yet.
The Minister warns the Commander that they expected a swift victory with such forces and instead there are casualties and no decisive battle. The Commander replies:
C.-IN-C.: (ironically) You want me to win a great battle and you want me to do it bloodlessly. Civilians always ask a soldier to work miracles; and they're always put out when the soldier tells them that miracles are the work of God, not man. You can't fight battles without killing soldiers; and the bigger the battle the more you must be prepared to
sacrifice ...
News comes that the Seventh Army has broken and other sections cut off. The Commander gives orders and arranges that the Headquarters are moved back from the battle, and leaves. The Minister wonders:
MINISTER: There's something familiar to me about this house. I wonder why. What is the name of the village in the hollow?
C.-OF-S.: Bilteringhem. This place is known as the White Chateau.
MINISTER: Of course. Why, I spent the Christmas holidays in this very house, oh, years and years ago. It belonged to a family called - there! - I've forgotten the name. They were friends of my mother.
C.-OF-S.: Van Eysen.
MINISTER: Of course. How did you know?
C.-OF-S.: We took it over from them. They're under observation. Dangerous people. One of them fired on our troops after the occupation; and was very properly shot for it.
MINISTER: (perfunctorily) Dear me! how shocking! War's full of tragedies. Ah, is that my car?
The Minister goes and the scenes ends:
C.-OF-S.: (curtly) Good-bye, Sir.
FX: (THE DOOR SHUTS.)
C.-OF-S.: Wind-bag!
FX: (HE STRIKES THE BELL.)
C.-OF-S.: Orderly, bring all messages in here and put me through to the Centre Group Commander on the telephone. And ask the Director of Operations -
FX: (THE MUSIC SWELLS UP AND HIS VOICE IS LOST)
(End of Scene 2)
5.5.15
Scene 3 of 'The White Chateau'
Again the Chronicler makes the transition:
(MUSIC)
CHRONICLER:
An army in prolonged retreat.
Trudge, trudge of tired feet,
Trudge, trudge through rain and sludge,
Trudge - trudge - trudge - trudge ...
Heavy heart and drooping head,
Scanty rations, scantier bed,
Failing strength and dizzy brain,
Trudge, trudge ... on again.
The Chateau is left in No-Man's-Land. The action begins again in the British trenches:
FX: (THE NONDESCRIPT SOUNDS OF A QUIET DAY IN THE TRENCHES.)
A VOICE (BRAITHWAITE)
If you want ter find the Sergeant,
I know where 'e is,
I know where 'e is, I know where 'e is.
If you want ter find the Sergeant,
I know where 'e is.
'E's sittin' in the wet canteen.
I seen 'im, I seen 'im,
Sittin' in the wet canteen.FX: (THE MUFFLED THUMP OF A SHELL OVERHEAD)
A VOICE [COURTENAY]: (plaintively) I wish they wouldn't. It puts the candle out every time.
ANOTHER [BRAITHWAITE]: To say nothing of waking up weary Company Commanders. (a prodigious yawn) It's no good trying to sleep. Courtenay, I'll help you and Matheson censor the letters, if you like.
COURTENAY: Thanks awfully, old thing,
FX: (THUMP OVERHEAD)
COURTENAY: There! It's out again and I've no more matches.
MATHESON: Waters - War-ters!
A FAR-AWAY VOICE [WATERS]: Sir!
MATHESON: Bring some matches, and a couple more candles.
WATERS: (far off) Very good, sir.
FX: (THE SCRAMBLE OF SOMEONE DESCENDING THE DUG-OUT STAIRS.)
COMPANY COMMANDER: Hello, Badger! What's the news?
In the dug-out are officers: Courtenay, Matheson, and Badger Barrington. As there is an enemy machine-gun post in the White Chateau, the decision is to order in artillery to deal with it. The orderly Waters brings in letters for Badger:
BADGER: Right. Thanks, Waters.
FX: (HE TAKES THEM. THE SOUND OF RENDING ENVELOPES.)
BADGER: (as he reads) Good Lord! Oh, I say ...
FX: (DA-DA-DA-DA ON THE BUZZER-'PHONE)
SIGNALLER: Battalion Headquarters, Adjutant on the line, sir. Wants to speak to Captain Braithwaite.
Badger discovers that his wife has just had twins. The Colonel calls down and Braithwaite joins him up the dug-out stairs:
COLONEL: I think you'd better come up. It looks rather narrow for me.
FX: (THE SCRAMBLING OF BRAITHWAITE UP THE DUG-OUT STAIRS)
COLONEL: Morning, Braithwaite. Company O.K.?
BRAITHWAITE: Morning, sir. Yes. Everything's all right. They've put a machine-gun post in the Chateau.
They plan that the artillery target the White Chateau and when Braithwaite asks for leave for Badger:
BRAITHWAITE: (calling down) Badger!
FAINT VOICE: Ye-es?
BRAITHWAITE: The Colonel wants you. Come up.
FX: (A FAINT SCRAMBLING BECOMES LOUDER AS HE NEARS THE SURFACE.)
BRAITHWAITE: Awfully decent of you, Colonel.
COLONEL: Oh, rot! ... Hullo, Barrington. What's this you've been up to?
The Colonel gives Badger leave and they discuss the location of the machine gun, in the basement of the Chateau. They move on for a better view:
COLONEL: Can you see from here or must we go into the front line?
BADGER: Not here, you can't, sir; but just a few yards on. This way sir.
FX: (TRAMP OF FEET ALONG THE TRENCH)
BADGER: Just here you can, sir.
COLONEL: Let me have a squint.
BRAITHWAITE: Don't show yourself, Colonel. Their snipers are pretty hot.
FX: (CRACK OF A RIFLE NEAR BY.)
BRAITHWAITE: I told you so.
COLONEL: I don't call that hot. Didn't go near me.
Artillery Liaison Officer Williams, who accompanies the Colonel, phones up and makes the arrangements to target the Chateau. The Colonel leaves:
COLONEL: Good-bye. Come along, orderly.
FX: (THEY ARE HEARD WALKING OFF DOWN THE TRENCH.)
Badger can leave right away, but decides to look at the first shots:
FX: (HE CLAMBERS ON THE FIRE-STEP.)
BRAITHWAITE: Don't be a goat, Badger. There's nothing to see.
BADGER: (obstinately) Yes, there is. I believe there's a second gun in the angle of the low wall at the back.
FX: (TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT)
BADGER: (triumphantly) Yes, there is. I can spot the flash. Williams, there's a -
FX: (CRACK. THE SOUND OF A SHAMBLING FALL.)
BRAITHWAITE: (shouting) Stretcher-bearer! ... (groaning) Oh, Badger - why did you? ... (incoherently) Turn him over - field dressing. My God, in the head … it's that wretched sniper.
FX: (THE TELEPHONE BUZZ BUZZ)
WILLIAMS: (NOTE: SPEAKING INTO THE PHONE) Hello! - yes? ...
STRETCHER-BEARER: He's done in, sir.
BRAITHWAITE: (softly) Poor old Badger and his twins ... Oh, damn this filthy war!
WILLIAMS: Bad luck, Braithwaite. Well - we'll send up a few of the other side to keep him company. We're just going to begin shooting. Hullo! ... Are you there? Ready. Yes. We're looking out.
FX: (FAR-AWAY BOOM ... A NOISE LIKE A RUNAWAY TRAIN ...CRRANG, AND THE THUD OF FALLING DEBRIS.)
BRAITHWAITE: (excitedly) Sergeant Andrews, get your Lewis gun on those fellows running out of the Chateau. Quick, man, quick!
FX: (TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUTTER-TUTTER-TUTTER-TUT)
WILLIAMS: (delighted) Direct hit first shot, by Jove! Who says the heavies can't shoot? (into the telephone) Hullo! - Reynolds! - By Gad, old man, you got a direct hit. Plumb in the bull ... And listen, the machine-gun's crew ran out of the Chateau and the infantry've bagged the lot with a Lewis gun ... Yes, I'll report on each shell.
FX: (BOOM ... RoooooooOOO-oooooo ... CRRANG, THE FALLING OF MASONRY.)
WILLIAMS: Marvellous. The whole west wall's caved in ... Go on. There won't be a stone standing to-night … Are the nine-twos going to shoot as well? Yes, I'll observe for them too. Carry on ...
FX: (BOOM ..... BOOM ..... BOOM .....)
[ (FADE OUT: PAUSE)]
(End of Scene 3)
5.5.16
Scene 4 of 'The White Chateau'
Music, and the Chronicler again resumes and the action takes up in the ruins of the Chateau, still under fire:
FX: (THE SOUND OF CAUTIOUS FOOTSTEPS ADVANCING ALONG A MUDDY TRACK.)
A VOICE [OFFICER]: (subdued) Sergeant-Major.
ANOTHER [SERGEANT-MAJOR]: Sir.
THE OFFICER: I suppose this is the White Chateau?
Both pore over a map to plan their trench, which should be between the Chateau and the stables - they being a heap of stones and a heap of mud. The guide arrives but is uncertain:
OFFICER: Well, you'd better assume this is the White Chateau. Where we are now, I mean. You go on with my orderly and find the trench. Sergeant-major, you stay with me.
FX: (FOOTSTEPS RECEDING THROUGH THE MUD)
OFFICER: Lucky we came up in advance of the Company.
The Officer asks the Sergeant-major to look after his younger brother, in case anything happens to himself. The Company arrive:
FX: (NOISE OF TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT CLINKING, AND FOOTSTEPS IN MUD.)
They get to work, rebuked by the Sergeant-major, and endeavour not to let the enemy know they are there, as dawn in breaking. The Officer especially gives the order that when they fix bayonets, they are not to let the tips show above the trench. He gives immediate orders for the attack to his younger brother, Phil and they look over at the Chateau:
OFFICER: How extraordinary it looks in the early morning light. Almost pretty in this red glow.
PHIL: Sunrise! ... What a gorgeous morning … Do you remember when you were on leave before came out, that early morning ride out to Melbury, cubbing? We started by candlelight; and saw the sun rise, on the way. Did you get any letters from home last night?
The Officer continues his foreboding about the attack and his own personal fate but switches to crisp O.C. when the Sergeant-major lines the men up for the attack. The Sergeant-major notices his attitude and mentions it to Phil, who denies it. Bombs land, but clear of the trench. Sergeant Harvey and Phil continue talking about arrangements:
PHIL: …….. By the way, Sergeant, how many stretchers are we taking?
SERGEANT: Four, sir - two stretcher-bearers per platoon. Corporal Mathews is in charge of them, sir.
FX: (THEY STILL PASS DOWN THE TRENCH) (NOTE: This is crossed out in the surviving script.)
PHIL: Righty-O. Here, this fellow's all wrong, surely. Look here.
FX: (Whooooooooo-BONG DOWN THE TRENCH: AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER CRR-ANG IN THE TRENCH BESIDE THEM. GROANS.)
SERGEANT: (anxiously) You hit, sir? You hit?
PHIL: (shakily) No, I'm all right. Help me up ... This poor devil is, though. Good Lord!
FX: (GROANS FROM WOUNDED MAN)
SERGEANT: All right, chum - easy does it ...
FX: (A GASP OF PAIN AND THE END)
SERGEANT: 'Ere. Lay 'im out in that cubby-'ole there. Corporal Andrews, you see to it .... We'd better 'urry on, sir. Time's getting' on.
PHIL: (mechanically) Yes, Sergeant Harvey ... What's that?
FX: (NOISE OF SOMEONE HURRYING DOWN THE TRENCH DEMANDING AS HE COMES)
SERGEANT-MAJOR: Is Mr. Luttrell down 'ere? Is Mr. Luttrell down 'ere?
He brings the news that the Captain has been killed and that Phil is now in command of the Company, as they are about to go over in a few minutes. Phil mechanically gives orders for finishing the inspection before they attack and decides that he will go over in the first wave, ordering the Sergeant-major to wait until the rear waves - the place of the Company Commander. With two minutes to go:
PHIL: I know that ... Platoon Sergeants to get their men on the fire-step ready to go over directly the barrage starts ... Pass it down.
VOICES: (discreetly modulated) Right, sir. ((NOTE: This is excised in the script.)
FX: (THE SOUND OF THE MESSAGE BEING PASSED FROM MOUTH TO MOUTH.)
The attack goes on.
5.5.17
Scene 5 of 'The White Chateau'
It is two years later and Phil, now a Major, lies wounded in the hospital. The Doctor introduces Nurse Diane Van Eysen to him and explains that the other patient, behind the screen at the other end of the room is the General. Phil is wheeled over to the window at his request.
DOCTOR: Just do it right away now, Nurse. Sister and I will manage the General. He's still asleep, isn't he?
DIANE: Yes, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Right. Carry on.
FX: (THE SOUND OF THEIR STEPS MOVING DOWN THE WARD TO THE GENERAL'S BED; AND THE NOISE OF PHIL'S BED BEING WHEELED OVER TO THE WINDOW. INDISTINCT VOICES AS THE DOCTOR GREETS THE GENERAL.)
PHIL: Thanks so much. Can you raise me a bit?
DIANE: Yes, certainly.
FX: (THE CLANKING OF THE HANDLE AS SHE RAISES THE BED.)
Phil recognises the landscape as the place where his brother died and Diane explains it was her home, that they shot her brother on the day war broke out, and that she asked to be exchanged for another hospital when she knew it was to be moved here. They exchange a compact of friendship.
PHIL: Diane, will this war go on for ever? It's spoiling the world and everyone in it … (timidly) But perhaps you want revenge for your brother?
DIANE: No … I did. For a year I prayed … oh, terrible things! Remember, I had seen my mother die of grief and my father go out of his mind. But when I became part of the war machine myself, as a Nurse - I found I couldn't hate any more.
PHIL: I worked it off too. The day my brother was killed I hated the enemy as I didn't know it was possible to hate anything. But -
DIANE: But the old men behind the line on both sides. They hate. And they'll make others hate in the future.
PHIL: Civilians. Yes. They don't know what war means. Don't realise that it's a huge machine, and that the people who happen to kill are just puppets - like the people that happen to be killed.
DIANE: It is a vast and very dreadful machine; and it sets its mark indelibly, even on those that escape -
Phil tells her he owes his escape to her, as in his semi-delirium, she was the one thing that gave him the will to live. He confesses his love for her and asks her to marry him, even if he does up the line. She tells him that his crippled leg means he never will again. Diane says she sees why the good God sent her here and as they kiss, the General's bell tinkles:
DIANE: Dear Philip ...
FX: (THE TINKLE AGAIN, AND AN IRASCIBLE VOICE)
GENERAL SINCOX: Damn these V.A.D.'s. Here, Nurse, Nurse!
DIANE: Oh, Philip, he's furious. I must go.
FX: (THE SOUND OF HER FEET TRIPPING ACROSS THE ROOM)
GENERAL: (aggrieved) Here at last, are you?
DIANE: (professionally) You really must wait your turn, General. There's nothing the matter with you but a broken arm; and that poor young officer -
The General accuses her of not knowing the difference between a kiss and a thermometer. Diane hurriedly explains that they have just got engaged. The Doctor arrives with the news that the enemy has asked for an Armistice.:
DIANE: … Philip! Oh, Philip! ….
FX: (BURST OF CHEERING IN THE DISTANCE CONFIRMS THE ANNOUNCEMENT)
(MUSIC)
5.5.18
Scene 6 of 'The White Chateau'
After the Chronicler, Montage no. 3:
FX: (THE BUSTLE OF LARGE BUILDING OPERATIONS. THE CLANG OF THE WORKS BALL. THE TREAD OF MANY FEET, LEAVING WORK FOR THE NIGHT. SILENCE.)
DIANE: They're getting on well, Philip.
PHIL: Magnificently.
DIANE: I'm so glad we had the courage to rebuild, Philip. Without you, I should never have brought myself to do it.
PHIL: We've got to forget about the war and reconstruct.
DIANE: Not forget, dear. Remember in the right spirit.
It is three years later. They find the spot where Phil's brother was killed, in the twilight and Diane has her doubts whether they can make it grow again. Phil looks forward to the 'New Chateau', for their children to come. He leaves her to rest on a pile of timber as he traces out the old front line.
Diane's reminiscences are interrupted by 'A Voice' who agrees it will never be the same, really meaning the world, but that all needs rebuilding. The Voice speaks sadly, wondering if the new methods and new peoples will make for Peace or War? The Voice embarks on a lengthy monologue, occasionally interrupted by Diane on the history of that hillock and plain from the Bronze Age, through the Romans and the Germani, the chieftain's castle - 'the home of indescribable cruelties' - where Charlemagne visited, from where the English King Edward led his army to the Battle of Cambrai, and through Catholic and Protestant. It was destroyed again by Marlborough at the Battle of Malplaquet, and in Napoleon's time, and saw the Germans pass by in 1870. Are they wise to build it up again? Diane asks why he has all this knowledge:
VOICE: I know it because it is my own history. The White Chateau. I am the White Chateau.
DIANE: (puzzled) You mean the builder - the contractor.
VOICE: I mean what dwells among the stones and gives the building its own individual character.
DIANE: You mean - a spirit?
Is Diane wise to return? She believes that the world has learnt its lesson and that they were right to fight - a war to end war, and they have the League of Nations. The Voice challenges this and warns that the next time will be the last time. Diane believes in God:
VOICE: If the young will be taught. You won't find it easy; but it's brave. And with faith and courage all things are possible.
(A LITTLE SILENCE)
PHIL: Diane ... Diane ... Wake up, old Thing!
DIANE: Hullo! - what? Have I been asleep?
They leave in the darkness:
VOICE: (almost a whisper) Youth and Faith, hand in hand, the heralds of Peace. ...Hate cleansed by suffering. (A note of triumph creeping in) Ambition thwarted by calamity. Only Fear now to be overcome ... (crescendo)
Courage, O Peoples of the World!
It is so small a step into the Dawn ...
(FADE OUT)
(End of 'The White Chateau')
5.5.19
Analysis of 'The White Chateau': three advances
There are three extraordinary advances in this wireless play, at least as the script potentially suggests. They are (1) movement ('we go with'), (2)'orchestrating' effects and opening out deep focus in the fictional soundscape, and (3) 'The White Chateau' as a 'Chronicle play', reordering time. I will briefly explain each of these in preparation for my discussion.
Berkeley scripts quite adventurous movement. Characters are in transit and we move with them. An example from Scene 3 has the Colonel in the trench with Badger and they move onwards:
COLONEL: Can you see from here or must we go into the front line?
BADGER: Not here, you can't, sir; but just a few yards on. This way sir.
FX: (TRAMP OF FEET ALONG THE TRENCH)
BADGER: Just here you can, sir.
And so on. Was this transferred from page to Savoy Hill production?
My second point is about the extraordinary use of effects as World War is waged through the play. Again from Scene 3, at the end:
FX: (BOOM ... RoooooooOOO-oooooo ... CRRANG, THE FALLING OF MASONRY.)
WILLIAMS: Marvellous. The whole west wall's caved in ... Go on. There won't be a stone standing to-night ... Are the nine-twos going to shoot as well? Yes, I'll observe for them too. Carry on ....
FX: (BOOM ..... BOOM .... BOOM .....)
(FADE OUT: PAUSE)
A deeper, wider perspective is opened out here for the first time. I will consider how sound is 'scored' or 'orchestrated' with dialogue in 'The White Chateau' in new ways. Here is the third and final point. 'The White Chateau' was heavily influenced by the conventions of 1920s theatre. The figure of the Chronicler narrator, the ordering of time and events on an epic scale, and the solemn style of Georgian poetry all belong to a small genre of plays then in vogue called 'Chronicle plays'.
5.5.20
My first point is Berkeley's use in the script of the 'we go with' convention, where characters are in transit and we follow them up the garden path, so as to speak (Beck, 1997, 59). I gave an example just above and more are to come. If this convention on the page was followed through to production, this is the first full use of the instruction that radio directors give to actors nowadays: 'You must always travel on the line' (keep talking while you are moving).
On the most hopeful interpretation, Berkeley's script suggests this 'we go with'. It would be an elaborate technique in terms of Phases 2-3 of Savoy Hill technology (1.4.2). I analyse this as demanding more than just approaches to, and movement away from, the Reiss (meat safe) microphone, and more than just 'moves off'. This then raises the basic question of whether what was on the page was what the audience heard. But perhaps Berkeley was really writing a stage direction and not thinking in radiogenic (wireless) terms.
5.5.21
Here is the least hopeful hypothesis. Berkeley really wrote a stage script envisaging movements appropriate to the stage's 'mise en scène'. True, the Reiss microphone opened out a larger field, but R.E. Jeffrey treated it on the 'Stage Model', as I term it. On this more radical – and negative – analysis, these 'travelling on the line' movements were no more than moves towards and away. The field of the Reiss microphone was utilised as the stage space. And what was on the page was not fully 'achieved' in broadcast. Both of these hypotheses must be kept in play. One is the more creative and positive approach, emphasising the proto-radiogenic in 'Chateau', while the negative hypothesis is that we have a stage script here which was brought to the microphone. I find the same techniques and the same problem in the 1928 script of Berkeley's 'Machines' play.
5.5.22
I will now look at some more examples of 'we go with' in the script. The first instance is in Scene Three:
COLONEL: Can you see from here or must we go into the front line?
BADGER: Not here, you can't, sir; but just a few yards on. This way sir.
FX: (TRAMP OF FEET ALONG THE TRENCH)
BADGER: Just here you can, sir.
COLONEL: Let me have a squint.
BRAITHWAITE: Don't show yourself, Colonel. Their snipers are pretty hot.
FX: (CRACK OF A RIFLE NEAR BY.)
BRAITHWAITE: I told you so.
COLONEL: I don't call that hot. Didn't go near me.
The three tramp along (with Spot effects) and as listeners we move with them, and a new and fixed sound centre is established at Badger's 'Just here you can, sir', which remains so till the end of the scene. When the Colonel and his orderly leave, there is the convention of 'moves off':
COLONEL: Good-bye. Come along, orderly.
FX: (THEY ARE HEARD WALKING OFF DOWN THE TRENCH.)
5.5.23
There is another example of what I term the 'moving sound centre' in Scene Four with Phil and the Sergeant:
PHIL: .. By the way, Sergeant, how many stretchers are we taking?
SERGEANT: Four, sir - two stretcher-bearers per platoon. Corporal Mathews is in charge of them, sir.
FX: (THEY STILL PASS DOWN THE TRENCH) [NOTE: This is crossed out in the surviving Caversham script, though that script is not that of the 1925 production.]
PHIL: Righty-O. Here, this fellow's all wrong, surely. Look here.
FX: (Whooooooooo-BONG DOWN THE TRENCH: AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER CRR-ANG IN THE TRENCH BESIDE THEM. GROANS.)
SERGEANT: (anxiously) You hit, sir? You hit?
PHIL: (shakily) No, I'm all right. Help me up ... This poor devil is, though. Good Lord!
In both cases, the amount of dialogue and broadcasting time (the equivalent of 'stage time') given to this new device is small. Indeed it is perhaps too short for listeners of 1925 easily to grasp the innovation. It is certainly motivated by plot events, but it is noticeable that in the surviving script, there is an emendation: (THEY STILL PASS DOWN THE TRENCH) is crossed out. Probably this is for reasons of clarity, as 'we go with' here is so difficult to bring off, before the arrival of stereo. There is no description to back it up and it was more rational on the part of the later producer (John Watts) to ignore the cue.
5.5.24
But on the positive approach, there is still the intention to use the 'we go with' convention. That is clear from these script examples. Berkeley and R.E. Jeffrey may have been influenced by silent film, and that move from the fixed camera to the moving apparatus. This represents the first experiment to represent aurally a travelling 'point-of-view' or 'mise-en-scene' shot, as it is now called in film production.
5.5.25
In Scene 5, the travelling technique is not used apparently, or marked as such in the script, even though an uncomfortable sound perspective problem is posed. Diane has been comforting Phil, in a love scene, while further down the ward, the other patient, the General, is impatient for attention:
DIANE: Dear Philip ..
FX: (THE TINKLE AGAIN, AND AN IRASCIBLE VOICE)
GENERAL SINCOX: Damn these V.A.D.'s. Here, Nurse, Nurse!
DIANE: Oh, Philip, he's furious. I must go.
FX: (THE SOUND OF HER FEET TRIPPING ACROSS THE ROOM)
GENERAL: (aggrieved) Here at last, are you?
DIANE: (professionally) You really must wait your turn, General. There's nothing the matter with you but a broken arm; and that poor young officer -
Here is a real production problem, at least to modern ears. The exchange between them lasts to the end of the scene and the producer can hardly have placed it in the mid distance of the sound picture, with the sound centre still with the now silent Phil. This is an illogicality for today. What the General-Diane dialogue demands in modern production is either a 'We go with' or a swift crossfade - that is a steep fade out at 'Oh, Philip, he's furious. I must go.' (with some further words from Diane so that she moves on the line) and a steep fade in at '(aggrieved) Here at last, are you?'. At least Berkeley has attempted to bridge the gap with 'Here at last, are you?'.
5.5.26
But in the 1925 production, it is likely that neither of these two devices were used. Fading up and down was announced as a technique only for use across scene boundaries. If a modern radio director looked at this section of script the impression surely is that here is just not enough script to make the 'we go with' convention work, or a swift crossfade. More words would be requested from the playwright in a redraft. A 1925 hypothesis is that the General and Diane spoke in the equivalent of position three to the microphone, disregarding or 'cheating' the improbability of the sound centre. The Diane-General exchange is a vivid example of the limits of wireless in Savoy Hill production.
The first full example I can find of this 'we go with' convention being fully exploited is 'Night Patrol' (Stewart Hawkins) (22 October 1938 National 9.40-10.10), an import from the American Columbia Workshop, recreating 'in sound alone, the mood and action which transpires during the single half-hour of a policeman's night patrol'. 'We go with' the cop on his rounds in a most experimental way. The sound centre stays with him. This 'Night Patrol' is a break-through and I have not yet discovered such adventurous use of the convention in British scripts up to this point. That makes me all the more inclined to take a more conservative view of the instances in the 'Chateau' script. They were more likely to be 'unachieved' and the Reiss microphone field was treated on the 'Stage Model'.
I term the 'we go with' convention the 'moving sound centre', where the listener shifts orientation along with the character(s). Discussion is in Beck, 2000, 'listener positioning'.
5.5.27
My second point is about 'orchestrating' effects and opening out deep focus in the fictional soundscape of 'Chateau', and how sound is 'scored' or 'orchestrated' with dialogue in new ways. Bombs provide a very busy and continuous sound texture as a bedding to the dialogue. This also opens out a wider perspective in the sound picture. It involves what I term the outer frame of acousmatic sound (Beck, 1998, 4), the sound events which we are required to hear but do not to 'see' as listeners to the radio fiction. They are beyond what we 'see' in the first frame of action. (An acousmatic sound is one we hear without seeing its cause (ib. 8).) We are also offered a deep focus. The bombing is out there. Dialogue is given an atmos, so it inhabits a three-dimensional space.
In his later banned play, 'Machines' (Berkeley 1928), the playwright went much further in 'scoring' or 'orchestrating', if one can use the words. He demanded grander, more continuous and more contrasting atmoses for dialogue, so that scene strongly contrasted with scene, and wireless play dialogue now inhabited a soundscape, rather than a neutral acoustic. Spot and gramophone effects are no longer just individual cues, specific to that point of dialogue but are 'orchestrated' into the whole 'score' of the play.
5.5.28
1925 listeners-in to 'Chateau' must have been surprised by its noisiness. (There were complaints later about 'clanking' in various wireless play effects.) But there had been special celebrations for Armistice Day 1925, and much of the population had attended church services and dedications of new memorials which were now springing up around the United Kingdom and on the European battlefields. 'The Times' reporting on the succeeding day is instructive.
The noise of artillery and bombing was a familiar WW1 memory, for those surviving the battlefields, from Zeppelin bombing in London (the Savoy Hill original building had been hit and the damage was about to be repaired in the B.B.C. expansion), and for the civilian population who could hear huge guns like the German 'Big Bertha' on the UK side of the Channel (Macdonald, 183, 187). As in 'Journey's End' (R.C. Sherriff) of 1928, the directions about bombing are precise, from combatants' and civilian experience of war ordinance. Audiences were in the know. Did the Savoy Hill effects meet their expectations? What came through the ether?
5.5.29
As already can be seen from the discussion above, this is the first radiogenic (wireless) creation of sound perspective. No longer are we confined to the 'Stage Model' as transposed in 'The Comedy of Danger' and as in the many renderings of stage plays for microphone. In the 'Stage Model', the main frame of the sound picture equals the box set and the acousmatic sound events of the outer frame are confined to the conventions of stage's sound effects and voices 'off' . 'The Bishop's Candlesticks' is a good example of this (3.1.19).
On the most hopeful hypothesis, Berkeley pioneered in creating different places of acoustic space. He extended the depth of the outer frame, the acousmatic. He has also created an effective sound centre for the first time, gaining spatial focus within the required perspective.
Today's listener, to a digital production say, which liberated the possibilities of this 1925 script, could feel imaginatively an inhabitant of that three-dimensional aural space. There has not been a revival of 'The White Chateau' unfortunately, not even to celebrate its seventieth-fifth birthday (1925-2000). But the 1998 World Service production of 'Journey's End (director David Hitchinson) gave a sense of the potential of Berkeley's script. Trench warfare gives a vivid depth of field, and a sharp delineation of three-fold perspective (near, middle-ground, far off - and indeed, above in the air with the bombs).
5.5.30
An example of all of this is in the third scene of 'The White Chateau' where Badger is shot, peering over the edge of the trench. Captain Braithwaite is near him, in 'close-up' and at the sound centre up to when he calls to Sergeant Andrews, and Artillery Officer Williams soon moves a bit further off, to 'mid-field', calling into the telephone:
FX: (HE [BADGER] CLAMBERS ON THE FIRE-STEP.)
BRAITHWAITE: Don't be a goat, Badger. There's nothing to see.
BADGER: (obstinately) Yes, there is. I believe there's a second gun in the angle of the low wall at the back.
FX: (TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT)
BADGER: (triumphantly) Yes, there is. I can spot the flash. Williams, there's a -
FX: (CRACK. THE SOUND OF A SHAMBLING FALL.)
BRAITHWAITE: (shouting) Stretcher-bearer! ... (groaning) Oh, Badger - why did you? ... (incoherently) Turn him over - field dressing. My God, in the head … it's that wretched sniper.
FX: (THE TELEPHONE BUZZ BUZZ)
WILLIAMS: (NOTE: SPEAKING INTO THE PHONE) Hello! - yes? ...
STRETCHER-BEARER: He's done in, sir.
BRAITHWAITE: (softly) Poor old Badger and his twins ... Oh, damn this filthy war!
WILLIAMS: Bad luck, Braithwaite. Well - we'll send up a few of the other side to keep him company. We're just going to begin shooting. Hullo! ... Are you there? Ready. Yes. We're looking out.
FX: (FAR-AWAY BOOM ... A NOISE LIKE A RUNAWAY TRAIN ...CRRANG, AND THE THUD OF FALLING DEBRIS.)
BRAITHWAITE: (excitedly) Sergeant Andrews, get your Lewis gun on those fellows running out of the Chateau. Quick, man, quick!
FX: (TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUTTER-TUTTER-TUTTER-TUT)
WILLIAMS: (delighted) Direct hit first shot, by Jove! Who says the heavies can't shoot? (into the telephone) Hullo! - Reynolds! - By Gad, old man, you got a direct hit. Plumb in the bull ... And listen, the machine-gun's crew ran out of the Chateau and the infantry've bagged the lot with a Lewis gun ... Yes, I'll report on each shell.
FX: (BOOM ... RoooooooOOO-oooooo ... CRRANG, THE FALLING OF MASONRY.)
WILLIAMS: Marvellous. The whole west wall's caved in ... Go on. There won't be a stone standing to-night ... Are the nine-twos going to shoot as well? Yes, I'll observe for them too. Carry on ....
FX: (BOOM ..... BOOM .... BOOM .....)
(FADE OUT: PAUSE)
This is an exciting sound canvas, a very busy and noisy scene with some twelve effects cues.
5.5.31
My third and last point about innovations in 'The White Chateau' is to regard it within the conventions of 1920s theatre. It is a Chronicle play, with the Chronicler (significant name) as Narrator. His figure, the ordering of time and events on an epic scale, and the style of Georgian poetry all belong to a small genre of plays then in vogue which were then called 'Chronicle plays'.
The main influence here was John Drinkwater (1886-1937) and especially his 'Abraham Lincoln', 'which carried Drinkwater from [the] Birmingham Rep [Theatre] to the London stage with huge success … a historical chronicle play' (Chothia, 1996, 98; also Agate, 1926, 80-5). It was premiered in London first at the Lyric, Hammersmith in 1919 (Kemp, 1943, 5), and then ran at the Lyceum and Scala (6 July – 19 November 1921, 173 performances) and had a cast of twenty-eight. Norman Marshall, in his The Other Theatre (Marshall 1947), singles out 'Abraham Lincoln' as among the half-dozen best pieces that theatre had to offer just after WW1 (225). James Agate reckoned that it would become immortal, like Shaw's 'Saint Joan' (Agate, 1926, 85). Drinkwater was at the height of his success with 'Mary Stuart' (1922), 'Robert E. Lee' (1923 and relayed on the B.B.C. 31 August 1923) and 'Oliver Cromwell' (1923). Birmingham broadcast a cut-down version of 'Abraham Lincoln' (5 June 1924 Birmingham 8-10, double-bill) and there were seven broadcasts of Drinkwater up to 1928. I will take this influence of Drinkwater in more than one direction.
5.5.32
'Abraham Lincoln' begins with a prologue of Two Chroniclers lasting two pages or 340 words in length:
The two speaking together:
Kinsmen, you shall behold
Our stage, in mimic action, mould
A man's character.This is the wonder, always, everywhere-
Not that vast mutability which is event,
The pits and pinnacles of change,
But man's desire and valiance that range
All circumstance, and come to port unspent.
So the uncounted spirit wakes
To the birth
Of uncounted circumstance.
And time in a generation makes
Portents majestic a little story of earth
To be remembered by chance
At a fire-side.
But the ardours that they bear,
The proud and invincible motions of character-
These - these abide.(Drinkwater, 1925, 5)
It has six scenes, and the Chroniclers speak between each, and then the epilogue:
First Chronicler: Events go by. And upon circumstance
Disaster strikes with the blind sweep of chance,
And this our mimic action was a theme,
Kinsmen, as life is, clouded as a dream.Second Chronicler: But, as we spoke, presiding everywhere
Upon event was one man's character.
And that endures; it is the token sent
Always to man for man's own government.
(72)
5.5.33
These passages give a taste of this demoded poetic drama, demoded to our ears, of the early twentieth century and its Georgian style. Kemp's Birmingham Repertory Theatre summarised Drinkwater (Kemp, 1943, 20). His poetry, including that of the plays, was 'essentially English … the influence of Wordsworth is apparent and the purely national characteristics of the Romantic Revival … Occasionally his quest led him into arid patches where form and technique were poor substitutes for vital ideas ... a strong Puritanical strain … at his best when measuring man against event'. By 1926, James Agate, the acerbic theatre critic, commented:
[Drinkwater's] stock … is considerably lower than it ought to be … One feels that this is largely due to the fact that this playwright has, doubtless malgré lui, imposed on the public some impression of priggishness. He is too obviously out to improve our minds, morals and manners.
(Agate, 1926, 80)
And further, he takes Drinkwater to task for not including enough of the blemishes of his protagonists in his biographical plays (83). So this 'impression of priggishness' and need to 'improve our minds', noted by Agate, is an element, I would suggest, in 'The White Chateau'. But it is slighter in Berkeley, when one reads Drinkwater's portrayal of Mary Stuart, Lincoln, Cromwell, etc. I will return to this just below, in assessing the overall quality of 'Chateau'.
5.5.34
Another poetic revivalist playwright comes from a couple of decades before, Stephen Phillips (1868-1915). He was popular before WW1 and was then broadcast in 1923, 1925 and 1929 (Paolo and Francesca', 'Herod', etc.). James Agate's flamboyant dismissal of Phillips gives a taste of how this epic poetic play is so distant now and how some regarded the enterprise in the Twenties:
I can only think that his work [Stephen Phillips's], pretty and demoded as the Albert Memorial, is utterly forgotten.
(Agate, 1926, 98)
(Agate was a sparkling polemicist and his 'bon mots' are not to be taken as direct theatre history.) Hence my emphasis on the pre- and post-WW1 movement in poetic drama, and especially Drinkwater.
Berkeley's style, and I return to my argument contra Chothia 1996, is not coloured by European expressionism (5.6.12). Berkeley was a follower of the popular Drinkwater, and aimed for artistic success by hitching his 'Chateau' wagon to the Drinkwater train. And here is another link. The playwright Ashley Dukes noted how topical 'Abraham Lincoln' was:
A far-sighted group rented this place [Lyric Hammersmith in 1919] cheaply; and here the company of Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre gave John Drinkwater's 'Abraham Lincoln', a chronicle play welcomed by a public whose own eyes were fixed on the drama of Versailles and the treaty-makers. There was much in common between the problems of President Lincoln and President Wilson. In fact the hour of this drama could not have been better chosen; and old and young playgoers gave it a run of many months.
(Dukes, 1942, 62)
5.5.35
So here is more of Drinkwater's influence. 'Abraham Lincoln' was interpreted partly as a play about WW1 and its outcome. (The last revival of 'Abraham Lincoln' was by the Old Vic, 1942-3, in the midst of another war.)
Berkeley took the hint. He moved the Chronicle play further than Drinkwater ('Mary Stuart', 'Oliver Cromwell', 'Robert E. Lee') to a directly contemporary situation. Berkeley noted the 'Giant Despair of our times' in his Foreword. Another possible influence, or at least via the intellectual mood of the time, is Spengler's Decline of the West. (Reith read it on an visit to French war cemeteries in August 1926 (McIntyre, 1993, 150).)
5.5.36
Berkeley chose not to use the Drinkwater structure of the single towering protagonist. As a result, it is difficult to engage fully with some of the 'Chateau' characters, like Badger, because they are destroyed so quickly. There is not enough space for characterisation to develop and even Diane has not the benefit of subtlety. Berkeley's realism is at war with the poetic-epic situation, and there are limits to the quality of his poetic writing and how the Chronicler can gather all this together.
On the other hand, reading Drinkwater's plays shows the taste of the day and helps the critic now to acknowledge how parts of 'Chateau' present us with a hermeneutic problem. Their poetic style and the limited ways our affective responses are engaged seem especially difficult now. Berkeley's Chronicler was played by Henry Oscar (1891-1969), who had already five wireless credits. He had played the lover, young Lysander, in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (23 June 1925 London 8-9.50) and the ingenuous young lead, Marlow, in 'She Stoops to Conquer' (Oliver Goldsmith) (1 October 1925 London 8.20-9.20), followed by a Dr. Jackson in the new wireless play, 'Bright Gold' (R.E. Jeffrey and Frank H. Shaw) (13 October 1925 London 9.15-9.45). Wearing gives him thirty-four London stage credits between 1920 and 1925. So his Chronicler in 'Chateau', at the age of thirty-four, may have given a youthful vigour to the poetry.
5.5.37
'The White Chateau' was not the first WW1 play. Here is MacQueen-Pope from his history of early twentieth-century theatre:
On 16th January, 1924, a play called Havoc, written by Harry Wall, was presented at the Haymarket. This was really the first of the realistic war plays dealing with the horrors of trench warfare. It was not a great play but a scene in a dug-out and the inspired acting of a young man named Richard Bird, now a leading producer, aroused great enthusiasm. It ran for 171 performances.
(MacQueen-Pope, 1959, 130)
'Havoc' was a comedy about a wife travelling to the Front to be with her husband, and disguising herself as a French actress. Officers and a general fall for her, and after a night of confusion, all is well. There were a number of silent fiction films about the War and course, the fighting had been recorded in documentaries and screened to home audiences.
5.5.38
It could be argued that Berkeley attempted too much action and that this was even more difficult for the wireless audience to comprehend. I said the play suffered in comparison for us today with the much-revived 'Journey's End'. But Berkeley is more sensational and eventful than Sherriff, and he sees the big picture. The play understands the vast killing machine, and sees beyond, because of Berkeley's own public life, as an M.P. and in the League of Nations. 'Journey's End' is mere reportage in such a comparison, only about pity and waste, but it does have, of course that intensity and the focus of the dug-out 'mise en scène'. Both have an autobiographical authenticity and an authority.
Another comparative weakness in 'Chateau' is that the characters are idealised. There is too much sweetness and light, and not enough subtlety and strength. Drinkwater's stage success authorises 'The White Chateau' as a Chronicle play in a way lost to us now. The epic sweep of plot and the Chronicler fitted with the time. But I cited above a contemporary criticism of Drinkwater, the 'impression of priggishness' and the high moralising (5.6.33). There are elements of the same in Berkeley when his engineering of plot and characterisation is over-stretched. For modern ears, the poetry has its longeurs. The dialogue can be dowdy and the slang is more dated than 'Journey's End'. The latter taps into the heady mix of trust, betrayal and homosociality of the public school tradition.
5.5.39
Perhaps playwright John Galsworthy is another influence on Berkeley, especially where love and justice meet. Over the later stage version in the Everyman and St. Martin's , the White Chateau itself brooded on the backdrop, in its various metamorphoses. Was it a presence in the 1925 broadcast? Another element we have lost is the music. It was specially composed and directed by Norman O'Neill. Decades later, Val Gielgud took a heavy side-swipe at the orchestra in the Savoy Hill studios:
As late as 1926 long plays were regularly prefaced with four or five minutes of conventional stage 'overture,' and music was always played between the acts. It took a considerable time for it to become clear that the use and value of music to Radio Drama was basic, and not incidental …
(Gielgud, 1957, 20)
But music, lots of it, was central to theatre-going in the 1920s, including for Shakespeare. O'Neill's orchestra was part of the sound texture of 'The White Chateau' – another positive aspect of the 'Stage Model' for early wireless drama.
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