The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh

Source: Evelyn Waugh, diary entry for 10 December 1946, in Michael Davie (ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976),  p. 666

Text: Laura returned from retreat. I went to confession, lunched at the Holland Park to see T.S. Eliot’s new play Family Reunion. It approached parody at moments but the audience was devout. The programme said it was the story of Agamemnon. Except for a Greek sense of doom and a Greek technique in the uses of choruses there was no connection apparent to me. The main fault was that it aroused too much intellectual curiosity about the details of the plot. I think a story must be well known before it can be treated in that way.

Comments: Evelyn Waugh (1903-1962) was a British novelist, travel writer and biographer. T.S. Eliot‘s blank verse play The Family Reunion was first published and performed in 1939. The production Waugh saw was at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, London.

Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson

Source: Thomas Sadler (ed.), Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson (London: Macmillan, 1869), vol. III, pp. 517-518

Production: William Shakespeare, King John, Drury Lane, London, 12 October 1866

Text: October 12th. — Went to Drury Lane Theatre, to see “King John.” I had little pleasure. The cause manifold: old age and its consequents — half-deafness, loss of memory, and dimness of sight — combined with the vast size of the theatre. I had just read the glorious tragedy, or I should have understood nothing. The scene with Hubert and Arthur was deeply pathetic. The recollection of Mrs. Siddons as Constance is an enjoyment in itself. I remember one scene in particular, where, throwing herself on the ground, she calls herself “the Queen of sorrow,” and bids kings come and worship her! On the present occasion all the actors were alike to me. Not a single face could I distinguish from another, though I was in the front row of the orchestra-stalls. The afterpiece was “The Comedy of Errors,” and the two Dromios gave me pleasure. On the whole, the greatest benefit I have derived from the evening is that I seem to be reconciled to never going again.

Comments: Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) was an English lawyer and diarist, whose published journals document his acquaintance with literary figures of the period and refer regularly to theatre productions that he saw. He saw Shakespeare‘s King John at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, 12 October 1866. He recollects seeing Sarah Siddons as Constance from years before; she was of course long dead by the time of this performance.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive