Childe Byron

Last updated

Childe Byron is a 1977 play by Romulus Linney about the strained relationship between the poet, Lord Byron, and his daughter, Ada Lovelace. Of Linney's more than sixty plays, Childe Byron is one he identified as holding a "deeply personal" connection. In his own words, he approached it through "the pain of a divorced father who can't reach his own daughter." [1] In his narrative poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage , Byron wrote of the female infant he left behind when he went into exile: "I see thee not. I hear thee not. But none can be so rapt in thee.” When Linney re-read these words in preparation for the play, he recalled "My daughter Laura, the actress... her mother and I were separated and divorced when she was a baby, so these lines just laid me out." [2]

Contents

World premiere

Program credits for the 1977 premiere of Romulus Linney's Childe Byron CHILDE BYRON WP credits.jpg
Program credits for the 1977 premiere of Romulus Linney's Childe Byron

The play received its first production on March 4, 1977 in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, on the stage of the Virginia Museum Theater (now the Leslie Cheek Theater) in Richmond, Virginia. [3]

Synopsis

The word "Childe" is an honorific once given to young aristocratic men who had not yet attained knighthood, and its use in the play's title is a reference to Lord Byron's poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage . The drama begins with Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, writing her will. She is a mathematician [4] and the daughter of the infamous George Gordon, Lord Byron, a man reputed to be "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." [5] She is dying of a painful cancer at age thirty-six, the same age he was when he died. Separated from him while he lived, she now hates his memory. As her own end is near, however, she desires to know more about the man. Her medicines stimulate her imagination, and she envisions him alive again. In incisive, witty dialogue she digs into the truth behind the legends surrounding her father. Six other actors play a diverse range of characters as she observes scenes from Byron's life, including his youthful incestuous relations with his sister, his homosexual adventures, his foolish marriage, and the causes of his disapprobation by British society.

Author Linney is known for his strong female characters, from Esther Dudley and Mrs. Madeline Lee in his Democracy to Lucy Lake in The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks. His Ada Lovelace is one of his richest roles. Beginning with a deeply negative perception of her absent father, yet driven to understand his contradictions, Ada challenges his spirit remorselessly. In the contest she matches his masculine flippancy, but comes to see his essential honesty.

Discussing his dramatized women in The New York Times, Linney commented, "I'm not writing about what you're supposed to think of women, but what you really think of them. … Oh, they get credit for doing the right thing or the wrong thing, but not the unique or surprising thing. … I love the contradictions in women." [6] In the end of Childe Byron, a compromising reconciliation between daughter and sire is reached—providing a freshly intimate view of the major Romantic poet of the early 19th century.

Controversy

“The perils of the state as patron of the arts” was the headline of a Washington Post editorial criticizing the Virginia Museum’s reaction to its own theater's premiere of Childe Byron. [7] In his commentary, staff writer Paul G. Edwards noted that America’s tradition of free speech and first amendment prohibition on governmental interference with public expression were challenged anew by the Virginia Museum trustees’ “obnoxious” attempts to censor the play that had been commissioned by their own artistic director. [8] Indeed, the first production of Childe Byron caused a stir in conservative Richmond, the capitol of the old Confederacy. The play's subject matter drew controversy when the administrative director of the museum, in response to pressure from some trustees and a few influential patrons, called on artistic director Keith Fowler to remove a homosexual kiss and delete the word "fuck" from an historical quotation attributed to Byron. [9] With playwright Linney's backing, Fowler declined the censorship directive.

National attention turned to the Byron conflict. Interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered," Fowler said that he stood by author Linney's script despite the museum director's threat to close the show. "The order impinged directly on an area of artistic prerogative ... I discussed the problem with cast members and... they were very supportive of my stand." [10] The Post editorial complained of the state-sponsored Virginia Museum's "Big Brother government" interference in theater art. A museum trustee was quoted as saying, "Accountability is the name of the game," to which the editorial replied, "Maybe in government, but not in theater. Theater goers have a right to assume that the art they pay to hear and see reflects the genius and biases of the playwright, players and play director, not the government." [8] Local letter writers noted ironically that the sense of scandal that accompanied Byron in his lifetime seemed reflected in the new storm attending his stage debut. "Throughout his life," commented one correspondent, "Byron and his poetry drew both acclaim and outrage. The controversial reception of Childe Byron is a tribute to its success." [11] Patrons on either side threatened to cancel subscriptions. Letters to editorial pages grew heated for and against the museum's attempt to impose revisions on the play. [12]

Citing a dramatist's guild contract that protects a playwright's text, director Fowler prevailed, and the show remained intact throughout its run—although the artistic victory was to prove costly. When he called on the trustees to promise no further attempts to censor VMT productions, Fowler's contract was allowed to expire. Although the theater's subscriptions had more than doubled under his directorship, the administration found it expedient to let him go. [13] His departure gave emphasis to the issue of artistic freedom, with some letter writers sensing that a golden age of Richmond Theater was drawing to an end and lamenting the end of VMT as a "bastion of culture." [14] The public response triggered by Childe Byron did not remain confined to the play. The museum's censorship attempt stirred citizen groups to challenge the powerful institution, including a letter of protest circulated by local artists who alleged that the museum had a pattern of peremptory censorship. [15] The letter accused the museum of forcing Fowler's resignation and interfering with other artists' exhibitions. [16] According to the minutes of the trustees' meetings, complaints of censorship occupied the institution's director and trustees for the ensuing three months [17] In May, the Childe Byron incident was cited among other grounds for a possible "first amendment court case through the American Civil Liberties Union" against the Virginia Museum. [18] [19]

At the end of the 1977 theater season, Fowler was awarded Richmond Newspapers' "Phoebe" prize for "Best Direction" for the staging of Childe Byron. He was subsequently hired by his alma mater, the Yale School of Drama, to head the directing program there. [20]

Revivals

Childe Byron is one of prolific author Linney's most frequently revived plays. Not long after its Richmond premiere, the play was performed in 1979 by the Actors Theater in Louisville, where it was directed by Jon Jory. [21] Its New York premiere was in 1981 in a production by Circle Repertory Company, directed by Marshall W. Mason and starring William Hurt as Byron and Lindsay Crouse as Ada. [21] [22] It was first produced on the West Coast in 1981 by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California. [21] The play's first international production was by London's Young Vic in 1981, with pop star David Essex in the title role and Simon Gipps-Kent as the young Byron. [23] [24] The Penguin Repertory Theater of Rockland County NY presented a well-reviewed revival in 1987. [25] Scarcely a year goes by without a revival by a regional American theater or a university. Philadelphia's Wilma Theater produced the drama in 1986; [26] Baylor University presented its version in 2003; [27] a revival by the Players Club in Swarthmore was in 2005, while Drake University offered it in 2013, over thirty-five years following its premiere. [28] Childe Byron, acknowledged by Linney as a personal attempt by a divorced father to speak to his daughter (cf. footnotes 1 and 2), eventually led to a direct real-life link when actress Laura Linney performed the role of Ada in 1986 during her senior year at Brown University, [29] a performance which her father described as the play's "crowning" event. [30] Through the years, various directors have shown how the play can be staged as an historic spectacle—as in Philadelphia's Allens Lane production in 2012 [31] where the focus was on Byron's relations with his large "entourage"... like a "modern-day posse" [32] —or as an intimate, unpretentious study—as in the "compact, elegant little production" with "beauty and power" offered by the Eclipse Theater in 2001 at the Athenaeum in Chicago. [33]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ada Lovelace</span> English mathematician (1815–1852)

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Linney</span> American actress (born 1964)

Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and five Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Byron</span> English mathematician (1792–1860)

Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron, nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was an educational reformer and philanthropist who established the first industrial school in England, and was an active abolitionist. She married the poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, and separated from him after less than a year, keeping their daughter Ada Lovelace in her custody despite laws at the time giving fathers sole custody of children.

Romulus Zachariah Linney IV was an American playwright and novelist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Museum of Fine Arts</span> Art museum in Richmond, VA

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all acquisition of artwork, as well as additional general support.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Kuranda</span> American theatre director

Richard Kuranda is an American director and artist of stage, cinema and television. He currently is the CEO of the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake, Illinois and the current Artistic Director of Williams Street Repertory. A widower, he resides in Illinois with his four children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall W. Mason</span> American theater director

Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France is a Jacobean tragedy by George Chapman, a two-part play or double play first performed and published in 1608. It tells the story of Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, executed for treason in 1602.

Robert Zangwill Kalfin was an American stage director and producer who has worked on and off Broadway and at regional theaters throughout the country. He was a former artistic director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the founder/artistic director of The Chelsea Theater Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lord Byron</span> English Romantic poet (1788–1824)

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, was a British poet and peer. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest of British poets. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.

Sharon Langston Ott is a director, producer and educator who worked in regional theaters and opera throughout the United States. Two plays she directed, A Fierce Longing and Amlin Gray's How I Got That Story, each won an Obie award after their New York runs.

Sight Unseen is a play by Donald Margulies. The play premiered at South Coast Repertory in 1991, and then was produced Off-Broadway in 1992 and on Broadway in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doris Langley Moore</span> British fashion historian (1902–1989)

Doris Langley Moore (1902–1989), also known as Doris Langley-Levy Moore, was one of the first important female fashion historians. She founded the Fashion Museum, Bath, in 1963. She was also a well-respected Lord Byron scholar, and author of a 1940s ballet, The Quest. As a result of these wide-ranging interests, she had many connections within fashionable, intellectual, artistic and theatrical circles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Fowler</span> American actor (1939-2023)

Keith Franklin Fowler was an American actor, director, producer, and educator. He was a professor of drama and former head of directing in the Drama Department of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the artistic director of two LORT/Equity theaters.

Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lord Byron in popular culture</span>

English writer Lord Byron has been mentioned in numerous media. A few examples of his appearances in literature, film, music, television and theatre are listed below.

M[argaret] Elizabeth (Betty) Osborn,, was a playwright, author, theater director, critic, editor, and educator. From the 1980s to early 1990s, she was a prominent member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA). She worked for the Theater Communications Group (TCG). Osborn grew up in Gainesville, Florida, and graduated from college Phi Beta Kappa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Goodman Hunter</span> American actress and singer (1929–2024)

Florence Marie Goodman Hunter was an American actress, singer, and educator. She was adopted when young and grew up in Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. She taught Music and Speech for 30 years at John Marshall High School. A mezzo soprano, she also performed as a soloist in Richmond churches.

Virginia Repertory Theatre is a professional theatre company based in Richmond, Virginia. It was created in 2012 when Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV, which had shared one staff for over a decade, merged to become one company. With an annual budget of over $5 million, the theatre employs over 240 artists annually and presents seasons at the November Theatre and Theatre Gym at Virginia Rep Center, as well as productions at the Hanover Tavern and The Children's Theatre in The Shops at Willow Lawn. It is currently run under the co-leadership of Artistic Director Rick Hammerly and Managing Director Klaus Peter Schuller.

Linda Stoner Winslett is an American former ballet dancer and the founding artistic director of the Richmond Ballet. In 2014, she was honored by the Virginia Women in History project of the University of Virginia for her contributions to the community.

References

  1. ↑ Gallagher-Ross, Jacob, “In Memoriam: Points of Intersection: Romulus Linney ’58,” Annual Magazine of Yale School of Drama 2011-2012, p. 50.
  2. ↑ Linney in video interview, "Romulus Linney: Childe Byron: Part 1," http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/exhibits/show/romulus-linney/history-plays/childe
  3. ↑ Glover, William, AP Drama Writer, “Audience for Theater Grows”, Observer-Reporter, Washington, PA, May 7, 1977
  4. ↑ She developed, with Charles Babbage, the analytic engine and a programming language that is today considered to be the first practical computer.
  5. ↑ Attributed to Lady Caroline Lamb.
  6. ↑ Paikert, Charles (December 3, 1989). "Theater: A Playwright Who Fashions Then Into Now". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Edwards, Paul G., "About censorship and the perils of the state as patron of the arts," Washington Post, March 31, 1977
  8. 1 2 Edwards, Ibid.
  9. ↑ "Supporters of Museum Theater Director Air Their Views," The Richmond News Leader, Thursday, March 31, 1977
  10. ↑ Interview with Keith Fowler by Alzada Forbes, broadcast on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," 5:30 p.m., WRFK-FM Richmond VA, Tuesday March 29, 1977
  11. ↑ Stillman, Gregory N., "Fowler Receives Thanks for Five Good Years," The Richmond News Leader, Thursday, March 31, 1977
  12. ↑ One correspondent offered, "[W]hat is really obscene is the realization that some 'batty little old lady with a lot of money' or a few influential board members can determine which plays the other 10,000 of us will be allowed to see." Brockmeyer, Dianne, "Censorship, Not Play, Is True Obscenity," Richmond News Leader, March 31, 1977
  13. ↑ Rosenfeld, Megan (March 24, 1977). "Theater Director Quits After 'Byron' Dispute", The Washington Post.
  14. ↑ "I must applaud... Fowler's decision to resign," wrote one theater supporter, "Censorship of the arts is fearful, particularly in a state that likes to call itself the 'cradle of democracy.' Any group of people that wishes to censor their artists should expect to lose them." Crosby, Philp H., "Director's Resignation Proved His Integrity," Richmond News Leader, March 31, 1977. Another theater-goer wrote "to protest vehemently the attempts at censorship of Keith Fowler's Virginia Museum Repertory Theater. ...As far as my friends and I are concerned, if Mr. Fowler goes, so goes one of the bastions of culture in Virginia." Madison, Terry M., "Loss of Director Would be a Shame," Richmond News Leader, March 31, 1977
  15. ↑ Many protesting artists were associated with Virginia Commonwealth University.
  16. ↑ In addition to the Byron conflict, they criticized the museum for removing an "offensive" print from a local artist's photographic exhibit and attempting to censor another artist who chose instead a "voluntary withdrawal of his One-Man exhibit." The letter demanded a public statement of "criteria... used for the selection of exhibition, dramatic, and film offerings" and a specific statement as to what is "objectionable." Letter to "The Board of Trustees, Virginia Museum" from "Walter Coppage, Gerald Donato, David Freed," et al., April 25, 1977
  17. ↑ Dohn, Helen, Secretary of the Museum, "Excerpt from the Minutes [redacted] of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts held in the Conference Room of the Museum on May 19, 1977"
  18. ↑ "Possible Court Showdown....," Independent Virginian," May 15, 1977
  19. ↑ Merritt, Robert, "Court Showdown Possible About Policies of Museum," Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 11, 1977
  20. ↑ Steger, Martha (June/July 1979). "Keith Fowler: Rebel With a Cause", Virginia Lifestyle.
  21. 1 2 3 Linney, Romulus (1981). Childe Byron: A Play in Two Acts. Dramatists Play Service, Inc. p. 7. ISBN   9780822202011.
  22. ↑ Rich, Frank (February 27, 1981). "Stage: William Hurt in 'Childe Byron'". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  23. ↑ University of Kent / Theatre Special Collections
  24. ↑ Romulus Linney Papers at Belk Library; http://collections.library.appstate.edu/findingaids/ac494
  25. ↑ Klein, Alvin, "A Lusty Byron in Rockland," The New York Times, May 13, 1984
  26. ↑ Nelson, Nels (February 26, 1986). "'Childe Byron': Wordy, But Magic". Philly.com. Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  27. ↑ Baylor University || Theatre Arts || Childe Byron
  28. ↑ Drake University Department of Theatre Presents Childe Byron : Wherevent
  29. ↑ Cohen, Patrica, "Genuine Actress Flirts With Stardom," The New York Times, January 20, 2010
  30. ↑ Linney in video interview, "Romulus Linney: Childe Byron: Part 2," http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/exhibits/show/romulus-linney/history-plays/childe
  31. ↑ An interview with Allens Lane principals is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqL9TStZJ4U
  32. ↑ CHILDE BYRON Needed More of a Life | Stage Magazine
  33. ↑ Christiansen, Richard, "Childe Byron," Chicago Tribune, August 24, 2001
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.