News

Washington play features the sweet bond between fantasy fiction kings Lewis & Tolkien

The play, Lewis and Tolkien, was staged in the Museum of the Bible, Washington DC earlier this month. This unusual play, directed by Andrew Borba, was presented by World Stage Theatre. It evokes the friendship of two brilliant thinkers, C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien, who influenced each others work and profoundly impacted literature and faith in the 20th century and up to the present day. The stage was set in Oxford, in the backroom of the now famous pub, The Eagle and Child. This pub, fondly referred to as The Bird and Baby, was the scene of their weekly meetings with a literary group called The Inklings, that included friends and fellow academicians like Hugo Dyson, Nevill Coghill, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams. Written by Dean Batali, the play imagines the famous duo meeting years later, shortly before Jack Lewis death in 1963. It opened on an oddly acrimonious note, with Lewis resenting Tolkiens disapproval (as a Catholic) of the formers marrying an American divorcee, Joy and with Tolkien referring to Lewiss obituary (printed by mistake before his death) and asking about Warnie, Jacks beloved elder brother. The barmaid, Veronica, is a catalyst in the discussion. Familiar with Lewiss stories for children, she asks Tolkien what he has written about hobbits and orcs and elves and a story about a ring which he insists is not a symbol or allegory for atomic power. (Tolkien was allergic to the allegorical mode of story-telling.) Picture of the celebrated writer-duo from the play brochure. The well-known discussions about The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) are revisited, with Tollers loud objection to the sudden and incongruous irruption of Santa Claus into the story. Similarly, there were some elements of the Narnia tales that he described as odious, childish and silly, terms which must have rankled in his friends mind. Lewis for his part managed to send his child protagonists to Narnia on seven trips before Tollers finished his extended tale of a journey with a purpose in this case, not a Quest to find the Great Ring but to cast it away! It was interesting to hear Arye Gross (as Tolkien), relating how the opening line of The Hobbit and the subsequent trilogy came to him. In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit a line scribbled absent-mindedly at the back of an essay he was grading. To Veronicas question, Lewis explained how during Operation Pied Piper in war-torn England, some children were sent, like the Pevensie children to live with the Lewis household at The Kiln. And this was the springboard for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (easily one of the most intriguing titles for a childrens book!) However, unless the audience was very familiar with the authors and details of their oeuvre, the many references to Boxen, the nature of myth and allegory, the momentous talk on Addisons Walk, sub-creation and the carefully crafted and scripted languages of Middle-Earth like Quenya, the language of the Elves and so forth, must have been thrown away. The device of using Veronica to ask rather obvious questions to explore various background issues, seemed rather contrived. Veronicas Cockney accent was hard to decipher, while the two professors should have had more of a British accent to carry conviction. However, the play has clearly been well researched. Though the resentful and awkward ambience at the start seemed rather overdone, the mood relaxed as the play progressed, and the shared laughter and the nostalgia of the close, recalled the ambience that must have surrounded the Inklings in their heyday. Some moments stood out: Tolkien speaking eloquently about eucatastrophe the moment of grace; Hugo Dysons dismayed reaction to a new chapter of LOTR Not more Elves!; Lewis reproaching Tollers, his closest friend at one time, for drifting away The silence that came out of you was loudest of all; and their explosion of laughter over the Romantics who never had an original thought. Arye Gross appeared to be a better fit for Tolkien than Bo Foxworth for Jack Lewis. Both professors must have been older men, but Bos Lewis looked more sprightly than he would have been in 1963, the year he died. On the whole, the idea of a meeting between these celebrated scholars, authors and friends, was a good one, and this play was a creative and effective exploration of the possibility. It may have the added fallout of getting more readers interested in reading the amazingly evocative books written by this famous pair. Imagine never having pushed past the coats of the wardrobe into the snowy land of Narnia, seeing the light of a lone lantern and the face of a faun, meeting the Witch and coming face to face with Aslan! (Although in the play, Lewiss other works like the Ransom space series is not mentioned, nor Mere Christianity and the other brilliant books that brought theology within the purview of the common man.) Imagine never picturing a hobbit, never seeing Gandalfs firework displays, escaping from the Black Riders and finding refuge in Rivendell; imagine never meeting Frodo and Samwise and Gollum, freezing as the Eye of Sauron sweeps searchingly over all Middle-Earth, gazing at the beautiful Lady of Loth Lorien, encountering Elves and orcs and walking trees and tree shepherds all the rich history and varied creatures of Tolkiens sub-creation! Imagine never hearing the language of the Elves (very far removed from the Christmas elves) never hearing them singing: We still remember, we who dwell, In this far land beneath the trees, The starlight on the western seas! (The author is a veteran journalist. Views expressed are personal)