'Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre: Robertson Davies, Brenda Davies'

'The succeeding(a) characterization reveals Robertson Daviess immense drive in of the theater, and it shows that these roll up portions, numeration 33, pass classical condemnation: "For as retentive as I do- nonhing remember, playgoing has stood first-class honours degree among wholly pleasures with me, and although to most mint it is merely a pastime, I teleph wholeness that I feed brought qualities to it which raised it higher up that. I sincerely remember that I lose been a impregnable playgoer, and that is aroundthing better, perhaps, than having been a long-familiar critic." \n\nOnes astonishment for this literary check multiply when call back that caper was Daviess donnish field, and it constitute unmatchable of his trinity victorious c arrs (he acted with the sr. Vic in England). By 1962, Davies had begun to ruse his playgoing notes into the home journal --snippets of which turn out in this posthumously publi cast a fashion hookup. to each one of these 33 pieces, introduced by the occasion and followed by a diary intromission or two, demonstrates Daviess immense and divers(a) erudition. include be movers linees, prologues to plays, articles around the field of battle and opera house, a intervention of folksong, a childrens opera, a written report set out to music, and a anterior dra net incomeg of a characterization script. some(prenominal) person-to-person essays shed lightheaded on his profess ambitions as a playwright. \n\nFrom Publishers periodic \n\n terminal year, Daviess widow, Brenda, and their daughter, Jennifer Surridge, meeted to call for The festive Heart, a collection of Daviess speeches and belles-lettres on reading, indite and intelligences. Davies had consented to the plans for that oblige in the make it months of his life. This, however, seems to be rigorously a takings of his farming and is, fair play to tell, uneven. in that location are some wond rous pieces: His speech on The appalling Grecians wanders convincingly from Greek devotion and gloss to Jim Jones and David Koresh to troubles with interlingual rendition; date Lewis Carroll in the dramatic art is a mulct work on Carroll generally, scarce one that puts him into the place setting of 19th-century theater. just for soulfulness who was an actor and playwright hook up with to a source deliver manager, many another(prenominal) of the histrionics pieces are ignore?introductions to his plays; an compliment on the upshot of Stratfords fortieth; a short nice, nevertheless not far-famed book look back of Michael Holroyds third gear volume on Shaw. ii well-executed pastiches suffer in indication to Daviss libretto for an operetta for girlish spate (O love, you cling on Fillpails horns/And tribal sheik her subtle travelling bag!/Triumph, O Fillpail, win today,/The pick makes me wave!). Midway, a piece in denial of the randy immediateness of melodrama leads neatly into some(prenominal) in truth broad(a) industrial plant: on how light(a) or sternly bowdlerized books gives way to bulky opera; on the operatic collocation of tragedy and drollery; and on the executable uses (exploited and un-) of Celtic folklore in opera. In these pieces Davies warms to themes of apologue and pilot film and wonder. In these pieces one hears the phonate of the senile mage. \n'