Chapter 1
They dont hang people like me. They dont want the embarrassment of a trial, and besides, Pappa is who he is. Like it or not, Im a Larkin. They dont want the headline “Peers Daughter Hanged.” So much easier to shut me away and promise that if I keep very quiet theyll release me as cured into my familys custody in a year or two. Well, I may have been an awful fool, but Ive never been saner, and besides, I cant stand most of my family. Ive never had the slightest intention of keeping quiet. Thats why Im writing this. I hope someone someday might get the chance to read it. Pay attention. Im going to tell you the important things, in order.
It started in the most innocuous way, with a job offer.
“You are the only woman I can truly imagine as Hamlet, Viola.” Antony gazed into my eyes across the table in a way which someone must have told him was soulful and irresistible, but which actually makes him look like a spaniel that needs worming. He was one of Londons best-known actor managers, very distinguished, quite fifty years old, and running a little to fat. It was an honor to be given one of Antonys famous lunches, always tête-à-tête, always at the Venezia in Bedford Street, and always culminating, after the mouthwatering dessert, in the offer of a leading role.
That was the year that everyone was doing theater cross-cast. It was 1949, eight years after the end of the war. Londons theaters were brightly lit, and full of the joys and struggles of life. Palmer did it first, the year before, putting on The Duke of Malfi at the Aldwych. Everyone said it would be a fizzle at best, but we all went to see how they did it, out of curiosity. Then, with Charlie Brandin getting raves as the Duke, Sir Marmaduke jumped on the bandwagon and did Barries old Quality Street, with all the men as women and all the women men. It was the success of the winter, so when plays were being picked for the summer season, of course there was hardly a house playing things straight.
Id scoffed as much as anyone, or more, so much in fact that Id turned down a couple of parts and thought of leaving town and lying low for a little. But if I left, where could I go? London theater was putting up a brave struggle against the cinema, a struggle already lost elsewhere. Theater in the provinces was at its last death rattle. When I was starting out, a London play would be toured all over the country, not by the London cast but by a second-string company. There might be two or three tours of the same play, the second company doing Brighton and Birmingham and Manchester, and the third doing a circuit of Cardiff and Lancaster and Blackpool. The deadliest tours played at every tiny place, crossing the country by train on a Sunday, staying in the most appalling digs. It was the way you started out, and if you were better known and wanted a rest from London, the second companies were panting to snap you up. But since the war tours were rare, and there was fierce competition for them. There was only London, and the occasional tryout elsewhere. People in the provinces could just whistle for theater. They were starved of it entirely. I cant think how they managed. Amateur productions and coming up to London when they could afford it, I suppose. Either that or they really were quite happy with the cinema instead.
In any case, there was no hope of a tour for me. If I didnt work, I could afford to lie quiet for a season, if I lived carefully. The problem was that I couldnt count on it being only one season. The theater lives from moment to moment, and once your name isnt seen it can easily be forgotten. I didnt want to leave acting, and besides, what was I supposed to do, starve? Well, the choice would be to starve or go back to my family, which would, I felt sure, be much worse than starving. My family are like cannibals, except that they wear pearls and diamonds instead of necklaces of skulls.
I gave Antony one of my best indecisive glances. Indecisive glances would be helpful if I took the part. Hamlet is famously indecisive. Besides, even if my friends did laugh at me for a few days, how often is anyone given the chance to play Hamlet? Id gone along for lunch with Antony knowing it meant a good meal, almost sure Id turn down whatever he offered me. Antony was never stingy, and the wine at the Venezia was always good. Hamlet, though. There are so few truly good womens parts in the world, and Hamlet was a dream of a role, as long as the cross-casting didnt make the whole play absurd. I could picture the lights already: viola lark as hamlet.
“Will you reverse everyone?” I asked, moving a little away from Antony and signaling to the waiter that my plate was utterly empty of tiramisu and could be taken away.
Antony took up his wineglass and sipped. “No,” he said. “Consider Hamlet, daughter and heir to Denmark. How much more likely that her uncle would usurp? How much more difficult that she assert herself? Hesitation would be much much more natural than for a man. Her relationship with Gertrude, with Claudius, works perfectly. Horatio wishes to be more than a friend. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be seen in the light of Penelopes lovers. Laertes, too, Laertes is Hamlets true love, which makes the end sing. In fact, the whole play makes much more sense this way.”
He almost convinced me. “But Ophelia?” I asked, as the waiter glided over and poured more wine. “Surely youre not thinking of making that a sapphic relationship?” Its funny, there are enough women in the theater who wouldnt look at a man, and men who wouldnt look at a woman for that matter, but everyone would have forty fits if you tried to put a storyline explicitly mentioning them into a play.
“Theres no real textual evidence it is a physical relationship at all,” Antony said, dreamily. “Or one could read whatever one wanted into their earlier relationship, why not, get thee to a nunnery, after all.”
“But surely Polonius sets her to entice Hamlet?” I shook my head, realizing that Id have to look at the text again to make sure exactly what Polonius said. Id never played Ophelia, all I had was a vague impression of the speech. “I cant see a pompous stick like him encouraging a sapphic enticement, or if he did, I cant see the Lord Chamberlain allowing us to show it.”
“The wonderful thing about you, Viola, is that theres something in your head already,” Antony said. “So many young actresses have no ideas whatsoever. Hmm. We could reverse Ophelia, and make her another suitor; Hamlet beset by suitors. The two brothers, Laertes and Ophelia. That works, my dear. Wed have to cut the nunnery line. I dont want to change lines, except for the he/she stuff, obviously, but Hamlet is always cut, judiciously, but cut. At full length, it would play almost four hours.”
I could imagine a female Hamlet beset by suitors, doubts, and ghosts. Shed be virginal, disgusted by her mothers sexuality and unsure of her own. I was feeling my way into the part already. “Ill take it,” I said, draining my glass.
“Very good,” Antony said, beaming. “And with your well-known family background, I dont need to ask if youre British born.”
“I was born in Ireland, actually,” I said, resenting the bit about well-known background. The papers had always made such a meal of my family, it had been a real handicap when I was starting off. I hated thinking people came to see me on the dancing bear principle. “Pappa was still Lord Lieutenant there at the time. But Im a British subject.”
Antony frowned. “Do you have a new identity card?” he asked.
“Of course I do.” I fished it out of my bag and dropped it on the table, open. My rather wide-eyed snap looked up at both of us. “The Honourable Viola Anne Larkin. Date of Birth: February 4, 1917.