Godfrey Plays: 1

Paul Godfrey

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781408119204
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Paul Godfrey is "so good, so nervy and alert with imagination and intelligence" (Sunday Times)

Includes the plays: Inventing a New Colour "Godfrey's appealing first play is, with its ominous signs of disjunction, like a surrealist painting"(Guardian), Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens "A fictional-biographical account of Benjamin Britten...lyrical, poetic prose, sinuous, swift, eloquent and dramatic" (Sunday Times), A Bucket of Eels "Danger gives Paul Godfrey's wonderful play its drama. Six young people enter a Freudian forest of their own imaginings" (Financial Times), The Blue Ball "An enquiry into the magic of space exploration....a rather interesting, idiosyncratic and well written play" (Observer) is an imaginative investigation of the experience of Space researched by the playwright among the astronauts themselves. This ambitious play questions the politics of a culture in which the wondrous is rendered mundane and what seems commonplace is rendered absurd. The Blue Ball was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre and received its première at the Cottesloe Theatre in 1995.

Once in a While
the Odd Thing Happens

A Play from the Life of
Benjamin Britten

Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens was premiered in the Cottesloe, National Theatre, London on 18 September 1990, with the following cast:

Benjamin Britten (b. 1913) Michael Maloney

WH Auden (b. 1907) Stephen Boxer

Beth Britten (b. 1909) Hilary Dawson

Peter Pears (b. 1910) Julian Wadham

Beata Mayer (b. 1912) Deborah Findlay

One of the Chorus Anthony Douse

Directed by Paul Godfrey

Designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis

Lighting by Paul Pyant

Scenes in England and America between the late 1930s and 1945.

Music

No music is required in the play.

Two pieces can be used set apart from the action:

The ‘Romance’ from Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge Op. 10

between Act One and Act Two, and the opening of Four Sea Interludes

Op.33 to follow the final lines of the play.

Let me acknowledge the assistance of everyone who spoke to me on this subject especially Beth Britten (m. Welford), Basil Douglas, Joan Cross, Robert Medley, John Moody, Nell Moody (née Burra), Peter Pears, Myfanwy Piper, John Piper and Anne Wood.

Act One

England

1

W H Auden and Benjamin Britten

Auden

What I’d like to know is,

what goes on inside this head?

Britten

How do you mean?

Auden

Where does it come from, the music?

Britten

I was born on Cecilia’s Day,
the patron saint of music.

Auden

But what is it; the nature of the gift?

Britten

Perhaps it was the rhythm of the sea,
heard distant as a babe in arms?

Auden

The North Sea, is it especially musical?

Britten

Do I disappoint you?

If I seem reticent, please don’t think me dull.
It’s simply that I run out of words.

Auden

Listen: you are the composer,
I am the poet, I am the one with the words.

Britten

I love your grasp of words

as if they were solid things

as if you could turn them round in your hands.

Auden

When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean,
but the eloquence of your music is another matter.

Britten

Why do people talk about music,
as if there was anything to be said?

Auden

Your music, it speaks directly to my heart.

Britten

And what does it say?

Auden

It begs questions.
All that emotion:
shifting and turning.
So much ambiguity.

Britten

You build me up.

I can barely follow this conversation.

Auden

You may act innocent

but the music gives you away.

Britten

Where is this leading?

If you understand, why do you need me to explain?

Auden

How do I know if the emotion I find when I listen
is what you mean when you compose?

Britten

What you hear is what I mean.

Auden

Doesn’t it concern you,

that everyone may feel something different?

Britten

I’m sure they do.

Auden...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Chronology
• Introduction
• Inventing a New Colour
• A Bucket of Eels
• Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens
• Afterword
• The Blue Ball
• Afterword
• Author Biography
• Imprint