“The Shoeblack” and Its Fate

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 26

“The Shoeblack” and Its Fate

HISTORY OF FINE PLAY

The history of most plays is the sad one of rejection. No play can have had a much longer history of this kind than “The Infinite Shoe black.”

It was written originally in 1914. Almost before the script could be submitted to a manager for consideration the disaster of the Great War fell upon an astonished and incredulous world It may, perhaps, be difficult for those who were not in Europe at the time to realise how completely and how suddenly all the ordinary personal occupations and hopes and aspirations of individual people were ended by the outbreak of the war, writes Norman MacOwan, the author of this splendid play. As In many matters of much more importance, so with “The Infinite Shoeblack.” The work that had gone to the making of that small contribution to the drama appeared idle and profitless in August, 1914; the world event obliterated all thought of the play, even from the mind of its enthusiastic young author.

About four years later, when the retreat from Gallipoli and the early defeats in Palestine seemed ancient history, when Jerusalem was in sight, and even the end of the war, faint recollection of a play that might have had something in it began to stif in my mind. A letter to England brought the scrip to Palestine. I was a little afraid to open it. Fears were removed on reading the first act; they were renewed and doubled on reading the rest of the play. The first act might possibly be good; it was clear and certain that the rest of the play was incredibly bad. nl a few minutes the second and third acts of “The Infinite Shoeblack” were smouldering happily in the camp incinerator—the only place in which they would ever be likely to cause a flame. A new scrip of the play reposed in my kit bag when I landed In England about three months after Armistice Day, but the first act was the one that had been written in 1914. In view of the rapidity with which plays date (how old-fashioned those written just before the war usually appear to be!) it has always strifck me as peculiar that the first act of “The Infinite Shoeblack” should have worked out on the stage as well as it has done.

Early in 1919 Godfrey Tearle read the play, became enthusiastic, and purchased from me the usual 12 months’ option. Although Tearle was at that time perhaps the most popular leading man in London, and his enthusiasm for the play was sincere, he could persuade no manager to produce it. He tried hard and persistently in all directions without success. At the end of the 12 months he naturally l’elt that it would be useless to renew his option, but he asbed to be allowed to retain the script in the hope that he might yet persuade some manager to produce the play, with himself as Andrew. He did not succeed.

During the eight years that followed, four other plays of mine were produced in London, but “The Infinite Shoeblack” continued its sad history of rejection. Yet managers who read it seemed to like it —most of them seut for it again—some read it three or four times. What makes a manager refuse a play is always as great a mystery as what leads him to risk his money on some of the plays one sees produced. Just as the production of “Journey’s End,” which had been refused by nearly every manager in London, was partly due to the efforts of Mr. Banks in getting the Stage Society interested, so was the production of "The Infinite Shoeblack” largely due to his drive and enthusiasm. It was Mr. Banks who persuaded the Ai-ts Theatre to give twelve special performances of my play in London, and it was greatly due to his fine performance as Andrew that we had, in spite of an election and hot weather, a long and successful run at the Comedy Theatre, and later at the Globe Theatre. Had our leading lady, Mary Newcomb, not been compelled by a previous contract to leave us, we should not, I think, have had to finish the London run at the end of six months.

Margaret Bannerman, who toured New Zealand recently in a repertory

of comedies, has been selected as the prettiest woman on the English stage today.