"The Mayor of Casterbridge"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 650, 14 December 1951, Page 9

"The Mayor of Casterbridge"

TRUE incident-the sale of a wife-which took place at Weyhill Fair in the last century, is the basis of Thomas Hardy’s novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, which New Zealand listeners are to hear in a BBC transcription. On this incident Hardy based a drama of the retribution which, after 20 years, may strike down a man who had seemingly eutgrown his youthful wildness and become a most respected and respectable citizen. From its inception in a\booth at a country fair, the story expands till it is not so much a chronicle of individual lives as a panotama of life itself. Before the novel appeared in 1886 Hardy feared it would not be so good as he meant. He was troubled about the probability of some of the incidents and thought he had spoilt the story by making it fit ‘the conventions of serial publication, with a strong incident in each instalment. He may have felt, too, that he had lost his touch, for in the seven years since The Return of the Native he had not published a successful major work, and he had been seriously ill. But he need not have worried. The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of

his greatest works-a tragic drama of great power and range, Desmond Hawkins, who adapted the novel for broadcasting (he also adapted Far trom the Maddjng Crowd) has writ: ten a study of Hardy. "In at least one sense," he wrote in the Radio Times, "The Mayor of Casterbridge stands apart from Hardy’s other novels. The central figure-the Mayor himself, Michael Henchard-is not young, nor idealistic, nor particularly worthy. Except in the prologue, he appears before us as a middle-aged man of vehement temper and strong passions, haunted by a single reckless deed of folly which drives him to actions of increasing violence and ultimately to his ruin and death. Hardy’s other tragic heroesAngel Clare, for example, or Judemake considerable demands on our pity: we have to concede that life must have been very disappointing for them. Henchard makes no such demands. He goes down with the wild, magnificent obstinacy of a bull in the open arena." Mr. Hawkins sees Henchard as not primarily a good man or a bad man, but as one who displays with exceptional vividness the forces which struggle for mastery within a human being. Heightening his tragedy are the characters around him-Susan, the wife he has

wronged; the gay and sparkling Lucetta; the young Scot, Farfrae, who becomes Henchard’s rival in trade and in love; and Susan’s daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. Hardy wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge in very short chapters and changes his scene almost continuously from chapter to chapter. Mr. Hawkins thought this treatment would sound

scrappy on the-air, so he tells the story as Elizabeth-Jane might have told it. "I confess she intrigues me in the book," he says, "because ‘all the other characters seem to revolve round her, while she herself remains in the shadows and sometimes appears to go unnoticed even by her author. If anyone could tell us fairly and dispassionately what happened in Casterbridge, it would be she. I have therefore chosen her as’ my story-teller, Inevitably I have taken a few liberties with the book, but none, I think, which should offend its many admirers." As a Wessex man, and ofte who has drawn so. much on traditional English melodies, Ralph Vaughan Williams is ideally qualified to write the incidental music for this new Hardy serial, and he responded enthusiastically when the BBC asked him to do so. He showed the craftsman’s practical approach to the job. (In fact, when composing for radio he likes to work with a stop-watch in his hand-a habit he acquired in writing film music.) The main theme is founded on the composer’s setting of a folk song which introduced, on ’cellos, his Fantasy on Christmas Carols, This sombre theme, with its underlying feeling of a relentless fate, has an adagio variant which is identified with the characters of Elizabeth-Jane and her mother-a peaceful, almost feminine theme mainly used when Elizabeth-Jane’s calm voice, as narrator, has ushered in a new phase of the story. This theme, though secondary, is important, for Mr. Hawkins wished to convey in the narration the impression of emotion recollected in tranquillity. A third theme, less important, is a discordant variation on a drinking song, used to convey the nightmare effect of Henchard’s awakening to a realisation of what he has done in selling his wife. Owen Reed, who also made Far from the Madding Crowd, produced The Mayor of Casterbridge with a cast of West-country actors-Hedley Goodall as Henchard, Beatrice Beavan as Susan, and Barbara Jefford (who has played opposite John Gielgud at the Shake--speare Memorial Theatre) as ElizabethJane. The Mayor of Casterbridge will start from 2XN at 8.15 p.m, on Sunday, December 23, and will be heard later from other stations, aay isicggnee