Jonathan Croall has authored an impressive number of theatre books, including biographies of John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike, studies of performances of Hamlet and King Lear over the ages, and of productions at the National Theatre. I've reviewed several of them, both on here and on Shiny New Books. His interest in theatre presumably started in childhood, as his parents were both actors. Now he has turned to fiction with All is Fortune, a collection of twenty-one short stories all based in different ways around the stage.
These stories, it must be said, do not on the whole present a very cheerful picture of the lives of actors, playwrights and others who have made the theatre the focus of their lives. Aging performers of both sexes are disappointed by the lives they are living, like Gwen, in 'Surviving', who has not fulfilled the promise the narrator remembers from their days at drama school, and now, middle-aged, is touring in poor plays in small, little-known venues, and in 'There's this Captain...' a once famous star is unable to accept his descent into old age and the fact that nobody wants to employ him any more. And in 'Living in the Past', a once famous star refuses to cooperate with his would-be biographer because he wants nothing but flattery in the book, rather than the possibly negative opinions of his contemporaries. Relationships fail to prosper: in 'A Holiday Humour', shy, repressed Edward is offered the possibility of one with a beautiful girl, but can't bring himself to act on it, though he learns a lesson from the experience.
There are too many stories to be able to talk about them all in detail. So here are my two favourites. I very much liked 'A Brief Encounter' in which Jessica, a middle-aged woman, once a keen theatregoer, sets off on her own to see a production of Othello at Stratford on Avon after her disagreeable husband opts out of accompanying her. Also heading for Stratford is seventeen-year-old Lennie, who has recently discovered Shakespeare at a local youth club and is desperate to see the play. Disappointed when he discovers the performance is sold out, he joins the queue for returns. There he is approached by Jessica who is hoping to sell her spare ticket. When Lennie can't afford the full price, she lets him have it for the price of a gallery seat. So it is that the two go for coffee and a walk round the town, and are sitting together to watch the play. Both enjoy their conversation and their shared ideas about the production, and hope to meet again. But will they?
Then there's the title story, and the longest in the collection, 'All is Fortune'. The narrator here is a young aspiring playwright whose morale, following endless rejection letters, is extremely low. So he decides to take a job he's seen advertised in the local paper: he will be cataloguing the collection of a long-forgotten Victorian playwright, whose descendent Mrs Morrison has plans to open a museum. Opening the many boxes he discovers several play scripts of a decidedly inferior kind. But then, right at the bottom of the box, he finds a play called 'All is Fortune', and this is on quite another level. For a long time he conceals this discovery, hoping perhaps to persuade a theatre company to stage it. But many ups and downs follow, and it appears for a long time that all is lost. However, in a twist at the end, something he has never imagined comes to pass and he is finally contented with the outcome.
Anyone familiar with the world of the theatre will recognise the experiences described in these stories. And anyone familiar with human nature will too!
