The Habit of Art

I can't go and see this play, so I thought I would read it. Of course it's nothing like the experience of the theatre, but it was well worth buying. The thing I enjoyed most was Alan Bennett's introduction in which he recalls Auden's time as Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the late 'fifties, while Bennett was a student--Auden's lectures are published in The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays (Vintage International)--and he contrasts this with Auden's stay in 1970-72 when Christ Church gave him a sort of retirement cottage to live in in the college's grounds. It is this period that the play is about: Auden, the fat celebrity, constantly repeating the same old stories, unable to write anything of value, his great work as a poet long finished, is visited first by a rent boy and then by his old friend Benjamin Britten. The introduction explains how a play-within-a-play structure evolved out of Bennett's protracted arguments with the subsequent director, the otherwise amiable Nicholas Hytner; these led Bennett to introduce the two other characters in the play, namely Auden's biographer Humphrey Carpenter, and the woman who is the stage manager of the "inner" play. As you might expect from a Bennett play, this work is as amusing and well-written as its background is well-researched. About Alan Bennett, the Observer's reviewer of the play said: "[...] the lure of a Bennett play doesn't lie in historical themes; it comes from sentences, riffs and free-standing blasts. Audiences go to hear not just his voice, ventriloquised through his characters, but his views. " That's Bennett and this play in a nutshell.

A work of genius, or a lapse into senility? (3/4 people found this helpful)

Frances de la Tour was absolutely stunning. I kept forgetting that she was actually part of the play, and not genuinely a stage-manager struggling with: a questionable script, a weak, but possibly once great lead actor, and an egotistical play-write.

As far as the "play-within-a-play" genre goes, this is possibly the most ambitious that I've come across. I spent most of the first half cringing at the awfulness of the rent-boy loving side of the WH Auden character (which I'm not convinced is quite as awful as depicted in the fictional play). In fact, I almost didn't return for the second half.

I did, however, spend the interval considering what the point of it all was, and came to the conclusion that the fictional actors (possibly at the end of careers that may or may not have ever amounted to anything) were struggling with an awful script that they had no choice to be a part of as job offers were no longer abundant. So the feelings of repulsion that I felt, I managed to level at the fictional play-write and not Bennett.

So, did the fictional play have to be so ghastly, and what would Michael Gambon have done with the same material (Richard Griffith having taking over the lead role)? On balance, I think the first answer is actually "yes". Giving Bennett the benefit of the doubt, he had to overdo the awfulness to clear the way of the fictional actors to put forward their own thoughts; complaining about a script that is just slightly bad may come across as just petulance, but when the script is unquestionably awful, the audience is more likely to be on the side of the fictional actors, and no one would even consider siding with the fictional play-write.

As for Gambon, recalling his superb performances in "The Singing Detective" and "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover", if anything, I think his performance as the fictional WHA would have been much more grotesque than RG's (I picture Alec Guiness's Fagan as opposed to Ron Moody's much cuddly version). But, when playing the actor, he would have been levelling his ire at full force against the fictional play-write, and at the same time, praising and describing his idol (the real WHA) with great eloquence. I think Gambon would have strived for a once great actor, brought low by alcoholism (an Oliver Reed type); whereas Griffith could only manage to portray an aging ham-actor who probably never amounted to much in the first place (a Donald Sinden perhaps).

Alan Bannett's 'Habit of Art' (3/3 people found this helpful)

The text and original cast list of Alan Bennett's latest stage play (2009). Bennett is a writer whose work stands reading many times, each time revealing something new. Before going to see the play I wanted to read the script so that I would clearly understand what was going on. I'm glad I did because the play has a complicated frame device, with some actors being different characters at different moments in the action. Having read the script I am now all set up to get the most enjoyment out of the stage performance when I go.I also love Faber books because of their stylish fonts. I like this a lot.

Bennett on top form (6/6 people found this helpful)

Bennett's plays pack an enormous range of thought-provoking ideas into a deceptively casual bundle. Bennett's own diary and essay writings reveal his occasional doubts that he is a proper writer, and this question of the relation of the individual to his artistic work seems to me to be the underlying theme of the play. W H Auden and Benjamin Britten (famous mid 20th Century poet and composer respectively) are shown in a fictional late-life encounter. Not too much that is admirable is presented - their "private faces" are shown as anxious and far from admirable; by contrast the greatness of their creative work is taken as given, supported by comments from the actors stepping out of their roles to talk to the Author and Director characters. Another theme of the play is the gap between the high culture that the main characters represent and the excluded, inarticulate mass, represented by a rentboy ordered by telephone by Auden just before the play begins. It is their very inarticulateness which disempowers them. Perhaps the greatness of Auden and Britten owes as much to the fact that they are listened to, as to what they say?

Although the structure of the play is complex, with each actor playing an actor and the part which the actor is playing, this isn't an intellectual construct for the purpose of being avant-garde, but a solution to writing about famous men about whom many of the audience will know little more than their names.

A fascinating play, and one which is infused with human sympathy, and affectionate humour. Bennett's ability to get us thinking seriously without telling us what to think is a rare talent ideed, and one to cherish.

The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett (8/8 people found this helpful)

The name of the author is sufficient recommendation. The gist of the play - a play within a play in rehearsal - is an imaginary meeting between Benjamin Britten and W H Auden at a time when BB was composing "Death in Venice". Neither had met for almost 25 years after their estranged relationship during their joint years domiciled in America in the early years of WW2. Britten's health was now deteriorating; he died in 1976. The play is both erudite and elegant and there is some delicious Bennett humour, too.

Alan Bennett

Reader Reviews:

The Habit (2/2 people found this helpful)

A work of genius, or a lapse into senility? (3/4 people found this helpful)

Alan Bannett's 'Habit of Art' (3/3 people found this helpful)

Bennett on top form (6/6 people found this helpful)

The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett (8/8 people found this helpful)

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