Robert G. Lawrence
The Land of Promise enjoyed much popularity in England and the United States between December 1913 and August 1914. The American run was scheduled to be extended to Canada in March 1914, but Canadian indignation influenced the cancellation of the tour. This paper analyzes the sources of the indignation: Somerset Maugham depicted Canadians as very uncouth, and he suggested that Canada was not the land of promise of the immigration advertisements. In 1918 Phyllis Neilson-Terry and her English company toured across Canada in this play without untoward incident.
The Land of Promise était très bien reçu en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis entre décembre 1913 et août 1914. La production américaine devait voyager au Canada au mois de mars 1914, mais des réactions canadiennes ont récussi à annuler le projet. Celle étude analyse les causes de l'indignation canadienne: Somerset Maugham avait dépeint tons les Canadiens comme frustres et gauches, en suggérant que le Canada n'était pas le pays idéal promis aux immigrants par les autorités. En 1918 Phyllis Neilson-Terry, actrice anglaise avec une douzaine de collègues, a traversé le Canada sans aucun incident et avec beaucoup de succès.
Most readers of the novels and plays of Somerset Maugham will not immediately associate him with Canada; he did, however, travel to western Canada once, in December 1912, to do research for his drama The Land of Promise, 1 first performed in the United States in December 1913 and first published in London in 1913. 2
At that time the Canadian Pacific Railway, several provincial governments, and a variety of other agencies were assiduously selling Canada in the British Isles as 'the land of promise.' These efforts to encourage settlement west of Ontario were very successful; in the five-year period 1909-13 almost a million people from Great Britain settled in Canada. Maugham's use of the phrase 'the land of promise' was often sardonic; he wanted to illustrate the hardship and disillusion suffered by many naive immigrants.
He set the first of the four acts of his play in Tunbridge Wells, England, circa 1913, beginning with a contemporary commonplace of romantic fiction and drama: a crotchety old spinster promises her nurse-companion that she will remember her in her will; then Norah Marsh finds, after ten years of patient service, that she has been overlooked in the will. With no better prospect in life than a succession of similar old ladies, the twenty-eight-year-old Norah determines to join her brother in Manitoba. A few years earlier he had, like thousands of his contemporaries, settled on a farm in that province.
The first act of The Land of Promise is unpromising; it is not very original nor interesting, but it serves ultimately to provide contrasts between English gentility and Canadian roughness. In Tunbridge Wells Norah had refused an offer of marriage from a doctor's assistant; 'He was very nice, but, of course, he wasn't a gentleman.' In Act II, set in rural Manitoba, Norah discovers that her brother Edward is no gentleman-farmer; he works very hard on his land, lives in a log house, has married a rough-edged Canadian girl, and is surrounded by equally rough farm hands. An obvious misfit amongst this crew is a young English gentleman whom we and Norah had met briefly in Tunbridge Wells in Act I. He had then been eager to go out to Canada: 'One gets a lot of shooting and riding you know. And then there are tennis parties and dances. And you make a pot of money, there's no doubt about that.' Today we may think that Reginald Hornby's view of Canada is unbelievably naive; yet attitudes like this concerning gentlemanly farming in Canada were at the time common enough. Such beliefs were tacitly encouraged by the promoters of English settlement in the country and were the stock in trade of Canadian humour of the day.
In Act II of The Land of Promise we see Reg. Hornby as an inept, exhausted, disillusioned farm labourer, now anxious to return to England. The only Canadian amongst the farm labourers is Frank Taylor, who cynically lets it be known that he is looking for a woman to help him on his partially cleared quarter section some miles away.
Edward's Canadian wife, Gertie, resents Norah's gentility - the English girl is inept as a housekeeper, cannot milk a cow, and is 'stuck up.' Gertie soon makes life so intolerable for Norah that she flings herself at Frank, offering 'to cook and bake for you, wash and mend your clothes, and keep your shack clean and tidy.' Frank accepts, and both acknowledge that they must be married in order to conciliate the social proprieties of the day. The beginning of Act III finds Norah and Frank, married a few hours earlier in Winnipeg, inside Frank's two-room shack in another part of Manitoba as darkness falls.
Very astute readers of The Land of Promise may have noticed by this point that there has been no reference to another aspect of the marriage, the sexual. Norah and Frank's assumptions in this area are the opposite of each other's, creating the principal tensions of the play. Maugham leads his viewer/reader obliquely towards these problems through the course of Act III by means of a general conflict of wills during their first evening together.
This is a contest that Frank is determined to win, by brute strength if necessary. 'I always fancied an Englishwoman. They make the best wives when they've been licked into shape.' The trivial matter of washing two teacups either tonight or tomorrow morning leads to a crescendo of clashing willpowers, as Frank forcibly kisses her and points the way to the bedroom door. The scene is a lively rewriting of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Frank's bullying and Norah's stubborn resistance make for vital stagecraft, but Act III, ending in the girl's tearful defeat, would arouse the indignation of feminists today.
Between Acts III and IV several months have passed, and it is now early summer. The Taylor shack is tidier, with pictures on the walls and flowers on the table. Maugham holds his viewers in suspense through most of this final act: Norah's brother Edward comes to visit; he quizzes her, but Norah does not reveal to him nor the viewer whether she is happy or unhappy. Maugham, however, slowly prepares the way; Norah contemptuously criticizes Reginald Hornby for his giving up the land of promise to return to England. She learns of an opening as a lady's companion in Tunbridge Wells and receives a windfall cheque for £500, from Miss Wickham's heirs. Even then she hesitates. The sentimental ending approaches rapidly as Frank acknowledges that he has come gradually to respect and love her, and she makes a similar statement, adding that 'the prairie somehow has caught hold of me.' Only now does Frank tell her that 'the weed' (mustard) has got into his new crop of grain, which must be destroyed. Unhesitatingly Norah contributes her £500, to tide them over to the next crop, and the curtain falls on a kiss.
In association with this sentimental ending, it is appropriate to mention another play with a similar theme, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which opened at His Majesty's Theatre, London, 11 April 1914. At the same time, The Land of Promise was enjoying its long run at the Duke of York's Theatre a few blocks away. Both plays have brusque heroes who dominate the heroines, and both plays could end either romantically or unromantically. In 1914 they concluded in a similar way, in deference to audience expectations. After his visit to Canada Maugham wrote to a friend, 'I have just come back from savage parts ... and have gathered all sorts of material for a dreary, sordid tragedy after the manner of Tolstoi, and this is rather unfortunate since I have been commissioned [by Charles Frohman] to write a really pleasant play which shall make people feel better and happier.'3 Similarly, Shaw vigorously and unsuccessfully resisted the sentimental ending to Pygmalion on which Sir Herbert Tree insisted.4
Maugham's play now seems dated; World War I opened many doors for middle-class women within months of its first staging, and Frank Taylor's treatment of his bride aroused the indignation of several critics even in 1914. The Land of Promise has, however, endured surprisingly well; it was revived repeatedly during the next ten years, with dozens of uncritical reviews. The most recent stage production known to me was at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London, 27 January - 8 February 1947. I have been able to find only one review of this production, a placid evaluation in the Stratford Express; it briefly commended the company for a skilful presentation of a nostalgic story about pioneering. I have seen a reference to The Land of Promise having been performed on television in England, but I have no detailed information. A one-hour adaptation of the play (by Alan King) was performed 24 October 1954 in the CBC Stage series.
The Land of Promise, Maugham's ninth successful play, shows his skill in stagecraft; it has convincing character delineation and a tense climax. Today we might be merely amused by it on stage; however, the drama vividly records the disappointments and disillusions in the land of promise. The events of the play, in broad outline, probably occurred often enough in the early years of this century. I have been surprised by the enduring popularity of The Land of Promise. As a part of my interest in how critics and audiences responded to the play, I have collected reactions to this drama as it was performed in the U.S.A., Great Britain, and Canada over several years. I shall outline the history of several productions of the play and varied reactions to it.
The earliest stage version of The Land of Promise starred Billie Burke, a popular American comedienne whom Maugham was dating at the time. Her company tried out the play in Washington, D.C., 1-6 December 1913, with a touring schedule planned to catch the Christmas season in New York. The National Theater in Washington was crowded, and the reporter for The New York Dramatic Mirror (3 and 10 December 1913) approved of the picturesque stage production, an interesting story, and Miss Burke's intellectual power and histrionic strength as Norah Marsh. The English actor Lumsden Hare, by then settled in the United States, played Edward Marsh; the other members of the company seem to have been American.
After a series of nine one or two-night stands, The Land of Promise reached the Lyceum Theater, New York, on 25 December 1913, and remained there until 28 February 1914, quite a respectable run. The Billboard (3 January 1914) liked the play and reported that other New York papers had also approved. The Theatre Magazine (December 1913, p 189) commended the play and referred to the power of Act III, notably the scene in which an angry Norah aims a rifle at her aggravating husband. (Standing only a few feet from him, she pulls the trigger, but Frank knew throughout the confrontation that the gun was not loaded.) The Land of Promise then had a fortnight at the Hollis Theater in Boston (2-14 March). In a series of reviews, the Boston Globe (3-15 March 1914) praised it highly, complimenting Miss Burke for her first serious role and Mr Maugham for a powerful play.
During February and March 1914, The Dramatic Mirror referred to planned performances of The Land of Promise in Utica, Ithaca, Hamilton, Ontario, and Chicago, with the prospect, reported in several Canadian newspapers, of a long tour through Canada. The Land of Promise was apparently successful in the American cities and towns in which it was shown; yet the play abruptly closed in Boston. By 28 March Billie Burke and the same company had opened in New York with Jerry. What happened? The answer to that question is of considerable interest to Canadian theatre historians, but before I approach it I shall hold readers in dramatic suspense in order to report briefly on the production of The Land of Promise in England.
The play opened at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, on 26 February 1914, just as Billie Burke was closing in New York, and was enormously successful, concluding its London run on 7 August 1914, a few days after the beginning of the Great War. Irene Vanbrugh was Norah Marsh;5 Charles V. France, Edward Marsh; and Godfrey Tearle, Frank Taylor.6 The Times (27 February 1914, p 10) commended their performances, but was much more critical of the play itself than American reviewers had been; The Times writer saw both the English and the Manitoban scenes as full of clichés and vulgarity. A sampling of other London papers shows a unanimity of attitude towards the principal actors and their supporters. There was, however, a deep division between those papers, like The Times, that found the action powerful but implausible, and the journals that commented approvingly on the vitality of the fictitious events. In the former group, The Sketch (25 March 1914, p 366) thought it absurd for Norah ever to forgive the coarse Frank, let alone love him; by contrast, The Tatler (11 March 1914, p xvi) considered the play 'a great achievement.... It deals with life's problems in a truthful manner.' In 1915 Irene Vanbrugh and a largely new company took The Land of Promise on a long tour of England and Scotland (15 March - 29 November 1915), and it was apparently well received. Throughout the war years The Land of Promise was regularly toured in Great Britain, evidence of continuing popularity.
During the runs of the play in the United States and England in 1914, Canadian newspapers did little more than note its existence and report that Billie Burke planned to tour in Canada with it. The earliest evaluative Canadian comment that I have found appeared in the Canadian Gazette, 3 March 1914, quoted in the Edmonton Journal, 28 March 1914, p 32. Referring to the London production, an unnamed critic wrote,
The impression left upon one after witnessing the play is that Canada, through a hard school, brings the force of character and all the grit there is out of women who go there. Mr Maugham ... has done Canada a good turn in striving to show Western Canada honestly to the public.
The tolerance illustrated here appears
to have been unique, because evidently during February and March of 1914
Canadian indignation concerning The Land of Promise grew sufficiently
intense to influence the cancellation of Billie Burke's American and Canadian
tour. (Presumably her producers felt that this play, with its strong Canadian
theme, would not be a major draw in the United States alone, and would
depend on a later Canadian success to be profitable.)
As will appear, Canadians were then very sensitive about the 'image' of their country. The Land of Promise suggested that Canada was inhabited for the most part by very rough people like Frank Taylor and Gertie March (Norah's sister-in-law had formerly been a waitress in Winnipeg). As I noted earlier, in this period of Canadian history, immigrants from England were assiduously courted. In 1913, a peak year, approximately 200,000 people from the United Kingdom settled in Canada; thus it is not surprising to learn that Canadian immigration/emigration officials were in the vanguard of the protests over The Land of Promise. Mr William D. Scott, the superintendent of the Canadian immigration service, issued a refutation of the implications of the play: 'It gives an altogether incorrect conception of the conditions in Western Canada.' (Edmonton Journal, 4 April 1914, p 27) A similar indignation was voiced by Mrs M.G. Niblett, an officer in the Canadian emigration department in London. She said, in part, 'No Canadian man would dream of ordering his wife about.... If there is one thing Canadian men do well, it is the way they treat their wives.' (Edmonton Daily Bulletin, 10 April 1914, p 2)
The same article carried a complementary item; it was an excerpt from a private letter written, to a friend in England, by an English actress in John Martin-Harvey's company, then on tour in Canada. She wrote, 'The Canadian people are beastly rough and inartistic for the most part, and the lower classes unspeakable.' The lady's words were frequently reprinted in England and in Canada, provoking editorial comment and letters to editors. The embarrassed Sir John said later, 'I dissociate myself absolutely from any such reflection upon any class of Canadian.'
One important agent in the cancellation of the Canadian tour of The Land of Promise was Mr T. Herbert Chestnut. His description of the play as 'an outrageous libel on Western Canada, especially Manitoba' was apparently circulated in Canada and the United States; it seems to have provoked a letter, which I have been unable to trace, from Billie Burke acknowledging the truth of his accusation. I have been able to learn very little about T. Herbert Chestnut; for several years he conducted the Saturday 'Music and Drama' column in the Regina Leader where his last byline appeared on 22 February 1914. The Edmonton Journal later (4 April 1914) reported that he was 'now doing free lance work in Boston and New York.' You will recall that The Land of Promise was playing in Boston in March 1914. A close reading of the Boston Globe for the month revealed no hint of controversy, although the paper covered the play thoroughly. I have read twenty or so Canadian papers for the period, but have found no other references to Chestnut and the controversy that he apparently generated.
The indignation aroused by The Land of Promise was echoed in Toronto Saturday Night, in 'London Letter,' a regular column by Mary E. MacLeod Moore. On 28 March 1914 (p 27), she commented on how implausible the play was; ' ... very likely Mr Maugham will have to fight duels with indignant Manitobans, lacking a sense of humour, who lament that Canada should be so misrepresented in the Mother Country.'
One may well wonder at this point - Were Canadian theatre-goers ever to see the play that so grievously maligned the Canadian character? The answer is an anticlimactic 'yes.' In the spring of 1918 (3 April- 11 May), Phyllis Neilson-Terry, the twenty-six-year-old daughter of the notable English stars Fred Terry and Julia Neilson, toured with an English company in The Land of Promise from Vancouver to Toronto, including Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, and a few other unidentified cities; the tour was accomplished with hardly a murmur of dissent in the Canadian newspapers. In Saturday Night, 11 May 1918 (p 6), Hector Charlesworth referred in passing to a controversy over the play in the West. He mentioned too that 'a Western writer, Mrs Polly - or is it Nellie - McClung - it is some such name, anyway,' described the play as 'an insult to Canadian womanhood.' I have been unable to trace this statement and do not know whether Mrs McClung used the words in 1914 or in 1918.
The Vancouver Daily Province found the play both intense and amusing (4 April 1918, p 8). Other Western papers praised Miss Neilson-Terry's fine acting, with the Regina Leader offering this gentle comment: 'One might not approve of Taylor's methods of subduing a refractory wife.' (16 April 1918, p 9) Hector Charlesworth in Saturday Night (11 May 1918) praised the taut, restrained realism of the play and Maugham's skill in characterization. Charlesworth is the only reviewer whom I have read to comment on the impact of the war and the new freedoms that it brought to women in Norah's circumstances in England. Also in 1918, Billie Burke starred in a film of The Land of Promise that was distributed throughout Canada. The few Canadian reviews of it that I have seen praised it highly. There were, as well, a few other productions of the play after 1918 in Canada and England.
This study was intended primarily to illustrate an extreme sensitivity to criticism in Canada just previous to the outbreak of the Great War. As well, the play tells us something about the relationship between the Mother Country and Canada: Canada was then a place of adventure, promise, challenge, and security for English men and women with strength and courage; it was another kinct of refuge for the failures, like Reginald Hornby. The play shows in action contrasts between English gentility and Canadian roughness; readers of today may not wholly approve of Maugham's thesis nor of the course of dramatic events; yet the play and its productions have an historical interest still.7
NotesTHE LAND OF PROMISE: CANADA, AS SOMERSET MAUGHAM SAW IT IN 1914
Robert G. Lawrence
1 TED MORGAN, Maugham
New York, 1980, p 177. No biographer indicates exactly where Maugharn
was in Canada.
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2 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM,
The Land of Promise London: Bickers and Son, 1913. In 1914 G.H.
Popham of Ottawa published an edition of The Land of Promise (I
have not seen a copy), perhaps, like the Bickers edition, for copyright
purposes. The Heinemann edition (London, 1922) is more readily accessible.
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3 Morgan, p 177
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4 RICHARD HUGGETT, The
Truth about 'Pygmalion' London, 1969, pp 161-162
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5 In her autobiography
IRENE VANBRUGH referred to The Land of Promise only briefly, recording
her delight in the play and her role: To Tell My Story London, 1948,
pp 107-108.
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6 The illustrations attached
to this study are of the London production: Play Pictorial XXIV, 144
(June 1914). I am very grateful to George Benson, London, for his gift
to me of this periodical.
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7 This paper was read at
the Association for Canadian Theatre History/ l'Association d'histoire
au théâtre du Canada conference in Ottawa, 2 June 1982.
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