Wednesday
Clouds, SW wind, veering to N.W. Showers at times, but not enough to do any real good. The Repertory Company are doing Emlyn William’s “The Corn is Green” this week, so I decided to go. It was a joy to hear “Idwal” saying “Didch yn fawr, syr, didch yn fawr!” and “Y Squire rhowch I mi ceiniog!”, and to hear the young miners saying “Nos dawch” as they went out into the darkness of the valley.
The play is, of course, excellent, but is far too subtle for English audiences, as I have no doubt the author is well aware. You see the old Welsh language being laughed and patronised out of existence by the Squire and the school-ma’am. “Miss Moffatt” determines to rescue “Morgan Evans” from his native savagery on the strength of his natural poesy. She makes him read Burke, Voltaire, and Macaulay – not Llywarch Hen, Taliesin or Ap Gwilym - because she had never heard of them, and the magnificent torrents of their words, like the cataracts that pour down the sides of Snowdon, were entirely lost to Morgan, a poet himself.
I enjoyed the play immensely. Sat in a 3/6 seat upstairs, with Cr. and Mrs. Blomfield just behind me. The hall was packed to capacity.
Cycled back to Lawford in the twilight, beneath huge rolling clouds, black and angry, streaked with red in the west. A few spots of rain.
Borrowed Housman’s “Victoria Regina” from Diana Davis, [Stage Manager of Colchester Repertory Company] reading in bed tonight.
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