The Welsh vagabond poet W. H. Davies is probably best known for his lines from his poem, Leisure.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
But in his life time, he was also known for the publication of The Autobiography of a Super Tramp that told of his life on the road in Britain and America. During this time he was, in the words of the programme, “...lauded and embraced by many of the established artistic luminaries.”
Among these was Camden Town Group painter, Walter Sickert.
The play starts with two out-of-work actors planning the writing and production of a play for Edinburgh about a meeting between the two artists. It weaves between the present and the actual meeting of Davies and Sickert and the planning of his portrait. This is an interesting idea using the Borgesian style of self-reference and the play is rich in textual layers, but more time was given to the present day characters and their personal issues than to the characters in the play’s title, which is what would have lured the audience.
I was saddened to hear in the text Davies’ account of his witnessing the lynching of a black man in Louisiana during his train hopping escapades and his sense of justice and lack of humanity at the barbaric act, which did not chime with the considerate and modest side shown of him in other ways. Yet the play comes to an abrupt end with Sickert ignoring Davies chapping the door and saying the words, ‘I can’t find the beast in the man’.
Sickert lived in a studio in Mornington Crescent, Camden where the play is set. It was reputedly previously inhabited by a Ripper suspect and Sickert himself has been cited as one himself, possibly because of his series of paintings the Camden Town Murders, one of which is replicated for the play. He is also mentioned in Stephen Knight’s book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution as being the source of information as to the identity of the Ripper by Joseph Sickert who claimed to be his illegitimate son.
But these links did not come out clearly in the play and while Davies and Sickert did know each other, it would appear that no portrait was completed. Augustus John, who was considered in the play by Chris (Chris Morgan) and Lewis (Richard Tunley) as being the artist for Davies to meet did paint his portrait so it seems odd to choose one who did not when the link to Ripper is not made clear. A wasted opportunity to shed light more fully on forgotten lives.
Show times
Till 21 August (not 16), 1.30pm
Ticket Prices
£8 (£5)