Ngaio Marsh Her Life in Crime (26 page)

Success followed success, so that Henry found it hard to share his famous daughter. He did not think much of young John Mannings, whom Ngaio seemed to have adopted as a surrogate son. He came to the house too often. Henry, jealous and irascible, persecuted the boy when he could do so out of sight. Old age made him angry. John’s sister, Jean, remembers ‘Uncle Harry’ just before he died. She was passing through Christchurch on the way to an inter-provincial hockey meet in Dunedin:

Ngaio left me in charge
looking after Uncle Harry who was bedridden.

[There was a] booming voice from the bedroom: ‘Girl…Girl…get me a whisky.’

‘How much do you have?’ I asked him. So he showed me on a glass. I poured out that much whisky.

‘Girl,
it’s neat!’ he cried in frustration, and died two or three days later. He probably shouldn’t have had it.

Henry died at St George’s Hospital in Christchurch on 4 September 1948. Ngaio ‘missed him dreadfully’. Her grief was palpable, and close friends knew it cut her to the core, ‘but there was no bitterness’ in his death. He was old and ready to go, and his passing was the end of a relationship that had satisfied them both.

Ngaio barely had time to grieve before life swept her off in another direction. Dan O’Connor had a stunning piece of news. In association with the British Council, he was promoting a tour of The Old Vic Theatre Company to Australia and New Zealand, and the stars of the show were Sir Laurence Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh. The visit seemed almost impossible to comprehend when there were other more strategic destinations like the United States and Canada. ‘
Why are you,
the greatest actor in the world, making a tour of Australia of all places?’ asked an astonished Sam Goldwyn, who was one of Olivier’s friends. Leigh’s 1939
Gone with the Wind
was legendary, and Laurence Olivier was internationally renowned for his renditions of Shakespeare’s greatest roles, especially Richard III, but also Hamlet, Henry V, Othello and Macbeth on stage and film. His 1944 film version of
Henry
V won him an Oscar nomination, as did his 1948
Hamlet.
He had been made a Knight Bachelor in 1947, and in 1948 he was on the board of directors of The Old Vic. To raise money for the theatre, Olivier had decided to tour the Antipodes. As well as being a money-raising venture, ‘
the tour was a grand gesture
of showing the flag, in an empire that still just existed’. They were coming to Christchurch, so Dan O’Connor wanted Ngaio involved. It was an extraordinary opportunity.

In Australia, the company performed Shakespeare’s
Richard III,
Sheridan’s
The School for Scandal,
and Thornton Wilder’s
The Skin of Our Teeth.
The actors were treated like royalty, with media coverage and civic receptions wherever they went. After six exhausting months, the company flew from Brisbane to New Zealand, arriving in September 1948 for the last six-week stint of their tour. On paper printed with the letterhead ‘The Old Vic tour of Australia and New Zealand’, Vivien Leigh crossed out the word ‘Australia’ and wrote ‘
Over, God be praised
’. Their Australian tour had left them shattered. ‘
You may not realise it
,’ Olivier told a New Zealand reporter, ‘but you are looking at two walking corpses.’ The continuous grind of performances, sometimes two a day, and often in mediocre venues, was exhausting. By the time Olivier reached Sydney, he had limped his ‘club-footed’ way through so many performances of
Richard III,
that his knee gave way on stage, permanently damaging the
cartilage. In Christchurch, he was in so much pain that he was forced to perform on crutches.

Three weeks before their arrival in Christchurch, Dan O’Connor sent Ngaio a telegram, asking if she would put on supper and an evening of entertainment for the company at the Little Theatre. Leigh and Olivier were recruiting for The Old Vic: this was an opportunity to showcase New Zealand talent. In spite of her grief over her father’s death, Ngaio applied herself to the problem of what to present. The evening was set for 27 September, at 11.30pm, after The Old Vic’s performance of
The School for Scandal.
Ngaio gave in to her ‘obsession’, choosing
Six Characters in Search of an Author.

As always, she worked shrewdly with the talent she had. There was a big new star—Brigid Lenihan—to match the calibre of her men. Lenihan, breathtakingly beautiful and a dancer, moved across the stage with elegance, and, although her voice was not epic in strength, she could capture the nuance and equivocal intimacy of experimental theatre brilliantly. She was perfect for
Six Characters,
in which she played the Stepdaughter. Other talent had emerged during previous student productions. There was the gifted Pamela Mann, who had proved her skills as a producer of William Congreve’s
The Way of the World,
and, with Bernard Kearns, as joint producer of Jean-Paul Sartre’s
Les Mouches (The Flies).
Both were clever actors: Mann played the Mother and Kearns the Father in
Six Characters,
along with William Scannell as the Son, Rodney Kennedy as the Boy, and Beth Wilson as the Child.

The Old Vic tour had pushed Leigh and Olivier’s relationship to its limits. They were already a volatile personality mix. For years Leigh had suffered from bipolar disorder, and her mood swings and nights of manic insomnia took their toll. Immediately before going on stage in Christchurch the stars argued violently, creating a backstage scene when, according to local accounts, Leigh, refusing to go out, slapped Olivier across the face and he slapped her back. For the local cast and crew it seemed too amazing to be true: silver-screen sexual tension happening in Christchurch.

But the fraught relationship did not dampen the post-production performance of
Six Characters
or the reception at the Little Theatre. Ngaio, her players and crew had worked and ‘rehearsed as if the devil was after’ them. They would be performing in front of the most acclaimed actors in the world and were understandably nervous. ‘
The entire power
for the stage lighting [still] came from a single wall socket’ and the stagehands worried it might overload. ‘There was
a rumour—possibly apocryphal,’ remembers crew member Alistair Johnson, ‘that for this performance, Max McGlashan, the stage manager, climbed up the electricity supply pole in the street just outside the Little Theatre, to “strengthen” the fuse to prevent an unexpected blackout.’

‘
At the end [of the performance]
there was warm applause from the audience, and…drinks were served,’ recalls Harry Atkinson, who was a violinist in the play.

Everyone gathered around the seated Olivier (and Vivien Leigh). I was somewhat shyly standing apart from the main crowd: but then, in a gap between several people, I suddenly saw Vivien looking straight at me with the most beautiful blue eyes. I looked back—and wonder Oh wonder, she beckoned me over, reaching out her hand towards me and saying: ‘It’s so
very
good to see you!’ Well! We talked a little…and after the party I went back to my college room walking on air!

Ngaio and Dan O’Connor introduced young New Zealand players to the world of the West End, and the experience was unforgettable. A private party afterwards at Marton Cottage celebrated, early, Vivien Leigh’s birthday, which would take place on the ship, and Ngaio presented Olivier with Edmund Kean’s ancient coat, given to her by her grandfather so many years before. Ngaio described the students’ performance as ‘rough but not too bad’ and was quietly pleased that her famous guests were so encouraging.

At the end of their week-long season in Christchurch, Olivier went into hospital for a knee operation. He was still there the day before their boat was due to leave for England. Unable to move, he was placed on a canvas stretcher and hoisted by crane onto the boat. ‘
I soared into the sky
,’ he wrote to a friend, ‘smoothly floating over the side of the ship and gently down.’ It was an ignominious end to an internationally acclaimed tour.

Their legacy in New Zealand was considerable. Not only were Pamela Mann and Robert Stead, from the Unity Players in Wellington, offered places in The Old Vic’s production course, but Brigid Lenihan was given a huge endorsement. She was so good, according to Olivier, that there was no point in her attending drama school. ‘
She has star quality
. Let her sweat it out in Rep,’ he announced. But the stellar outcome of their visit was impetus for an Australian tour. Dan O’Connor, struck by the talented acting he saw in
Six Characters,
suggested a two-play tour of Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne over the summer break. Ngaio’s superb Othello, Paul Molineaux, was available, so that was her Shakespearian selection to companion Pirandello’s play.

The tour represented a pinnacle for Ngaio. She had worked hard to build the acting, directing and technical experience in Christchurch to carry off such a venture. It was a crowning achievement, and she was delighted. But she knew it was an immense challenge, so the moment the end-of-year examinations finished, rehearsals began. They were daily and rigorous, and she spent hours with principal characters going over their roles. The actors were clever and eager to be involved, so Ngaio’s direction became more of an exchange of ideas rather than a prescriptive approach. She modified her methods accordingly.

This was the first New Zealand theatre company to tour abroad, and with the prospect of international exposure and acclaim the University of Canterbury offered Ngaio an honorary lectureship in drama. Her appointment, ‘greeted by prolonged applause’, was announced at a special reception. This was belated recognition, but Ngaio accepted it graciously. There was no time, anyway, to calculate grievances or rest on laurels. They had just seven weeks to rehearse two plays; then 24 student players, plus 2 tons of scenery and props, had to be shipped to Australia for the opening of
Othello
at the Sydney Conservatorium on 10 January 1949. Everything had to be ready.

They arrived in Sydney to a celebrity-style welcome, with reporters boarding the
Wanganella
before they came ashore. Ngaio’s international reputation as a mystery writer attracted immediate attention. Before opening night, however, a burglary left the company seriously rattled. Costumes, traveller’s cheques and a recording of Douglas Lilburn’s music were stolen from one of the dressing rooms.

The first night of
Othello
only suggested the magic and momentum the production would assume as the tour progressed. Paul Molineaux grew into his character. Initially, his Othello was a little too admirable to be a convincing antihero, but he would find the despot as well as the deceived. When
Six Characters
switched from afternoon rehearsals to evening performances a week later, it was an instant success. Brigid Lenihan’s Stepdaughter had the depth Olivier had predicted. She had exactly ‘
the right air
of soiled allurement, defiance, smouldering spite and wretched self-loathing’, wrote the critic for
The Sydney Morning Herald.
Her Desdemona was initially a little too confident.

Reviews reached a fever pitch of enthusiasm the longer the company toured.
In Canberra, they were complimentary; in Melbourne, they were ecstatic. Ngaio’s production of Shakespeare was likened to that of The Old Vic. Her tempo, simple stage settings, and subtle lighting were highly commended. An English company of Stratford Players, also performing
Othello
in Melbourne, at the Prince Theatre, were negatively compared with Ngaio’s company. According to the Melbourne
Herald,
the students were ‘
far more interesting and compelling
’. To avoid competing with the Stratford Player’s
Othello,
Ngaio alternated her plays in three-day blocks. This meant there was no clash. In the end the English production made hers look better.

It was the freshness of her
Six Characters,
though, that took Melbourne by storm. This Existential play, with its impromptu dialogue and unexpected psychological twists and turns, was rapturously received by audiences, and the critics fell in love with Lenihan. Her playfulness, youth and glamour kept them enthralled. ‘
People sat in Collins Street
throughout the night to get tickets to see Vivien Leigh—here is one who is easily her equal. To my mind, she is the better actress’, wrote Frank Murphy for
The Advocate.

The tour was a triumph. But in its wake, as she had done before, Ngaio watched the talent disappear. Brigid Lenihan left directly for England from Australia, and when they returned to New Zealand in early March, Bernard Kearns married and began teaching, and Paul Molineaux involved himself in his career. As a group they had found a momentum that could not be maintained.

O’Connor made a suggestion to Ngaio: why not create a company that would take in the best actors from the British Commonwealth and tour them? It seemed a logical extension of what they had begun. Ngaio was thrilled with the idea, and began plotting almost immediately. Her long-term hope was that a British Commonwealth company might form the basis of a national theatre in New Zealand.

In the short term, she planned to return to England. The war was over, the responsibility of looking after her father was over, and her energy for student theatre was depleted. She had been away too long from her agent and publisher, and there was exciting news about a multi-million-dollar promotion of her books. She longed for England, and for her friends the Rhodes. Pamela Mann, who had been living with Ngaio for a year as her secretary, was about to travel to take up her place at The Old Vic. On 1 June 1949, the pair left Lyttelton. The future seemed full of promise for them both.

Ngaio Marsh in dame school uniform with her spaniel, Tip, and with dolls, c. 1900. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)