Star Crossed: A Play (c. 1950)

Clarence P. Malone (Patrick Bentley / Patrick Bentket?)

Star Crossed: A Play, which has uncertain attribution to either Clarence P. Malone (listed as its editor, though on the typescript copy of the play in the National Library of Canada his name has been placed in the authorial position and Patrick Bentley's name has been crossed out) and/or Patrick Bentley/Patrick Bentket (who appears to have been its author with the National Library noting two spellings of his surname), is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, set in a small village in Holland, in 1944, at the end of the German occupation. The play, in choosing this setting, performs an adaptive gesture much like those to be found in Shakespeare's works generally, where allegories of local culture are transposed into an international context (England moved to Venice, for example, or North Africa or the New World). In so doing Star Crossed points to one important way in which adaptations of Shakespeare have been used in Canada––namely to forge ties and establish relations, albeit from a colonial perspective, with the larger world to which it sees itself connected.

That the play situates itself in Holland at the close of the war is no accident. Canadian troops played a crucial role in the liberation of Holland (completed on May 5, 1945 by the First Canadian Army; see http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm/history/secondwar/netherlands/liberation), and established links with that country that are still in evidence today. Numerous accounts of Canadian soldiers' actions in Holland exist (see, for instance, the story of the liberation of Delden at http://www.multipointproductions.com/heroes/loren/delden.htm) and perhaps the most visible sign memorializing the role Canada played in the liberation of Holland is the Canadian Tulip Festival, the largest such festival in the world (see http://www.tulipfestival.ca/SiteBackup040105/TulipHistory/TulipHistory_e.htm), which came about as a result of Canada's having sheltered the Dutch Royal family during the Second World War and the crucial role it played in .liberating Holland from the Nazis. In the Fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, gave Ottawa a gift of 100,000 tulips in recognition of Canada's wartime actions, and that gift has now transformed itself into millions of tulips cared for by the National Capital Commission in Ottawa.

Star Crossed, then, takes place in the context of this relationship of memory, liberation, and reciprocity at an international level, the larger context of the story being that colonial powers were able to make a significant contribution to the war effort, thus demonstrating their independence and autonomy as self-sufficient nations within the larger community of nations. A line in the play, which anticipates the tragic denouement, makes these relations crystal clear: "The Canadians will be here soon. They are just a few kilometers away" (61). And later, the play again references the arrival of Canadian troops, with added context: "I hear the troops who are relieving are Canadian, not English. .They'll be idolized! And well they deserve it!" (65).

Captain Folkert Busch, a German intelligence officer, falls in love with Anna Heerdinck, the daughter of the man he is billeted with. Anna's brother Dirk is a member of the Dutch underground, sent to kill Captain Busch. The tragedy unfolds as the Canadian army marches into the village. W. S. Milne, in his 1964 annotated catalogue of Canadian Full-Length Plays in English, describes the play as "A Romeo-Juliet situation set in Holland towards end of German occupation. A German intelligence officer billeted in cultured Dutch family gradually falls in love with daughter. Son of family is head of Dutch underground. Conflicting loyalties and betrayals bring about ironic and tragic ending" (Milne 31). The arrival of the Canadian troops and the impossible love situation (with its hint of collaboration politics) leads to Anna's death by drowning.

To date CASP has been unable to locate information about either Clarence P. Malone or Patrick Bentley/Bentket. Malone, appears to have produced another script (also unpublished) on a Shakespearean theme, The Heart of My Mystery. Milne, again in Canadian Full-Length Plays in English, summarizes The Heart of My Mystery as follows:

A meeting of a Shakespeare Society is about to see a play purporting to prove a new theory of who wrote Shakespeare's plays. They assemble in a dream sequence developing pout of a heated pro and con argument. This dream blends in turn into the body of the play, in which the argument is developed that Marlowe did not die at Deptford but lived on in nameless exile writing plays, which were smuggled to his friend Shakespeare, who becomes reluctantly identified as the author. In the epilogue, the dream Shakespeare reappears to reassure the distressed dreaming member of the Shakespeare Society that he was indeed, himself, the writer of his plays. Wittily written, though the prologue might be shortened. Five sets. Modern and Elizabethan costume. Heavy props list. 16 men; 3 women; 1 small boy, plus extras. (31) [indent]

No dates are indicated for either play though the dates for Star Crossed fall between the end of World War II and its mention by Milne in 1964. Likely the play was written in the 1950s. To date, no performance information about Star Crossed has been found. The ambiguities round authorship, dating of the play, performance history, and so forth suggest a very local, amateur provenance, possibly from the Dutch community in Canada.

The affiliation between Malone and Bentley/Bentket also suggests a rather interesting mystery. Was Malone brought in to edit Bentley/Bentket's play as a function of his already having worked on a local, amateur piece involving a form of Shakespearean adaptation? And again, how do the Shakespearean affiliations in this incomplete narrative reflect on larger issues pertaining to the shaping of a vision of national culture at the local, community level?

Daniel Fischlin

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