Steinbeck (19 page)

 

 

We have a blood hound supposedly on its way here from Chicago by express and it hasn't come and we can't go out because it might come in our absence and so we wait here for it.

Autumn came yesterday with little winds and today it is really here and the oaks are beginning to lose their leaves. We are going to do some building, among other things a little swimming pool so you must come soon to jump into it.

I have a lot of work to do, must read proof on the last acting version of Mice which then goes to the printer. And I have written no letters since we got home. This is the first. The war cloud is very heavy now. The Japanese affair is close to us but I don't think it would be easy to get this people to fight. We aren't like Europe. The Government can't start a war and just have the people fall in line. bye and write soon and keep us posted.

I'm sure that our meeting was not one of those things that happens and ends. We are positive of that now. So keep in touch until the time that you will be here. love to both of you jon

 

 

The play,
Of Mice and Men,
with Wallace Ford as George, Broderick Crawford as Lennie, and Claire Luce in the nameless but pivotal role of Curley's Wife, opened at the Music Box Theatre in New York on November 23, 1937. It was an immediate success and ran for 207 performances. Steinbeck later recalled that Elizabeth Otis had given a party after the opening for members of the agency staff and other friends, and that they made a telephone call to Los Gatos to report the evening's triumph. Each, he remembered, said, “Well, we're all here and we've all seen the show.”

Los Gatos
[November 24, 1937]
Thursday night

Dear Elizabeth and Annie Laurie and Mavis:

You don't know how good it was to hear your voices and how sweet it was of you to take the trouble to phone. It was a pretty exciting night even for us, what with Pat sending wires after every act. I didn't feel it at all until about six that evening and then my stomach began turning loops of stage-fright. I was very glad when it was over and the audience hadn't stoned the cast and mailed poisoned candy to me. A wire from Kaufman says it seems pretty good but he can't tell yet how good. I mean a good first night reaction doesn't mean that it won't close pretty soon, does it? That's a kind of a picked audience and the tough ones are the trippers from Ogden who keep Broadway running. I report with pleasure that on the basis of that first night I am going to get a new typewriter. We've never had one that wasn't pretty decrepit. Anyway, I'm glad it had a good opening and I'll be very anxious to hear the little sidelights that you people can tell. We were all so hysterical over the phone that there wasn't time for much but squeaks of joy. Do write about it, please.

Joe Jackson wired from the Chronicle for consensus of opinion of critics and it came through and they will run it Sunday. So darned nice of him to do it and the critics didn't take pot shots at it as I thoroughly expected them to. I think Carol would really have liked to be there but I couldn't get her to go.

I have a lot of letters to write so I'll get down to Elizabeth's letter which was waiting for me when I got back tonight. I'm glad about the stories. I hope that Esquire knows that this story [“The Snake”] was printed in the little Monterey magazine traded for the use of a horse. You know that. I don't want any kickback. Please make it clear to them. The Murder reprint is swell. Such a lot of money. Now I know I will get a new typewriter. I'll send pictures of the new dog just as soon as I have some of them developed. It is very quiet here after a very very hectic day. I'm bringing you a new client. Louis Paul. He's a swell egg and you will like him. And he's well enough known so that it may not be hard to sell his stories. I like him immensely. Again thank you millions for everything you have all done. I appreciate it and lay out my heart for you to walk on.

John

Los Gatos
[November 1937]

Dear George:

As the reviews come in it becomes more and more apparent that you have done a great job. I knew you would of course but there is a curious gap between the thing in your hand and the thing set down and you've jumped that gap. It's a strange kind of humbling luck we have. Carol and I have talked of it a number of times. That we—obscure people out of a place no one ever heard of—should have our first play directed and produced by the greatest director of our time—will not bear too close inspection for fear we may catch the gods of fortune at work and catching them, anger them so they hate us. Already I have made propitiation—thrown my dear ring in the sea and I hope no big fish brings it back to me.

 

To say thank you is ridiculous for you can't thank a man for good work any more than you can thank him for being himself. But one can be very glad he is himself and that is what we are—very glad you are George Kaufman.

It doesn't matter a damn whether this show runs a long time. It came to life for one night anyway, and really to life, and that's more than anyone has any right to hope.

Sometimes in working, the people in my head become much realler than I am. I have had letters. It seems that for two hours you made your play far more real than its audience and only the play existed. I wish I could transport into some mathematical equation, my feeling, so that it might be a communication unmistakable and unchanging.

And that's all.
John

Los Gatos
[November 1937]

Dear All:

It is getting to be almost a daily habit to write to you in answer to nice letters. A friend of mine, hearing that the play has run a week without closing, has christened it Abie's Irish Mice. I like that very much.

If you get any request for stories for Hollywood remember there is still that old Cup which is the only thing I have ever done that would make a good picture. Also, I like the idea of breaking up the Pastures and selling it, but this idea is punitive. It would please me to have them buy little by little what they refused to take as a whole, and when they could have had it very cheaply.

You may notice that I have a new typewriter. We have never had a good one in our lives. Always something of about nineteen twelve. But after we saw this play was going to run a week at least, we went out and got a new one, well—a nearly new one. And look what it has—! n'. A tilda, an exclamation and a grave accent. Or rather an acute. I don't know where to use a grave and nobody knows where to use a circumflex so we didn't get them. But isn't it beautiful? I hadn't realized that science had done so much while I worked on the 1912 model. This is so wonderful that I just write the first letter and the machine spells the rest of the word out. It is going to be a great boon to my spelling. You will notice too that this letter is longer than usual. That is because I can push down these keys with one hand instead of standing up and using both hands.

I'm suspicious of all these nice criticisms. They are out of character. Even Nathan [George Jean Nathan, drama critic]. I was looking for something better from him. I thought he would maintain his aloofness anyway. But even he won't disagree.

That's all I think. And thank you for writing so often.

Love to you all,
John

Los Gatos
November 31, 1937
Tuesday

Dear Jack:

Your manuscript came this morning and we, Carol and I, got right to it and spent the day in howls of laughter. It is a gorgeously funny thing and I am very much pleased with it. It should keep an audience in hysterics and I imagine it will get you some attention from the police but you have done it in purity of heart and that is what I was anxious about. It doesn't in the least matter what a man does, it is his manner in doing it. In the criticism I am about to make, some is technical and some, the last scene criticism, is put in because such a thing couldn't happen, it is out of character and completely socially impossible.

The early technical criticisms are two. First the Spanish. A number of times you have used “A donde vas?” as a greeting and such it could be outside but never in the house for it means “where are you going?” You might say it to a man going by the house. Next, you have referred to Sweets as Senora when she is unmarried. Now she might be called Senora in ridicule but from the attitude of the friends I think they and Mrs. Morales would call her Senorita and do it with emphasis.

Next, check all the Mexican phrases with a Mexican. I can't go over all of it unless I can talk with you and the nuance of value in every Spanish phrase is tremendous. In Act one you have Sweets call the others “You paisanos.” It wouldn't be done. Paisano is not a term of opprobrium but a declaration of relationship. You say, “You are my paisano.” Or, to show you have lived here a great while, “I am paisano.” In the first case it means you are my countryman and in the second I am a native to this place.

Next. You have the term “get into bed with” used openly and before two women. I don't think that would happen. I think some circumlocution would be used probably with gestures to clarify it.

Next—in the first act you have made a half gallon of wine go a hell of a long way. Two gallons would hardly suffice. I could drink the half myself.

Now let me get to the last act and the quarrel between Pilon and the priest which I object to. This could not happen. It is unthinkable that Pilon should be unmannerly toward a priest no matter how much he might hate him and he doesn't hate him, and it is even more unthinkable for a priest to be curt with a parishioner. The discipline is too great. Third, unless a man has been excommunicated it is not in the power of a priest to refuse him last unction or any sacrament.

I am sending you another version of the scene. Please understand that I am not muscling in and that this is only a suggestion. Use it if you wish or don't use it.

Don't think me obstreperous in this matter. I don't want to be. I think your play is gorgeous. If you can get the proper actors you will roll them in the aisles.

I wish to goodness you could come west and could talk about it. I could lead you to hear the real speech spoken so you could get the tone of it in your head.

We'll have a telephone in a few days and then we won't be quite so much out of touch as we have been.

Good bye.

John

[Los Gatos]
December [1937]

Dear Elizabeth and Annie Laurie:

The dogs of Hollywood are loose. A week ago some one from a Hollywood agency called up and I had to go to town to answer a long distance call and it was a Mr. Marcus of the Myron Selznick office who wanted to come up here to discuss my Hollywood affairs. I told him I had no Hollywood affairs and told him to get in touch with you as my sole agents. I thought that would stop things. But last night there was another long distance call and I had to go to town again to get it and it was Zeppo Marx with a very attractive offer. I didn't ask what it was. I said no and he said it would please me and I said no again and he said he would write me because Hollywood wasn't the same as it used to be and my friends like G. Kaufman had changed their attitude and why shouldn't I? This was funny for George held forth to me for an hour on how he hated Hollywood. Anyway he said he would write and I said you were sole agents and he said he would write anyway. When his letter comes I will send it to you and you can kill that once for all. I don't intend to go to Hollywood at any price whatever and this is not a hold out.

Our telephone will be in by this week end and then at least I won't have to make a five mile run into town to say no.

I have never before come in contact with anyone to whom the word no had no meaning whatever but these seem to be people like that. Let them buy stories that were not written for them, except IDB
[In Dubious Battle]
but I won't work for them.

This is a mad letter. It was raining when I had to go to town last night and Marx had put in the call and then had gone to dinner so I had to wait for him and I'm still mad.

 

john

SAN JOSE [LOS GATOS]
DECEMBER 8, 1937

PLEASE QUERY KIRKLAND REGARDING POSSIBILITY OF COMING WEST TO DISCUSS TORTILLA STOP WILL HELP HIM TWO WEEKS IN REWRITING BETWEEN US PLAY SEEMS LOUSIER EVERY READING DIALOGUE IS OFF TONE VULGARITY CREEPS IN PLAY CHANGES TEMPO AND IN MANY CASES IS DULL BE DISCREETLY PRESSING AND PLEASE WIRE HIS ANSWER

 

JOHN

Los Gatos
[December 9, 1937]

Dear Annie Laurie:

I suppose I shouldn't have sent that wire. What happened was that we read the thing out loud and it sounded so bad that I got to feeling low and I thought that if only Jack Kirkland would come out we might fix the thing up. You see it doesn't maintain its tone and there is a terrible matter of talk that doesn't lead to anything. It is just a series of black-outs now. I would work with him if he would come out.

There are so many little undertones that he has got wrong. I don't want to maintain my book but I would like to maintain the people as I know them. Let me give you an example. Jack makes them want wine and need wine and suffer for wine whereas they want the thing wine does. They are not drunkards at all. They like the love and fights that come with wine, rather than the wine itself. Many of his scenes are swell. I hope you didn't hurt his feelings and I know you didn't. The whole last scene seems like coming back to someplace where you never were. You are told that Danny is a hell of a guy but on the stage he never proves it and the audience is going to wonder what all the shooting is about. I think Danny should be built up. I think the differences between the others should be shown. His casting of the play is excellent. I mean into scenes. It is only in the details, in the dialogue and in the tempo that it seems to me to need working on. Some of it is very very funny and some of it now on the third reading seems tiresome.