Simply by Sailing in a New Direction by Terry Sturm

Author:Terry Sturm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Literature, Nature
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 2017-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

New York heat wave: theatre, a poem

When Curnow arrived in New York in early June, for what he later described to Stead as ‘5 weeks … of a minor adventure in solitude’, the city was in the grip of a heat wave which lasted for most of his stay there. In the absence of air conditioning in the Cassidy apartment at 526 East 85th Street he found the heat close to unbearable. ‘Don’t try to imagine what the full blast of NY summer heat & humidity is like’, he wrote to Wystan:

[I]t has to be experienced to be believed; life under a mushroom cloud of dirty whitey haze; one feels quite literally ill; there’s neither fan nor air-conditioner in this little apartment, & I go soon to seek relief in Met. Mus. of Art, so very close here on 82nd. East River in the heat haze looks a grotesque (& unappealing) mix of Turner & Whistler, a mock nocturneresque horror, an opinion which is of course ¾ mood.35

Curnow’s main activity in New York was to inform himself about new work in the theatre, then heavily influenced by the absurdist movement. He was interested in Albee, whose double bill of one-acters, An American Dream and The Death of Bessie Smith, he saw twice while there. He described Ionesco’s Rhinoceros as ‘a wonderful farcical-satirical comedy for B’way even though ‘as satire, it wouldn’t hurt a baby’.36 However, the playwright who most interested him was Genet. The production of The Balcony – ’what a superbly savage play, as mad & as fierce & brilliant as Swift, & on the whole magnificently done’37 – taught him ‘more about modern theatre & presentation than I could have dreamed of’,38 but The Blacks, which he managed to catch shortly before leaving New York, left him speechless:

I can hardly speak about it; it was theatre such as I couldn’t have dreamt about … the all-negro cast giving a performance both dramatically brilliant & disciplined & inspired. It made all other plays seem insipid & dull.39

Curnow did not see a great many people during his five-week stay in New York. He made immediate contact with Jeny’s friend Ruth Hirsch, with whom he went to the theatre several times. Jeanne Cassidy visited briefly, on her way to join her husband running a summer theatre programme in Philadelphia. Eric and Birgitta Sellin visited from Philadelphia, and later in the month he met up with acquaintances of 1950, Evelyn and Harry Segal (Evelyn a painter and Harry a medical teacher), both based at the University of Rochester in upstate New York, who wished to arrange for him to read and lecture there in late July.

Although Curnow had no formal literary engagements during this period, in late June he recorded a radio interview with Sidney Paul for Voice of America (Paul offered straight questions and wanted ‘short sharp answers’, ‘which I gave, to his great satisfaction’),40 and he also read ‘Spectacular Blossom’ and ‘He Cracked a Word’. He was also in touch

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