Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene adapted for stage by Giles Havergal
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The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
2012 Study Materials and Activities for
Travels with My Aunt
by Graham Greene
adapted for stage by Giles Havergal
Director Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design
Geoffrey Sherman Peter Hicks Pamela Scofield Tom Rodman
Contact ASF at: www.asf.net Study materials written by
1.800.841-4273 Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg
swillis@asf.net
ASF 2012/ 1
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Welcome to Travels with My Aunt
Every extended family doubtless has an
Aunt Augusta, but too few Henrys are tempted GREENE ON GREENE
Characters
to travel with her. Henry Pulling is one of the
Actor H plays: lucky ones, Graham Greene believes—and what "Travels with My Aunt is the only
Henry Pulling, a retired a difference it makes. book I have written for the fun of it."
banker Graham Greene made his name as a * * *
Aunt Augusta, Henry's aunt major novelist who writes thrillers with a spiritual "Although the subject is old age
core, novels which were bestsellers and also and death … I experienced more of
Actor T plays: acclaimed by critics. In its brush with the the laughter and little of the shadow in
Henry Pulling, a retired underworld and the demimonde,Travels with
writing it."
banker My Aunt is thus familiar territory in his fictional
Henry's father world, but in its verve it is singular as it meditates * * *
Vicar on insight and forgiveness. "When I began with the scene of the
Miss Keene, Henry's friend When a retired bank manager encounters cremation … I didn't even know what
Policeman his free spirit of an elderly aunt, he is introduced the next scene was likely to be.… I had
Tooley, girl on train to her world, her values, and her generous no idea what was going to happen to
Italian Girl sense of love, something he has known too Henry or Augusta next. I felt like a rider
Frau General Schmidt little in a life of balancing numbers. Watching who has dropped the reins and left the
O'Toole, an American the two travel the globe and charting the effect direction to his horse or like a dreamer
of these travels on Henry, for whom any travel
Actor V plays:
who watches his dream unfold without
is a novelty, give us our own challenge. Whose
Henry Pulling, a retired side are we on? power to alter its course. I felt above
banker Augusta's values come as a shock to Henry,
all that I had broken for good or ill
Wordsworth, Aunt Augusta's and Henry's staid propriety saddens Augusta. with the past."
companion Here, however, the irresistible force meets the —Graham Greene
Hatty, Aunt Augusta's friend not-so-immovable object, and the temptation from Ways of Escape
in Brighton to take a second look at life, the inevitability
Colonel Hakim, in Istanbul
of having experience stretch and enlighten,
Miss Paterson, in Boulogne proves potent. Henry ends up miles from where About the Study Materials
Policeman he started, and his true travels are those of his These study materials offer information
Spanish Gentleman inner geography. sheets on the novel's author and on aspects
Mr. Visconti, Aunt Augusta's of the play as well as guided student analysis
The play, which adapts Greene's novel in worksheets on character and research topics
partner
a snazzy theatrical style, lends its own joy of for the social sciences.
embodiment to Greene's picaresque narrative,
Actor G plays:
so that the joy of life also shares the joy of
Henry Pulling, a retired
theatre in the telling.
banker
Taxi Driver
Girl in Jodhpurs
Detective Sgt. Sparrow
Uncle Jo, Henry's uncle
Wolf, an Irish wolfhound
Hotel Receptionist
Policeman
Bodyguard
Yolanda, girl in Paraguay
Time: 1969
Place: England and beyond
The two worlds at the
play's opening—Henry's small
garden of dahlias and Aunt
Augusta's flat above a pub
ASF 2012/ 2
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
A Man of Travels and Intrigue: Author Graham Greene
As a student, Graham Greene (1904-1991)
preferred reading adventure stories to studying "There is so much weariness and
his lessons, perhaps because he was the son disappointment in travel that people
of his school's headmaster and was so teased have to open up.…
and abused by his classmates that he They have to pass the time
made several suicide attempts.
somehow, and they can pass it only
Later, at Oxford, he studied modern with themselves. Like the characters in
history and began to write and explore
Chekhov, they have no reserves—you
politics, both interests that shaped his
professional life. When he fell in love in learn the most intimate secrets.
with a Catholic, he thought he ought to You get an impression of a
understand her faith, so he met with a world peopled by eccentrics, of
priest and eventually converted in 1926. odd professions, almost incredible
Critics call the core of his Catholicism stupidities, and, to balance them,
"doubting," but his spiritual concerns
amazing endurances."
such as "the hazards of compassion"
help to shape his major fiction. —Graham Greene
Success in writing novels did not
come quickly or easily for the young
author, later called "a story-teller of
genius." While working as a subeditor Graham Greene is considered one of the
at The Times, he wrote a novel which 20th century's most popular major novelists
was rejected. His second novel, The for works such as The Power and the Glory
Man Within, was published, and Greene (1940). William Golding called him "the ultimate
decided to write full-time. His next two twentieth-century chronicler of consciousness
Graham Greene novels failed, so he wrote a novel, Stamboul and anxiety."
Train, as an escapist "entertainment" specially Greene's novels are primarily thrillers and
designed to have popular appeal. His plan spy stories, both serious and ironic, through
One Briton's List of Great
worked. which he engages political and moral questions.
English Spy Novels (a genre
the British excel in) Thereafter, he wrote books he called He worked during World War II for the Secret
1. The Scarlet Pimpernel by "entertainments" (which, he said, "do not carry Intelligence Service (SIS) and for the as-yet-
Baroness Orczy (1905) a message") and books he called "novels," unidentified double agent Kim Philby in MI6.
2. The Secret Agent by Joseph though by the end of his career he abandoned Greene's brief experiences in the world of
Conrad (1907) this categorizing and called all his works "novels." espionage and intrigue fed his imagination, and
3. The Riddle of the Sands by One of the first works of this new ilk was Travels his love of travel and work in journalism took
Erskine Childers (1903) with My Aunt (1969), clearly a work with a light him to hot spots all over the globe—"Vietnam
4. The Thirty-Nine Steps by heart amid its thematic questions, yet Greene during the Indochina War, Kenya during the
John Buchan (1915) called it a "novel." Mau Mau outbreak, Stalinist Poland, Castro's
5. Ashenden by W. Somerset Cuba, and Duvalier's Haiti," as well as Liberia,
Maugham (1928) Mexico, and many other countries. All of these
6. Our Man in Havana by experiences fed his fiction.
Graham Greene (1958) In addition to novels and journalism, Greene
7. Casino Royale by Ian was a skilled screenwriter, famous for such film
Fleming (1953) classics as The Third Man, and many of his
8. Epitaph for a Spy by Eric stories and novels have been filmed, including
Ambler (1938) Travels with My Aunt (1972), made in America
9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by with a too-young-for-the-part Maggie Smith.
John le Carré (1974)
—Robert McCrum of
The Guardian, 10/8/11
Note: A spoof of Hitchcock's
film of Buchan's 39 Steps is
also in ASF's 2012 season.
ASF 2012/ 3
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Thinking about the Structure of Travels with My Aunt
The play is presented in two halves, two Act Two. Again we share a short journey
sets of journeys and return home. The idea of and then a longer one:
home is altered from the beginning, however, • the trip to Boulogne, where we see Henry's
when the play opens with Henry's mother's father's grave and meet Dolly Paterson
cremation and the news that she was not his • the trip to South America, where we
biological mother. finally meet Mr. Visconti, those pursuing him,
This structure for the play inherently orders and Yolanda
what some critics feel is a loose structure of Act Two's ferry and plane journeys take
journeys in the novel, though the same structure Henry deeper into himself and his past and closer
is inherent in both. to a life decision. The ferry is a classical image of
Act One. Three journeys of increasing the passage to the afterlife, and ferrying to visit
distance and challenge introduce Henry to Aunt his father's grave—and perhaps to consider his
Augusta and her world: own—is thus apt. With the transatlantic flight we
• the visit to Aunt Augusta's flat at the Crown cross not simply a continent but an ocean.
and Anchor, where we also meet Wordsworth Mirrored or Shared Elements
• the trip to Brighton, a resort on the south Act Two mirrors Act One by opening with
coast of England, where we meet Hetty and the burial or burial spot of one of Henry's
share a memory from Aunt Augusta's youth parents—first his presumed mother, the woman
• the trip to Istanbul on the Orient Express, who raised him, and then his father, the man he
during which we learn more about Aunt knew and did not know all his life. The return
Augusta's life and her business dealings as well home from each journey sets Henry to assessing
as meeting Tooley amid her life crisis his dahlias and himself.
Act One's taxi and train journeys pry Henry In each act the longer journey into what
out of his own life and thrust him into Aunt Henry sees as a world of intrigue and danger—far
Augusta's. She asks him if he likes to travel afield from the world he knew—is also a journey
and mentions Istanbul; he quickly counters with into self: "I don't yet despair of you," Aunt Augusta
Brighton. We share each option, taking Henry tells him.
farther afield and then returning him home. Other mirrored elements are the prophetic
The return lets him assess, for his experiences fortunetelling incident in each half and Henry's
begin to change his world view, or at least his meeting a young woman in each half of the play.
contentment with his own carefully cultivated Tooley in Act One, with her unwanted pregnancy
life and garden. and zeal for travel, parallels Aunt Augusta far
more than she does Henry at that point, as we
come to realize. Yolanda, though further from
Henry in age, is closer in spirit and sensibility as
they discuss poetry rather than Katmandu.
ASF 2012/ 4
Travels
with My
Aunt Name
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Character Study in Travels with My Aunt—Henry
HENRY PULLING
A Guided Analysis Compile and consider the facts about Henry:
Student Worksheet • spent his entire career in a bank branch
• early retired by bank takeover, now 55
Notes: • interested in dahlias
Other facts: • knows one younger woman, Miss
Keene, who tats [a form of intricate
handwork, like lacemaking or
crochet] and who seems open to his
approach
Other conclusions: • lost his father at 15 and his mother just
before the action begins
What do we have? Stereotypes and
judgment would suggest a careful man,
prudent, fact- and number-based, who now
Comparisons:
wants a spot of color—the dahlias—in his
Brighton/ Istanbul for Henry:
back garden. His quiet life seems destined to
proceed unbroken.
Adapter Giles Havergal refers to Magritte in his
The name Henry comes from Old English
notes. Considering this Magritte, "The pilgrim"
tea leaves/candle and Henry's meaning home + kingdom. Is his name apt? (1966), do you think Henry can separate himself
reactions: Add other facts and conclusions you draw from "the suit" of his life and all it means?
at the left or on the back of this sheet.
How does Act 2 develop or change Henry?
• Henry learns more about his father
How does Act 1 offer complications?
Mr. Curren/ General Abdul: • at the cremation, he learns the woman • Henry is less satisfied at home and
he calls his mother was not his misses travel with his aunt
biological mother, so he now wants • Henry realizes he cannot write his
to know who his mother is experiences to Miss Keene
Miss Keene/ Tooley and • he is swept up by his aunt, his • Henry begins to protect or go along with
Henry's responses: "mother's" sister, who also his aunt and her dealings
knew his father, and he is offered • Henry meets Mr. Visconti and joins the
the chance to join this traveler business
banking/ bookkeeping: • the stay-at-home begins to travel, first • at some point Henry knows who his real
safely to Brighton, then to Istanbul mother is—what is that point?
* Compare Brighton and Istanbul as * Compare banking to Henry's final job.
London/ Paraguay: destinations/journeys for Henry. * Compare Paraguay to London.
* Compare the tea cups/leaves to the * Compare Yolanda to Miss Keene.
candle. * Compare Henry's views of Aunt
* Compare Mr. Curren to General Abdul. Augusta's relationship with
Aunt Augusta with Wordsworth * Compare Miss Keene to Tooley. Wordsworth and with Mr. VIsconti.
and with Mr. Visconti: Sketch notes for comparison at left or on * Compare the two worlds Henry has to
the back of this paper. choose between.
What can we learn about Henry from
these comparisons? SYNTHESIS
the choice of old world or new: How do you assess Henry's final
choices for his life compared to his life at the
beginning of the action? How does Greene
want us to assess Henry?
Write a short assessment clarifying your
view and reasons to answer these questions.
ASF 2012/ 5
Travels
with My
Aunt Name
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Character Study in Travels with My Aunt—Aunt Augusta
AUGUSTA * Compare Henry's values at the start with
Compile and consider the facts about Aunt Augusta's. How do we view each?
Augusta: * Compare Brighton and Istanbul as
A Guided Analysis destinations for Aunt Augusta.
Student Worksheet • she is about 75 and Henry's aunt
• she has not seen Henry since his * Compare Henry's views of finance and the
christening law to hers as they travel to Istanbul.
* Compare Tooley and her situation to Aunt
• she pays for all the travel
Augusta.
Consider what we and Henry quickly learn: * Compare the candle to Aunt Augusta's
• she is in a relationship with Wordsworth character—is it an appropriate image
• her real career began in Venice for her?
• she has worked with Mr. Curren, an * Compare your initial sense of Aunt Augusta
"entrepreneur" to your developing knowledge of her
• she is widely traveled character.
Sketch notes for comparison at left or on
• she knows several international figures:
the back of this paper.
General Abdul, Mr. Visconti
What are we learning about Aunt
• she shares her memories
Augusta from these comparisons?
What do we have? Stereotypes and
judgment would suggest a free spirit or
a questionably moral woman, imprudent, How does Act 2 develop/change Augusta?
passionate, who lives a colorful life regardless of • Augusta learns more about Henry's
Venice and Istanbul
decorum or law—the candle. Her travel-filled life father's death
seems destined to proceed unbroken. • Augusta seems to leave Henry
Her name means majestic, venerable. behind—why?
Is it apt? • we see Augusta in more domestic
Add other facts and conclusions you circumstances with Mr. Visconti
draw at the left or on the back. • we see Augusta considering marriage
and motherhood (has she
been considering motherhood since
How does Act 1 offer complications?
the beginning?)
• she obviously has money and
stays in the finest hotels • South America, part of the "New World,"
seems to clarify and/or change
• she deals deftly with Col. Hakim
purposes and values for Aunt
• she is open about her experiences Augusta as it does for Henry
Notes: • she advocates tolerance
Other facts: • in assessing the moment she left * Compare Aunt Augusta's account of
Curran, she now says that "no one her reunion with Mr. Visconti in Venice
can stand not being forgiven. That's years ago with her reunion now.
God's privilege." * Compare Aunt Augusta's view of age
• her view is "I despise no one, no and aging with Henry's assumptions
Other complications:
one. Never presume yours is throughout the action.
a better morality." Sketch notes for comparison at left or on
• she says she wishes Henry were the back of this paper.
"a cheat" like his father
Comparisons: SYNTHESIS
How do you assess Augusta's choices
for her life at the end compared to her life at
the beginning of the action and earlier? How
does Greene want us to assess Augusta?
Write a short assessment clarifying your
view and reasons to answer these questions.
ASF 2012/ 6
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Considering Other Characters in Travels with My Aunt
• What role do the policemen/CIA official • What role do the younger women Henry
Additional Character
play in the action? meets during the action play?
Analysis
• Mr. Visconti is certainly considered an • Is Miss Keene at the start the female
"outlaw" and Aunt Augusta's financial version of Henry? How many traits
dealings can be described as shady. and values do they seem to share?
• How does the law proceed in each act? How does she respond to Henry?
In England the officers have set protocol What is the development of his
and procedures. In Turkey, the law seems to be feelings for and about her?
one-man rule and physical power. In Paraguay, Why doesn't Henry use her
the CIA is a dealmaker, just as Mr. Visconti has first name?
been during his career. • How do Aunt Augusta and Henry
* Compare the English officers to Col. respond to Tooley? How does Henry
Hakim. consider her problem? Does Tooley
* Compare Mr. Visconti's experience with make any impression on them?
the Nazis in 1944 to his discussion with * Compare dahlia care to tatting as
Mr. Tooley in Act 2. character-revealing activities for Miss
How many views of law-and-order vs. Keene and Henry.
irregularity do we get in this play? Does Greene * Compare Henry's smoking with Tooley's
Samples of the fine always land on the same side of the issue in his as character-revealing activities.
handwork known as tatting. portrayal of Henry and Aunt Augusta? * Compare Yolanda's love and knowledge
Note that in the play Miss of poetry to Henry's as character-
Keene writes she stopped revealing activities.
tatting once she traveled
to South Africa, almost • What role do the men who love Aunt
as quickly as Henry loses Augusta play in the action?
interest in his dahlias during • Wordsworth wants to be Augusta's
his travels permanent lover. Is that how
she considers him? What
does Wordsworth mean to her?
• As we hear Augusta speak of Mr.
Visconti, what does he seem
to mean to her? How many kinds of
relationship have they had?
• What was Augusta's relationship with
Uncle Jo, and how does his
story fit into the life journeys
in the play?
* Compare Wordsworth and Mr.Visconti.
* Compare Wordsworth's activities to Mr.
Visconti's activities.
* Compare the money relationship of
Augusta and Uncle Jo with that she has
with Mr. Visconti earlier and at the end.
ASF 2012/ 7
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Thinking about Travels with My Aunt—Subject, Issues, Theme
Old age and death. In his author's comment Life's journey. Some travel narratives
on the first page, Greene observes that the story's become modern Canterbury tales —the journey
subject is old age and death, continuing that as is the life journey, and we judge the travelers
a 65-year-old author this subject was perhaps accordingly. In that case, Aunt Augusta is the
inevitable. When the principal characters are ultimate Wife of Bath, but a Wife without doubts,
aged 55 and 75, the subject might arise, but to a Wife secure in her choices, a "Wife" who
say Aunt Augusta focuses on death is like saying rejected wifehood early on.
a brilliant sunset is about utter darkness. Old We observe the results of Augusta's
age and death are addressed as topics in the life journey, but we share Henry's journey
play, but the characters' presence convinces us through the story. He is offered the apple of
the play is focused on life. choice; whether it is a temptation to abandon
rectitude or a chance to opt for joy and vitality
Lifestyle and values. Henry is the soul of or both should be considered. He is not a
conventionality, an English banker, now retired different man at the end; he is still a man of
and dedicated to growing dahlias in his garden figures and management, but in quite different
[yard]. It is doubtless a small yard. Henry's life circumstances—changing cultivated dahlias for
A cremation urn—
bespeaks order, reason, control, buttoned-up natural orange blossoms.
the most famous memorial urn in
England, however, commemorates propriety, and monochromes. Aunt Augusta, on
a cricket Test series when Australia the other hand, is a colorful, counterculture soul, Memory and life crisis/choice. The
first defeated England in England shocking and unconventional by Henry's banker choices the characters make are examined
in 1882. The test Series now is standards, which is the lens we are initially and considered throughout the story, especially
said to be played "for the Ashes" offered. In the course of the play, however, we since Henry is meeting Aunt Augusta for the first
change the focus of the lens and re-examine time since his christening and therefore must
the banker values, and then have choices. The ask questions. The answers are mini-stories,
result is a surprising combination of values as memories, accounts of past choices. Henry
the two old lovers stabilize their relationship, likewise considers his own non-relationship and
and Henry leaves England and banking values non-choices. Memory is a staple of the story.
far behind.
Family and identity. The question of
roots and family are universal interests, and
Henry learns his family is quite different than he
supposed. The quest for parentage—who was
my real mother—is also a quest for identity, and
Henry's knowledge of both becomes an open
secret as the story evolves.
Henry's choice—the safe
world he knows or the new world
he is coming to know? dahlias or
a Dakota airplane? Miss Keene
or Yolanda? London retirement
or Asuncion bookkeeping?
ASF 2012/ 8
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
History, Geography, and Economics in Travels with My Aunt
The Play's Intersection with History • Research the use of South America as
• Research the part of World War II that a sanctuary or hiding place for Nazi
Social Science Research
involves the Nazis' organized looting officials fleeing at the end of World War
Questions and Topics
of art treasures in Europe—an incident II and the ongoing hunt to bring them to
alluded to in the play. For instance, over justice. Look at the two mentioned in the
43% of Poland's cultural heritage was play, Dr. Mengele and Bormann.
looted or destroyed, and an incomplete list
of lost artworks in Russia numbers over • Research the political history and power
one million works. Many were recovered at struggles of Turkey during the 20th
the war's end, but many are still missing. A century and how it intersects with the
1998 international conference on Nazi- action of the play.
looted art works challenged museums to
check the provenance of their holdings. • Research the Chaco War in Paraguay and
American industries' involvement.
Routes of the Orient Express
(Sites from play are circled)
American Generals
Eisenhower (right), Patton (left)
and Bradley (center) inspect
stolen paintings recovered from
Nazi caches after World War II
The Play's Intersection with Economics
Other Sites Mentioned in the Play • What is the difference between profit and
Greene spent part of World War II in Sierra profiteering and who decides? What are
Leone working for England's Secret Intelligence the current views about recent Wall Street
Service (SIS). financing schemes, housing bubbles, junk
bonds—profit or profiteering, and who
decides?
• Mr. Visconti is in the import/export
business at the end of the play, an activity
O'Toole calls smuggling. How are the two
related and different, and why?
• How is gold used as a medium of exchange
and what is its history? Is Aunt Augusta
prudent or safe in using gold? Is there a
gold standard for currency now?
ASF 2012/ 9
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
William Wordsworth's "Ode" in Travels with My Aunt
When Henry needs to evaluate his life, he Passages from the "Ode" Specifically
Student Information Sheet: does so in terms of William Wordsworth's "Ode Referenced in the Play
Literary Allusions in the Play on Intimations of Immortality." Author Graham
Greene and adapter Giles Havergal mention the from section III:
poem significantly several times, using it to define "… Thou child of Joy,
values. The poem's themes are consonant with Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou
the play's and deserve exploration. You can happy
find a copy of the complete "Ode" at: http:// Shepherd-boy!"
www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/William_ (the poem's speaker responding to a child
Wordsworth/william_wordsworth_331.htm joyous in the spring while the speaker
The most useful parts of the "Ode" to feels "a thought of grief" because "The
consider for the play are sections 1-6, which things which I have seen I now can see no
establish the joy and "visionary gleam" of youth more.")
and nature, its loss in the speaker, and his
assessment of how that loss occurs with age/ from section V:
maturity and involvement in the world. The "Ode" This section explains why the speaker can no
was Henry's father's favorite poem, and now it longer share the joy he senses around him
is a way for him to consider his own life. (phrases used in play underlined):
He senses the "visionary" aspect, the joy
that the poem describes, in Aunt Augusta—"my "… Not in entire forgetfulness,
aunt for one had never allowed the vision to And not in utter nakedness,
fade." But Henry sees his entire adult life as a But trailing clouds of glory do we come
loss of visionary gleam, as the "prison-house" From God, who is our home:
into which it fades in the "light of common day" Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
William Wordsworth
and adulthood. Thus his life now seems an Shades of the prison-house begin to close
imprisonment—"when I first entered the bank as Upon the growing Boy,
a junior clerk I had thought of it in Wordsworth's But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
terms as a 'prison-house'"—and the goal of any He sees it in his joy;
prisoner is escape. In the poem, the only escape, The Youth, who daily farther from the east
the only rejoining with the visionary joy, is through Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
death, but the play seems to offer another And by the vision splendid
option—by living life Is on his way attended;
to the fullest. At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
The life and
death issues of the
"Ode" complement Sir Walter Scott in the Play
the life and death
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is primarily
issues in the play.
known as a Scottish novelist of historical
The inevitability
romances that were world famous during his
of death is not in
time. A prolific writer, he wrote 16 novels, 11
question; the nature
books of poetry, and 18 works of non-fiction.
of life is. For Greene,
as for Wordsworth, The most relevant Scott novel mentioned
adulthood and aging in the play is Rob Roy (1817), in which Henry's
could seem to have father left a photograph of the young Augusta.
the shade of the The novel's title character enters the novel in
prison-house, but the middle and is larger than life, yet critics
viewing the aging say "his personality and actions are key to the
characters we development of the novel"—as are Henry's
Grasmere in England's Lake meet—Aunt Augusta and Mr. Visconti—no mother and father to their son, apparently, as he
District was Wordworth's prison seems to hold them. Instead, they happily gets to know them anew through the play.
long-time home dance together.
Bonus Note: Greene takes the name Visconti
from his favorite boyhood adventure novel,
Marjorie Bowen’s The Viper of Milan.ASF 2012/ 10
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Imagery to Explore in Travels with My Aunt
• cremation/ the ashes Some Contextual Information
(note that "the Ashes" also have a strong • cremation—the ancient world's most
meaning to the English in terms of cricket, common means of disposing of the dead still
as if we mentioned an iron bowl) remains popular in Asia. In England the use
of cremation has gained significantly since an
• dahlia gardening 1874 study compared it to the disastrous state
of cemeteries. Currently "almost 70% of all dead
• tatting in Great Britain are cremated. In metropolitan
areas the figure is nearer 80%, in London 90%."
• the Crown and Anchor By comparison, in the U.S. cremation is used
in "less than 4% of deaths annually."
• the candle taken from Paris to Istanbul (and [statistics from Venetia Newall, "Folklore and
beyond) Cremation," Folklore, 96:2 (1985): 139-55]
• the aptness of the suitcase brand carrying • Asuncion is Spanish for "assumption"
the candle, the Revelation (expandable and the Spanish/Catholic meaning would be
luggage) The Assumption. Check the "Word Story" from
Dictionary.com:
• travel/ journey
Queen Mary of Teck, wife of The word assumption is a great example
King George V of how a word can take on new dimensions
• the name of the characters' final destination,
On first seeing his Aunt of meaning over time, while staying true to
Asuncion
Augusta at the cremation service, some aspect of its original sense.
Henry says: "I recognized with • the associations of the "Orient" in Orient assumption has been in the language
some difficulty my Aunt Augusta Express and of the "New World" locale at since the 13th century, and was initially
dressed rather as the late Queen the play's end confined to a specific ecclesiastical meaning
Mary of beloved memory might in the Catholic Church. The Latin word on
have dressed." • use of poetry beyond Wordsworth's "Ode": which it is based literally means “the action
Sir Walter Scott's "Where Shall the Lover of being taken up or received,” and in English
Rest?" assumption referred to the taking up into
"Abide With Me" heaven of the Virgin Mary. That meaning
Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters" [a poem still exists today, and in all the meanings it
about choice of lifestyle] and "Song has assumed since then, one can see the
from Maud" common thread running through them is the
Garrick's "Hearts of Oak" sense of taking.
"Lord Ullin's Daughter" One early sense meant “arrogance,” as
in this 1814 quote from Sir Walter Scott: “his
• use of art and artists, especially Old usual air of haughty assumption.” Arrogance
Masters/ Leonardo da Vinci is a taking upon oneself a conviction of
self-importance. Later senses arose having
Illustrations from
to do with the taking on of power or other
Leonardo da Vinci's
responsibilities, as in “the assumption of
notebooks of a
command.”
dredge (above) and
a catapult (right) Probably the most common meaning of
assumption in use today is for indicating a
supposition, an estimate, a conjecture—that
is, something taken for granted. And as any
schoolkid knows, presuming to assume can
be dangerous, leading us to make, as the
saying goes, "an ASS of U and ME!”ASF 2012/ 11
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Set Design for Travels with My Aunt
Adapter Giles Havergal stipulates a very The furniture may prove to be multi-purpose
specific setting for the action of his highly styled in action. The tables, for instance, are specially
adaptation of Travels with My Aunt: built with the tops and bases the same size,
The stage is set with four identical so they can be flipped sideways and used as
tables, each with three bentwood chairs. wheels, if need be. That, too, fits with the highly
On each table is a tray of tea things. styled and inventive spirit of the adaptation.
The stage is surrounded by dahlias Having four "proper" businessmen in the
and gardening equipment.… At rise [of garden taking tea establishes a quintessentially
lights] identically dressed middle-aged English atmosphere for the action. Its very pro-
men are sitting at the tables, profiles to priety implies a world and a set of values that
the audience, drinking tea. The lighting Graham Greene wants to consider and then
is dappled, garden-like. Bird song is begin to pull against with the full force of Aunt
heard and the distant strains of Vaughan Augusta and her travels.
Williams' "The Lark Ascending." A Magritte
A Note on Costume Design
view of an Englishman in his garden.
As the script's headnote indicates, the four
ASF Resident Set Designer Peter Hicks actors are identically clad in business suits. They
says he took the script literally. He provides the all play Henry at some time or another, so all
tables, chairs, and props as described, and a appear as bankers. The various other characters
graphics screen to indicate where we are, such are delineated by costume pieces rather than
as The Crown and Anchor, the pub over which full costume changes. The actors have one suit
Aunt Augusta lives, as shown. The second act for Act One and another for Act Two.
switches the cafe tables to coffee tables.
Magritte's "The son Hicks's set rendering for Act 1 of Travels with My Aunt
of man" (1964)—the
kind of image Giles
Havergal refers to in
his description of the
setting. How apt is
this Magritte image
for the play?ASF 2012/ 12
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
Pre-Show Discussion Post-Show Discussion
Topics that Prepare for Issues in the Play Fortune-telling or Fate?
without Knowledge of the Story The two fortune-telling scenes, one in each
act, raise questions for our interpretation of the
• parenthood play and its characters. The banker Henry would
Is everyone meant to be a parent—is never countenance fortune-telling; he wants
parenthood right for everyone? At what point is numbers and facts. Yet, as Hetty tells him in
someone ready for parenthood? Can someone Brighton, "the leaves don't lie."
be too young or too old to have a child? The tea leaves tell Augusta:
• you are going to do a lot of traveling
• older relatives • you will travel with another person
How do we view aunts and uncles or great • you are going to have many adventures
aunts and great uncles? Are they distinct people • you will be in danger of your life on more
with something to offer us, or do they just show than one occasion
up at holidays and tell us they remember us as • you will find no peace in the end; a cross
babies? What value do the life experiences of The tea leaves show Henry:
these relatives have for us? How might we gain • an urn
some of that value? • a lot of travel with a lady friend
Venetian glass, the sort of light- Henry says "that's not very likely," but we
catching colored objects that fill
know better, and not only because "the leaves
Aunt Augusta's flat • the value of travel don't lie."
What is the most exciting place you've
The palm reader tells Henry:
ever visited? What place has taught you the
• you have come from a long way off
most? Why? What is the value of travel beyond
• your travels are nearly over
spending money on souvenirs and taking
• there will be a reunion with someone close,
pictures in front of famous sites?
a wife or mother
If someone told you today you were going • there will be a death, but far from your heart
to move to a very different place, would you line
believe it? What kind of place would be "very Henry calls the palm reading "nonsense,"
different" for you? but in terms of the play we might call it
Consider Greene's comment about foreshadowing.
travelers on page 2. Do people open up to More importantly, perhaps, the reading
strangers while traveling? Have you learned of tea leaves and palm ask Henry if these
about someone on a trip? experiences and choices are his, or more genetic
or cosmological. Is Henry now becoming the
• dead ends and detours man he was destined to be?
You probably have plans for your life—
further education and/or a profession or trade, Soup Cans
perhaps a family. Have you ever had to re-assess Why does Graham Greene allude to Andy
what you want from life or what life seems to be Warhol's 1962 pop art classic "Campbell Soup
giving you? Is what comes always good and right, Cans" (below) in this play? What does Warhol's
Brighton Pier or do you have to make your life happen? piece say about our lives? What is Greene saying
Greene implies Brighton is as much Have you known an adult who faced a with the reference?
travel and adventure as some dead end in life—a loss of job or career, a loss
Britons ever have of a family member, a dissatisfaction with the
everyday? How does that "dead end" affect
someone? How should someone deal with it?
• the boundaries in life
We know who makes the boundaries on a
basketball or tennis court, but who makes the
boundaries in life? In fact, are there boundaries
in life? Must we live by established values, or
should we chart our own course? Is everyone
meant to life the same life?ASF 2012/ 13
Travels
with My
Aunt
adapted by Giles Havergal
from Graham Greene's novel
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