William Nicholson’s SHADOWLANDS
September 8, 2022
“There she is in my mind, in my memory, coming towards me and I love her again as I did before, even though I know I will lose her again, and be hurt again… I’ve been given the choice twice in my life. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. I find I can live with the pain, after all. The pain now is part of the happiness, then. That's the deal.”
(CS) Lewis in Shadowlands by William Nicholson adapted from his 1985 television film of the same name
What has happened? The Queen passed away today. No, not a monarch in a play. Queen Elizabeth II. She was 96 and had reigned for 70 years — almost all my life. I heard people shouting, “The Queen is dead. Long live the King.” The melancholy phrase signals the death of a ruling monarch while, with hope, acknowledging the new sovereign, leaving no vacancy in power.
Queen Elizabeth II’s death brings memories of Shadowland
Like many others, I feel sad about this milestone, because, though I didn’t know her, I admired and loved her as a symbol of the people of England. Though her death was an occasion for some to criticize Britain's legacy of colonialism, I personally feel grief knowing that her demise alludes to the passing of all the people and things I love — and my ending as well.
Following the death of King George VI, there was the cry: “The King is dead. Long live the Queen,” as the Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary ascended to the throne on February 6, 1952. She was only 25 years old, two years older than my mother. Four years, later on April 23, 1956, across England in Oxford, CS Lewis married American writer and poet, Joy Davidman Gresham. Lewis was 58 and his new wife, 43. How much more English can we get than the Queen and Clive Staples, the Oxford don?
January 1, 1990, I was privileged to see the remarkable production of Shadowlands at the Queen’s Theatre, London, directed by Elijah Moshinsky. And yes, I was able to watch Nigel Hawthorne as Lewis and Jane Lapotaire as his wife Joy. Later that year, the show won Best Play in the Evening Standard Awards for 1990.
A treasured Sunday tradition in our family years ago was to fetch our clothing for the coming week. As we chose and ironed shirts and trousers, we read The Chronicles of Narnia, The Tolkien books, or other adventure series. When we got to the last chapter (“Farewell to Shadowlands”) of The Last Battle (the last volume in the Narnia works), we all ached in sorrow, weeping that our travels with the Pevensie children were over. The happy and terrifying escapades we shared with them — and each other — came to an end with the words: “‘There was a real railway accident,’ said Aslan softly. ‘Your father and mother and all of you are –- as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands — dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.’”
I have a copy of both the Shadowlands play script and the 1993 film, and have experienced lovely local and regional productions of the work. I cry every time I watch or read it, because the play, which reflects fairly faithfully the real Lewis story, gets to the heart of what it means to be a human being on this earth. Great love or intense ordeal — or both — bring us and our egos to our knees in a critical mass of suffering. After falling in love late in life, Lewis has to watch as Joy is diagnosed with cancer, declines, and dies.
Theatre has a long, sometimes gruesome, sometimes gentle, sometimes surprising history of portraying death. Watching someone exhale their final breath onstage gives us understanding of life’s passing, lets us feel the catharsis of loss, allows us a vicarious emotion that moves us to contemplate the meaning of living, as well as dying.
When we or our beloveds are miserable or ill, we wonder why a loving God doesn’t intervene and help us. Lewis wrestles with the idea and is curious why we even dare to love if loosing our dear one is so painful. In the above quote for the day, he recalls that he was given the choice to love without bounds twice in his life. As a nine year old, when his mother died of cancer, he decided to settle for security and stability through studies and an intellectual life, free of the heart’s emotions. As an adult, he could finally choose a suffering which would break his heart.
So, Queen Elizabeth II is now “as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands — dead.” CS Lewis and Joy are dead. The Pevensie children are dead. Maybe someone close to you is nearing their run of life on this earth. Or maybe you have already suffered a brutal loss.
Theatre and all the arts can help us appreciate the idea, as Lewis in Shadowlands, that life is not an “either-or” deal but is all about “both-and.” As he says, "I find I can live with the pain, after all. The pain now is part of the happiness, then. That's the deal.”