Page 29 - ATD21NOV2015
P. 29
PEOPLE & ARTS A29
Saturday 21 November 2015
Long-lost Faulkner play published for the first time
sity, believes “’Twixt Cup of the most influential and on Faulkner and his high
and Lip” was written in the haunting works of the 20th school girlfriend (and fu-
early 1920s, when Faulkner century. ture wife) Estelle Oldham.
was part of a theater “He’s showing a knack for Rieger says “’Twixt Cup
group at the University of comedy and a knack for and Lip” also may be
Mississippi. dialogue, too,” says Rieg- drawn from Faulkner’s rela-
The play’s title is lifted from er, noting that years later tionship with Oldham.
an old English expres- Faulkner worked on Holly- “Not long before he
sion “There’s many a slip wood screenplays. “You’re worked on those plays,
‘twixt the cup and the lip,” not seeing the trademarks Estelle had caved to her
meaning a seemingly set- from his more famous parents’ pressure and mar-
tled event can still unravel. works, although the tech- ried another man,” Rieger
But readers will find nothing niques he’s perfecting said. “Faulkner may have
suggesting the tragic vision here would serve him well.” had some resentment that
and anguish about the Around the time he wrote she didn’t stand up for
Southern past that made “’Twixt Cup and Lip,” them and used the play
“Absalom, Absalom,” ‘’The Faulkner also worked on as a kind of wish fulfillment
Sound and the Fury” and the one-act “The Mario- — imagining her as more
other Faulkner novels some nettes,” a romance based independent.”q
This 1950 file photo shows American novelist William Faulkner
at his home in Rowan Oaks near Oxford, Miss.
Associated Press
HILLEL ITALIE by The Strand Magazine
AP National Writer managing editor Andrew
NEW YORK (AP) — “’Twixt Gulli, who over the past
Cup and Lip,” written soon few years has also tracked
after World War I and be- down long-lost and ob-
ing published for the first scure works by F. Scott
time, is a one-act comedy Fitzgerald, Mark Twain,
in which a modern, free- John Steinbeck and many
thinking woman finds her- others. The play appears in
self courted by two men the Strand’s holiday issue,
and changes her mind at which went on sale Friday.
the last moment. “Faulkner wrote this at a
Compared to other plays time of great change in
from the 1920s, “’Twixt Cup society especially for wom-
and Lip” was not uncom- en,” Gulli told The Associ-
mon with its matter-of-fact ated Press recently.
references to sex and drink- “This work is unique in that it
ing and the characters’ showed a side of Faulkner
unending cigarettes. Even that was comical yet that
now, audiences might at the same time explored
laugh at such lines as “Mar- the nascent theme of the
riage is stylish again you independent jazz era fe-
know” and “I thought all male which F. Scott Fitzger-
men papered their room ald and Dorothy Parker
with actresses and fat girls carried on further.”
in bathing suits.” Faulkner, who died in 1962,
But the name of the play- is an acknowledged giant
wright is the real attraction: of American fiction, but in
William Faulkner. his early years was more
Written when the future No- likely to write plays and
bel laureate was in his early poetry. Christopher Rieger,
20s, “’Twixt Cup and Lip” director of the Center for
was discovered in the Uni- Faulkner Studies at South-
versity of Virginia archives east Missouri State Univer-
