O Mistress Mine

Picture London in 1945, bombs still falling. People still going out to the theater, desperate to be distracted. Enter a couple of Americans who accomplish the job in a frothy escapist romp by playwright Terence Rattigan.

The war ends and the two Americans — Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne — come home to Wisconsin to rest up at their farm before hitting Broadway to star in “O Mistress Mine.” The Lunts “have long been the most famous stage couple in the world — and year in, year out, probably the best box office,” according to the roundup of “New Plays in Manhattan” that appeared in TIME magazine on Monday, Feb. 4, 1946.

In fact, “O Mistress Mine” was the longest-running and most commercially-successful play in the Lunts’ illustrious career, running for four years, on Broadway and on tour. And now, more than 50 years later, I’m going down to the pair’s famed farm outside of Milwaukee — Ten Chimneys — for a reading of Rattigan’s play by a new generation of actors who are part of the Milwaukee Rep’s Artistic Internship Program.

I’ve toured the Lunts’ “farm” and can assure you that it’s like no farm you’ve ever visited — but this will be my first “reading.” Knowing the level of dedication that characterizes every aspect of Ten Chimneys means it will be worth the drive from Madison. In addition to the regular tours, there are half a dozen events scheduled this fall that offer a glimpse into the bygone theatrical days of the Lunts. Should you find yourself in southern Wisconsin, don’t miss a chance to experience Ten Chimneys for yourself. (Here is the story I wrote when the estate first opened to the public).

RATTIGAN’S PLAY
“O Mistress Mine” is the story of an attractive but broke widow who has been living in sumptuous sin with a wartime British Cabinet Minister, again according to TIME magazine 1946. “Then her priggish, pinko 17-year-old son comes home after five years at school in Canada. He forces his mother to choose between him and her lover.” The son was played by Dick van Patten who “grew up with the Lunts.” He’ll be at Ten Chimneys in November for a “Conversation” about those days.

If the title sounds familiar, it's from Shakespeare. If Rattigan’s name sounds familiar that’s because many of his plays were turned into films including “Separate Tables,” “The Browning Version” and “The Winslow Boy.”

SHAKSPEARE’S SONG
The title of the play, “O Mistress Mine,” is also the title of one of a number of songs Shakespeare inserted into his plays. It appears in “Twelfth Night”:

O mistress mine, Where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, Your true love's coming.
O stay and hear your true love's coming.
That can sing, that can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey's end in lover's meeting,
Ev'ry wise man's son doth know,
Ev'ry wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter.
Present mirth hath present laughter:
What's to come is still unsure:
What's to come, what's to come is still unsure.
In delay there is no plenty:
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty
Youth's a stuff will not endure,
Youth's a stuff will not endure!

THE MUSIC
What these songs sounded like originally is anyone’s guess. My favorite version is in the 1996 film where it’s sung — along with a number of other “songs” — by Ben Kingsley. A soundtrack was released but I’ve never been able to find a copy.

For a very different, but equally appealing, rendition of “O Mistress Mine,” check out Emilie Autumn’s CD, “A Bit O' This & That.” Sexy punk meets folk rock.

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (top image) star in “O Mistress Mine.” The main house at Ten Chimneys and the Lunts enjoying tea at home. All photos Ten Chimneys. Emilie Autumn performing, courtesy her Web site.

Comments

[style court]

The farm sounds quite special. What a venue for a reading.

[Easy and Elegant Life]

Wonderful post on the Lunts. Mrs. E.'s father had some relatives who did the dancing couple thing in Baltimore and Delaware in between the wars! I have a great clipping in storage of them headlining under their stage names: Hazell and Klatoff. I've often thought that the Lunts must have been their inspiration.

I have a scan of a tearsheet that I'd like to send you. It's a tablescape from Ten Chimneys published in "Travel and Leisure" April 2003. If you'd like it, please email me.