The Ideal Giant |
|||
| Production History The Ideal Giant is supposedly Lewis’s "only forwards dramatization attempt" (LaFourcade). The Ideal Giant the play, was first published (London, 1917) in The Ideal Giant the pamphlet, which contained the play of the same title, along with the works "Code of a Herdsman" and "Cantleman’s Spring-Mate" (LaFourcade). The Ideal Giant the play was also published in the magazine The Little Review in London of May 1918, and in Wyndham Lewis’s Collected Poems and Plays (1979) (LaFourcade). Although The Ideal Giant appears to be a straightforward play and may have been performed, it has virtually no dramatic action. Although The Ideal Giant appears to be a straightforward play and may have been performed, it has virtually no dramatic action. Although The Ideal Giant would make for a dull production, it is still valuable and intriguing because it contains elements of the "unperformable play". The ideas that Lewis expresses through The Ideal Giant are easy to follow, as the play consists of three characters who for most of the piece do little but stay seated and speak to one another. Within the characters’ speeches exist references to the Vorticist notion of people assimilating with their environment, when for example the character Kemp remarks that the rural Belgians he is observing "have a good deal of pig, horse, and dog in them" (Lewis The Ideal Giant 125). Kemp later goes on to state that "ego’s worst enemy is truth" (Lewis The Ideal Giant 130). Once the intellect realizes the truth of the Vorticist universe, then the subject must fight to prevent merging into single mindlessness, and the tension of Vorticism begins. The unfortunate state of people conglomerating into the environment is seen when Kemp speaks of men merging into a mass to form a giant: "A hundred men is a giant. A Giant is always rather lymphatic and inclined to be weak intellectually, we are told. He is also subject to violent rages, just as legendary men were always at war with the giant, so are individuals with society" (Lewis The Ideal Giant 131). Kemp fears the emerging of human beings into a giant, a cold hearted and primitive beast, who exists more for the bestial pleasures of killing and eating, then for self awareness. According to Kemp, it seems as if many are flowing towards the less favorable areas of the Vorticist whirlpool.
Dramatic Nature – Involving the Outsider The Ideal Giant seems like a simple way to portray the ideals of the Vorticist whirlpools. Most of the action takes place sitting down, and it is, compared to Enemy of the Stars, a non-poetic and straightforward drama. However, if The Ideal Giant were actually to be performed, a significant amount of the content would be lost. For instance, there exists in The Ideal Giant an italicized passage that describes the personalities of and relationships between Fingal, Kemp, and Miss Godd.
Miss Godd is a mystery. Fingal has not been asked to meet her. He does not know in what relation Miss Godd and Kemp stand to each other. He sees them at the restaurant gesticulating in the distance. Kemp does not encourage communication on the subject of his friend. Kemp exaggerates his appetite. Nature with him substituted food for drink as a stimulant. A little food is enough. He has not a strong head. (Lewis The Ideal Giant 126). The italicized text of The Ideal Giant, as in many plays, indicates stage directions. Many of the italicized lines are in fact actual stage directions. "Kemp sits back and stares at Fingal" (Lewis The Ideal Giant 129). However, some lines of the italicized text are narrative comment. Perhaps the confusion of italicized text representing both stage directions and narrative comment was written to create the Vorticist feeling that exists between the reader and the text. When the reader’s mind is assimilated into the world of the text, the union is interrupted by the omniscient narrator who comments on the characters’ personalities within the stage directions. The narrator, by interrupting the stage directions, takes the reader out of the world of the play to an awareness of the self looking at print on paper. This Vorticist effect would of course be lost if The Ideal Giant were to be performed. |
|||
The Ideal Giant |