Novel into play - Arthur & George by David Edgar

George’s drama is also the drama of seeing but it’s not his seeing but the society’s: the prejudices society (represented by Apton) arrogantly dismisses Arthur’s ideas of George’s innocence, but, at the same time, falls into a presumption about George’s ‘perverted mind’:

APTON. Doyle, you keep saying ‘in my view’.. .there’s a young man stuck at home... perhaps he runs mad [Ibid 75-77].

As George puts it, Arthur, having met Apton, “identified ‘the real darkness’ the human soul” [Ibid 81] and he fights with it. But the point is that Arthur is not absolutely right. Excited with the case he forgets about accuracy in collecting the evidence. He bases his evidence on a stolen object or “relies on guesswork”, and it’s curious how George with no imagination sees Arthur’s mistakes and observes the results of Arthur’s efforts:

GEORGE. He never once has to stand in the witness box and prove his theory to be true... And thereby, he’s destroyed... the case for me. And it’s all the fault of Sherlock Holmes. [Ibid: 110].

Having ‘compressed’ in such a way the plot of the novel David Edgar has faced another problem: the characters of the novel were also to be compressed. As the play mostly represents the genre of a detective story, the set of characters is the one from a detective story, too. There are: a detective (Arthur), a victim which is the accused one (George), the detective’s assistant (Doctor Watson’s place is taken by Arthur’s secretary Woodie), witnesses and also several characters important to bring the audience close to the setting such as several prominent guests at Arthur’s wedding (Bram Stoker or Jerome K. Jerome).

In the novel there is also quite large group of characters which can be identified as relations of both Arthur and George. David Edgar ‘compressing’ this group came to a very interesting solution: he chooses only two characters (from Arthur’s and George’s sides each, so to say) and brings them together which Julian Barnes doesn’t. These characters are Jean Leckie and Maud Edalji. As Arthur and George Maud and Jean are very different but yet alike. Maud is a delicate sheltered spinster, a real lady of indisputable reputation. Jean is also a lady but her life is less quiet, less sheltered and much more interesting: she attends different social events and takes an active part in them, she reads different books, she meets people, she even wants to learn to ski. There is a little touch of ‘bohemian brightness’ (if we may call it so) in Jean. And then she becomes not a mistress but an intimate friend of a married Arthur openly confessing her love to him which Maud will never do.

But on the other hand, Maud and Jean are alike. First of all they are both very courageous. Maud may seem a fragile sickly girl but in fact she is more than that.

ARTHUR. Miss Edalji, I’m very pleased to meet you... But, surely, there was no need to pursue us through the snow. In your condition.

MAUD. In my ‘condition’?

ARTHUR. Your brother tells me you are very delicate.

MAUD. A brisk walk does me no harm... [Ibid: 52].

David Edgar invents nothing here, reading the novel we also wonder if Maud is really so fragile and helpless. Who supported the Edaljis when George was in prison? Nobody but Maud. And when Rev. Edalji and his wife died, it’s Maud who took care of her bachelor brother.

As for Jean’s courage it is beyond any doubt. In any time and place to confess your love to a married man, wait patiently for his for many years but not becoming his mistress is a real challenge. And even a greater challenge it was for a Victorian young lady who risked losing her reputation. Jean speaks about it herself:

JEAN... And I told him that he was in love with me, and I with him.

MAUD looks a little shocked.

You look a little shocked.

MAUD. I didn’t mean to.

JEAN. But you should.

Slight pause [Ibid: 50].

Both Arthur and George experience the same problem as many people. We may have our wishes, desires and plans but more often than not they are broken because of the other people’s plans, principles and even health. For instance, Arthur as a boy dreams about giving all possible comfort to his mother, but Mrs. Doyle doesn’t want to wait and takes a lodger. Arthur’s father has been failing his son from the beginning being incapable of providing for his children. Touie, Arthur’s dear wife has somewhat failed him by falling ill. As for George he has caring and loving parents who are devastated by his arrest and trial, but we must confess that they also play their part in George’s ordeal. Rev. Edalji is proud to be a Parsee, he firmly believes England to be his home, but, perhaps, he could have at least some thoughts about George’s ignorant schoolmates being not friendly towards the boy for his origins (because children are very cruel so often). Did it really never come to his mind that their family habits and ways (George sharing a bedroom with his father, for one) may seem peculiar to the strangers?

So, Arthur and George seem to be failed by almost all their beloved ones except Jean and Maud.

Thus David Edgar makes the story of two told by Julian Barnes into a story of four. The heroines also help Arthur and George to deal with the differences between them, their failures and imperfections of the world. For example, it’s Jean who comforts Arthur who is disappointed at George being proclaimed “guilty and innocent” and finding it hypocritical. And Maud explains to George a very important thing about Arthur:

MAUD. ... Sir Arthur needed to conduct a mission. He needed to destroy a dragon...

GEORGE. ‘The darkness lurking in the human soul’ [Ibid: 123].

Maud also utters the last line of the play, asking George: “What can you see?” when George is trying to see Arthur and Jean going to their honeymoon trip. So, in the play we do not see, as in the novel, George looking at an empty chair at Arthur’s ‘spiritual funeral’ but both characters alive. Their dialogue continues, they are still trying to understand each other. And since they are so closely connected, they are ready to do it. It is also very important that the play Arthur&George makes the spectator think about how important it is to understand a person of any race, religion, mentality and ideas simply at because he is your equal and by your side.