Mordaunt Shairp
Mordaunt Shairp was an English playwright and educator, born on March 13, 1887, in Totnes, Devon. He received his education at St. Paul's School and Lincoln College, Oxford, before embarking on a career as a schoolmaster. Shairp served as an extension lecturer in modern literature at various universities, yet he spent most of his career at University College School in London. He was known for creating plays aimed at boosting students' self-confidence, reflecting his belief in the power of drama. His most notable work, *The Green Bay Tree*, delves into themes related to psychosexuality, drawing on ideas from Freud and Havelock Ellis, and garnered attention for its subtle exploration of latent homosexuality. This play's success opened doors for Shairp in Hollywood, where he collaborated with playwright Lillian Hellman on several screenplays, although none achieved lasting acclaim. After returning to London, his later life was marked by a lack of new productions, and he is now primarily recognized for the controversial impact of his earlier work.
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Mordaunt Shairp
Writer
- Born: March 13, 1887
- Birthplace: Totnes, Devon, England
- Died: January 18, 1939
- Place of death: Hastings, East Sussex, England
Biography
Mordaunt Shairp was born in Totnes, Devon, England, on March 13, 1887. He was educated at St. Paul’s School and Lincoln College, Oxford University. After graduation, Shairp became a schoolmaster, serving as an extension lecturer in modern literature at Oxford and at London universities. For most of his professional life, however, he was assistant master at University College School in London, where he wrote and produced plays for his students to demonstrate his belief that drama could instill children with self-confidence.
Shairp wrote a handful of plays for the legitimate stage. Some critics and theatergoers considered his plays to be vehicles conveying the controversial psychosexual philosophies of Sigmund Freud and Havelock Ellis, as best exemplified in his play The Green Bay Tree. This play, which chronicles the disintegration of a young man, gained notoriety in its London and New York productions based on an unstated undercurrent of latent homosexuality. The play’s success led Shairp to a brief sojourn in Hollywood, where he collaborated with playwright Lillian Hellman, whose play The Children’s Hour was filled with homosexual innuendo similar to the implicit homosexuality in The Green Bay Tree. Shairp and Hellman wrote a screenplay for The Dark Angel, an unremarkable and thoroughly conventional film released in 1935. Shairp briefly remained in Hollywood, writing the screenplay for The White Angel, released in 1936, and additional dialogue for The Barrier, released in 1937.
Upon his return to London, Shairp resumed his modest life with his wife, Hilda Lewis Williams Shairp, whose son, the actor and playwright Hugh Williams, appeared in three of his stepfather’s plays. During the remainder of Shairp’s life, however, there were no new productions of his plays and today he is remembered solely as the author of a single succès de scandale.