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| Two Plays by Garry O'Connor |
As
playwright Garry O’Connor points out, almost half a century after Olivier
opened the new National Theatre at the Old Vic, there is one figure of
twentieth-century film-and-theatre fame hardly ever spoken of, yet who, it
might be claimed, deserves greater recognition and the ultimate Olivier
accolade. The Madness of Vivien Leigh is based on books O’Connor has
written about Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson. Darlings
of the Gods, a main source, was first published in 1984 by Hodder &
Stoughton, and filmed as a three-part mini-series five years later, scripts
written by Roger Simpson and Graham Farmer, a screen collaboration between
Thames Television and ABC Australia. A further source is the adaptation he
later made as a novel, his first to be published, which Coronet brought out in
1989. The Madness of Vivien Leigh is now paired with one other
play by O’Connor, Debussy Was My Grandfather, and is published by
CentreHouse Press collectively as Debussy Was My Grandfather / The Madness
of Vivien Leigh.
