Your Great GrandmaNina, being ever the martyr to her Thespian life, rather liked using the term 'Doctor Theatre!' She would say it in her best R.P voice (the one she used for answering the telephone too) and if she were under the weather with a cold or chill, would rally herself for her performance by chanting it. I swear, if her leg was falling off, she would have hopped about, wringing her hands and still made her curtain-call. No understudy ever stood the chance of a glimpse of the limelight with Nina around!
Of course in thesp terms- 'Doctor Theatre' meant the effects of adrenalin that carry you through a play, whether your ill, gloomy or tired. Only afterwards do the aches and pains return- the old 'fight-or-flight mechanism over-riding any bothersome ailments that might get in the way of Entertainment.
However, for the formative character of our young Dodgson, 'Doctor Theatre' appears in a different guise. It's a way of life, an attitude, an attractive panacea to the ultra-conservative surroundings and expectations that his family had, and also held firmly for Charles.
Ever the family Entertainer, Magician, Storyteller and Games Manager to his younger siblings, Charles had this side of his character so ingrained that it simply had to find companion, and continued outlet.
So, did the young Dodgson work alone, in a creative vacuum, or as a lad, and young man, did he find like-minded souls to bounce his theatricals around with?
Well, do you remember Emily, when I told you about a relative of Dodgson's that I recently met?
Prior to this, I had been doing quite a bit of digging about who, what and how Dodgson spent his formative years with, and doing. A particular family has been very illuminating for my investigations into what made his strikingly original clock tick- culminating of course in a complete Bible of Fairy-tale completely of his own making...
It was back in March, if you remember, when I had just put your book to bed, and fell upon Michael Bute's 'A Town Like Alice' with alacrity. Having heard about it- and tracked one copy down to Durham Library, I was eagerly awaiting its arrival at Freshwater Library, hoping it provided me with some answers to gaps in the backdrops in the two Alice books, that didn't fit with London, or Oxford or Freshwater. But they did smack of the P.R.B's somehow, and I wanted more evidence.
True enough- the book answered some prayers and as my previous post http://mrsmiddletonstalesfromthebookrom.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jabberwocky-unbounded.html
revealed, I got a handle on the origins of the 'Jabberwocky'.
But, I hadn't expected the new twists in our tangled tales! The 'Misses Wilcox of Whitburn' were the initial references to the genesis of 'Jabberwocky' verse, told as I posted over a verse making evening of entertainment in 1855.
The more I read about this Wilcox family of cousins, the more I began to form a picture of a humour-rich, literary-bantering, theatrical clique, of whom Dodgson was very much a part for once in his life. He and Cousin William, walked miles a day together, wrote regularly and Charles spent large amounts of his long vacations at the Wilcoxes of Whitburn. They visited Sunderland Theatre, they even all acted together in "Box and Cox" and I imagined young Dodgson, having gone up to Oxford, coming back and recounting his 'lionising' tales, his clever parody poems, his growing 'Carte de Visite' collection additions, and general theatrical and literary 'showing-off'- to a willing and co-operative audience.
I felt he was drawn as a kindred spirit to their jollity and creativity and love of current artistic affairs. Though not a bohemian family in any tangible sense, their easy showmanship and play-fullness in particular must have held a strong allure for Charles whose nature was more akin to this than his beloved, but more stifled 'family personality'.
So, imagine this Em- there I am armed with a strong but surmised 'mental picture' of familias Wilcox, when good old serendipity struck again...
Back at Dimbolaland, D.B.H harangued me-as is his way, to get in contact with someone who might be helpful in lending something or other to our then up-coming 'Alice The Illustrators' Exhibition. I did as bid, but heard nothing back, so left it alone. D.B.H wouldn't let it lie, so eventually I resent the email, and we made a vague plan to meet at some point in the future.
The future became the visit to London which turned out to be receiving Dimbola's Museum and Heritage award- a happy little trip on it's own- so Emily my little one- imagine my delight when I meet said descendent of the Wilcoxes and before my eyes is the embodiment of the set of characteristics I had thus formulated!
And Emily, much, much more...
Such an encouraging under-pinning of my hunches so far. However- of this, I shall savour and investigate and report more another day, in future posts. Let's just say, there is a wealth of background to add to my own perfecting of the dual enigma of Dodgson and Carroll.
AND a tangent more- sneaky-peek at a quite unusual photograph for its time- staged, but apparently spontaneous (though the machinations of aperture meant holding a pose for such a length of time that normally prohibited any apparent spontenaeity in any but the most professional of 'pose-keepers'.
Entitled 'Tweedleton's Tail Coat' these two images really do set me off on another tangent- I have blurred parts as these are not for reproduction without explicit consent. Here are the family and servants staging a theatrical family piece. Quite extraordinary at the time!
Lastly Em, I shall leave you with a clue:-
The uniquely brilliant Lewis Carroll was merely acting in costume as the nondescript Don and Clergyman-Dodgson- in order to pass through dull corridors un-noticed, and therefore within acceptably contained walls to keep the creativity pure and bright of his burgeoning Wonderland legacy and his need for 'Doctor Theatre' within that.
Glad he did Em!
Your ever-loving Grand-Mother, GiGi!
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