Mr. & Mrs. Blake

Mr and Mrs Blake, Gloria  May 6th, 7th, 8th, 2001

Almost 200 years after his death, William Blake continues to fascinate and to challenge. For many he stands among the world’s greatest artists and poets, as relevant and inspiring in the 21st century as at any time since his death in 1827, his reputation only increasing with our understanding of his message. A major exhibition of his art in London this year proved yet again his power to divide opinion and arouse the strongest passions.

For Blake himself refused to compromise, whatever the price. For him, material comfort was a distraction and a waste; the moments of greatest glory in life, he said, come only when the human imagination is set free. “He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.” For him there was no other god than the human imagination, and when man, through a lifetime of struggle, can come to terms with his own passions and demons, only then can he build a better world.

His own devotion to his artistic ideals condemned him to a lifetime of poverty and neglect, yet, quite literally, he died laughing.

Blake lived through turbulent times - the American and French revolutions, riots in London, the Napoleonic wars - and he championed human rights and freedom against the tyranny of the old order. Yet, in keeping with his own love of contradiction, his artistic expression was mediaeval, by the standards of his own times, and deliberately outdated. And yet his power and clarity stand as a beacon to professional illustrators even today.

But it is through his words that many first come to Blake - his short poem, The Tyger, is the most often printed piece in the English language, and the apparent simplicity of his earlier works make them ideal for children - they are often set as handwriting exercises. The extract known as Jerusalem, from his epic poem, Milton, has been set to music and stands as Britain’s second, unofficial, national anthem. But in Blake, nothing is what it seems - Jerusalem is a critique of Britain’s failings not a bland excuse for mindless patriotism. It is a call for men and women to make their world a better place, not to wallow in self congratulation. But he would have enjoyed the irony, fascinated as he was by opposites and oppositions.

One of the great icons of the 1960s rock generation, he remains the artist’s artist, the poet’s poet who refused to see man as merely a cog in a materialistic machine, fettered by economic rules or hidebound religious dogma. He explored sexuality, love, jealousy and championed women’s rights in an age when marriage was often seen as no more than a financial contract.

Blake was largely self-taught, but he read widely and greedily. Ancient religious and mystical texts, Swedenborg, Milton, Shakespeare, from which he developed his own poetic cadences, were fodder for his avaricious mind. But he went further, developing his own universe of poetic archetypes - Los, Urizen, the four Valas... which, without careful study are incomprehensible today. Indeed, his complex epics -- and his insistence on talking to angels and wandering spirits -- led many of his contemporaries to think he was mad.

But his system of archetypes presages Freud, Jung and much of modern psychological thought. As poets from Yeats onward have discovered, a glimpse of Blake is a glimpse of a shimmering pool, a simple, bright surface that gives way to reveal ever greater depths beneath.

“Mr and Mrs Blake” was originally written by Joe White especially for the exhibition of Blake’s original engravings from the British Museum collection, mounted at Helsingin Kaupungin Taidemuseo, Tennispalatsi in 2000. It was performed by the Finn-Brit Players supported by the Kumpulan Kuoro choir. We are again pleased to perform an expanded version at Gloria in May 2001. The play looks at his life as a working man in turbulent times in 18th and 19th century London, supported throughout by his devoted wife - to whom he was himself devoted. Most of the words are Blake’s own, through his own poems and musings, and all the events depicted are documented.

It is impossible to summarize William Blake in a few lines, but through all the horrors and miseries that he witnessed in life he stuck to a single creed -- he never lost hope, instead he affirmed imagination and the sheer joy of living to the very end.

On behalf of the Finn-Brit Players and the Kumpulan Kuoro I hope that we can convey to our audience the joy that we have experienced in the production of this play.

Joe White

Mr. & Mrs. Blake (2000)

Mr. & Mrs. Blake (2001)

technical rehearsal