Letters from Alvina Krause: June 1980

Context
I was scheduled to direct the play that opened the fall 1980 season at NU -- the first production in the Louis Theatre of the new Theatre/Interpretation Center.

Letter
David,
In cleaning my desk of a month's accumulation of unanswered mail I found your last letter. In haste I write: if you are going to do Candida for the first show next year God help you! You better begin work on it now -- hard work. It is the most difficult of all Shaw's plays to direct unless you have "natural" actors for the leading roles! In all my years of teaching I found only one person capable of creating Candida and only one Marchbanks. Mind me: go to work on it now -- and hard, comprehensive intense work. I would never do it with the company I have here and they are skilled actors!
Will you please send me McBurney's address? I need to reach him --
The tumult and the shouting dies ---- thank God! Eventually I can get to work again -- perhaps --
A.K.

Footnote
I'm don't remember what "the tumult and the shouting" was about, but I think Krause and the BTE people had spent the spring wrangling over organizational issues.

****

Context
A few days after the letter, this postcard arrived. I must have said something to Krause -- perhaps on the phone -- about helping the actor playing Morell to gain more physical flexibility.
Dean Wood had invited Krause to come to the to-be-televised gala in October dedicating the new Theatre/Interpretation Center.

Postcard
Morell must have the strength and inner charm of a John Kennedy. Remember Candida loves him, Prossy loves him, his congregation loves him. He has warmth and sincerity. He has everything as human being that Marchbanks lacks -- but he is not a poet! He is open, direct, understanding. He is not stiff and he is angry only when Eugene draws blood. This fine balance of character is most important -- Dedication? I don't know.