[{"node":{"title":"Boyd089","Collections":"Boyd Letters","Contributor":"Boyd Estate","Coverage":"1978 May 24th","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Wednesday, March 16, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Boyd089","Item Description":"Letter","Keywords":"Speranza, Oscar","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/boyd089","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Boyd089_1.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeff28 ROsetta Avenue\nBelfast 7\n24 May 1978.\n\nDear Tom,Thank you very much for your letter of the 23\n\nMay which I\u2019ve just received.\nFirst,I'm most grateful to you for taking an\ninterest in this play. May I give you my comments\non yours as best I can? One always thinks one's\nbaby is perfect. It never is of course: and the\nmore defects it has the more strenuously one\ndefends it!\nI'm glad you think the play is highly actable and\nstageworthy. THat to me is a lot. And I\u2019m glad\nyou think it succeeds as a narative of the\nWilde story: and at that level. That may not\nbe enough: but it's enough to go on with.\nTHe title SPSRANZA'S BOY shouldnt be given\ntoo much weight ; ** it is an effort to get away\nfrom calling it OSCAR or something like that.\n(In fact Brian F-without reading the play-supplied\nthe title gratis! Possibly I shouldnt have\naccepted it and if it is really misleading **\n*********** then I'll have to think again.)\n\nABOUT SPERANZA. I was conscious of\nher formidable presence becoming less and less:\nI think that's the way it was with her son and\nherself. She SENSED the way he was going after\n((and at) Oxford. Hence her eagerness to get him\nemotionally off her hands...and into Constance's\narms. Speranza gave him to Constance: and\nOscar,being Speranza\u2019s boy,obeyed his mother.\nThen Constance took over-but only for a short\nwhile. Then Bosie and the rest....\n\nI couldnt DO a scene between Speranza\n\nand Oscar because I dont think there ever was\none: and I know I'd make a mess of it.\n","Type":"Text"}}]