Doper Challenge: Can You Name This REALLY Obscure Play?

[Shodan]

Since the Dope can identify pretty much any literary work ever written, by anyone, of any kind, at any time since clay tablets went out of style, I present a challenge.

When I was in college, one of my literature textbooks had a collection of humorous essays. One of those essays was about “kitsch” - things that were so bad that they exerted a strange charm. The essay mentioned, for instance, an iron statue of Otto von Bismarck, “with iron bags under his iron eyes”, which no sane person would wish to possess, but which nonetheless tempted the author to buy and keep and pass along to his descendants.

Another example was of an alleged play, about (I believe) the Boy Scout movement. The author claimed that the play had run for years catering/pandering to audiences composed of kitsch lovers, who came to the play repeatedly and memorized the dialog. Sort of like The Rocky Horror Picture Show , but a play.

The scene described by the essay author was set in a forest. The Boy Scouts arrive on the scene, unpack their trappings, and look to their leader for direction. The leader, accompanied not so sotto voce by most of the members of the audience -

"Fresh water must be our first consideration!"

Question the first - was this a real play? It would break my heart in a minor way to think that it had never lit up the boards, based on that one piece of dialog alone. Question the second - is the name of this triumph, and (especially!) the text available online? As a dedicated kitsch lover myself, I would dearly love to see if the rest of the play lives up to that one shining moment of clarity and vision.

Any assistance would be deeply appreciated.

Regards,
Shodan

[Kimstu]

Challenge accepted!

[Kimstu]

Some additional details:

‘Young England’ is a now uncommon book especially in a jacket and of interest to theatre collectors and connoisseurs of the odd and the zany. Reynolds appears to have been a sort of Amanda Ros of the theatre–so very bad that he is good. Our last copy was described thus:

‘8vo. pp 288. Frontis portrait, 5 plates. A play in two periods. This play had an unlikely success in the 1930s rather similar to the fictitious ‘Springtime for Hitler.’ It was so appallingly bad that audiences came along in their droves for over 300 nights to shout amusing remarks and generally revel in its ghastliness. The frontis portrait of the Reverend Walter Reynolds shows a stern Scottish type who apparently would walk up and down the aisles of the theatre during performances telling people to be quiet. Quite scarce.’

The critics voted it the worst show that had opened in London in 20 years: nobody gave it three nights. It ran, to packed houses, for nearly a year. Over a quarter of a million people saw it. Wikipedia has an entry on it and the Time magazine archives have this article from December 1939 :

'…London’s bright boys just had to see what the worst show in 20 years looked like. They screamed with laughter at its superpatriotic goings-on, involving gallant officers, dastardly villains, prostitutes, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, taints of illegitimacy, stolen papers, stolen cash, the Union Jack. They went back for more, and their friends went with them. .Soon it became quite as chic to go (preferably halfcocked) to Young England as to the opera. At first the audience merely ad-libbed, then (as they came to know the play virtually by heart) they started beating the actors to their lines. The famed British reserve took its worst pummeling in centuries, and Young England became a rough-&-tumble free-for-all.

Shortly after World War II began, it was decided to revive the play. There were some fears that it might have ad-libbed its usefulness, that jesting at patriotism might not go down in wartime. The fears were groundless. With tension in the air, people have been gladder than ever to relax, and with soldiers in the audience, the wisecracks are even rawer than they used to be.

One set shows a Salvation Army “citadel” with doors marked MEN and WOMEN. Every time an actor starts for one, the crowd shouts: “Wrong door, wrong door.”

When Boy Scouts or Girl Guides are assigned to “water detail,” voices pipe up: “Stay out of those bushes”; “Be careful of the side of the barn.”

One night, when the hero was proved not to be illegitimate, someone yelled: “Consider yourself unbawstardized.”

The actors (who otherwise play their roles straight) have made a game of altering their lines if the crowd beats them to the draw. Thus the villain, when led away by the police, pauses to say “Foiled!” He was almost licked one night when the crowd shouted not only “Foiled!” but “Baffled!” “Beaten!” “Frustrated!” “Outwitted!” “Trapped!” “Flummoxed!” He waited until the wits were through, then hissed: “Stymied!”

Walter Reynolds, Young England’s 88-year-old author, still takes his dead-serious play seriously. He went to the opening of the revival, a sad, reedy figure in a great black cape, doddered up the stairs to his box holding on to both handrails, sat tense through the uproar, at the end bowed to the audience, thanked them. Asked in a BBC interview whether he wasn’t angry at the way audiences treated Young England, he answered: “No. They’re a little noisy . . . but they pay as much as 10 and 6 for seats, so they must like it.”

And here’s the WorldCat listing.

[Shodan]

Dear Lord have mercy - thirtytwo freaking minutes! Kimstu, you rock!

Regards,
Shodan

[Kimstu]

Thank you kindly! Also for the reference to that “Clerk of Oxenford” essay on kitsch, which looks fun. (And now I really want to read Young England, but it doesn’t seem to be gutenberged.)

[WotNot]

@Shodan

Sort of like The Rocky Horror Picture Show , but a play.

So, more like The Rocky Horror Show, then?

[Penfeather]

That actually sounds completely awesome:

In one performance the villain, when led away by the police, pauses to say “Foiled!” He was almost licked one night when the crowd shouted not only “Foiled!” but “Baffled!” “Beaten!” “Frustrated!” “Outwitted!” “Trapped!” “Flummoxed!” He waited until the wits were through, then hissed: “Stymied!”

[eschereal]

Wow, copies sell for $200.

[HelenGawn]

Does Lin-Manuel Miranda know about this?