[ Peter Brook, English director. ] Typed prompt copy of his 1949 production of 'Dark of the Moon', with autograph and typed stage directions and typed pages of new text, including a new ending. With programmes of both London productions.

Brook's 1949 production of 'Dark of the Moon' was praised by the critics, and favourably compared with a rival production of 'Oaklahoma!' 'I'm not sure', Brook wrote, 'whether it's a good thing to be original in the theatre. The critics slated my Romeo and Juliet for being too original, but they applaud the quality in Dark of the Moon.' J. C. Trewin, in his 1971 biography of Brook, states that the play had attracted Brook's attention 'when he saw pictures in an American magazine and observed with rapture that there were witches in the cast. Securing a script, not very easily, he opened it one night in the Underground, noticed that the action began in swirling mist on a mountain ridge, wondered about the dialect which was as thick as the mist, and drew so absorbed that he overshot his journey by six stations. Soon he was hunting solutions to the problem of the Lyric stage where Tennent Productions (the Company of Four) had agreed to do it.' The present item may well be the very script that Brook secured. The prompt markings for lighting effects, stage directions, cast calls (the actors are named) and sound cues indicate how Brook achieved his supernatural effects, for example through the use of ultraviolet lights and gauze. The present item helps us to recreate the production of the play, and remains the most important tangible evidence of Brook's artistic interpretation. Further background is provided in Michael Kustow's 2013 biography of the director, which states that Brook took leave 'of his non-exclusive contract with Covent Garden in 1949 to mount Dark of the Moon, an American play about witchcraft which he had stumbled upon, inspired by the eerie ballad "Barbara Allen". He persuaded Tennent's to stage it at the Lyric Hammersmith, their house for experiments, from where it transferred to the West End. He assembled a young cast of virtual unknowns, who could act, sing and dance. It was, said Kenneth Tynan, a mediocre play, but "it became a crazily orchestrated symphony of black and amber: a jigsaw of wild superstitions and hot loveliness, reaching its perspiring climax in a revivalist meeting which tore the heart out of the play and held it in its hand."' The present item is in fair condition, with moderate signs of wear and age, and the bottom of the leaves of the first act strengthened with yellowing tape. In blue card binding with title and typing agency details on front cover, together with 'PROMPT COPY' in manuscript. The first page carries a 'Synopsis of Scenes', with the following in manuscript at foot: 'The property of | The Company of Four | Lyric Theatre | Hammersmith, W.6.' The typed text of the play is [1] + 110pp., 8vo, on rectos only. Manuscript stage directions throughout on facing versos, in blue, red and green ink, with a further seventeen pages of typed stage directions on tipped-in leaves, including eight pages for the entire first scene. Brook's transformation of a 'mediocre play' includes five new pages of typed text, on leaves laid over pages of the original. These include the final page of the play, with the new ending reading: 'John | I got it [a ring] - I got it from the grave a Agnes Riddle! | Fair Witch | Let me wear it, witch boy. Let me keep it for you. | John holds it a moment then hands it to her. | John | All right I reckon. | Dark witch | Come witch boy time to go. | Both witches run offstage Up. L. John twists round to look at moon then turns to Barbara, slowly picks up a handful of her hair, lets it fall through his fingers. | John | Look at that moon. | John pushes Barbara with his foot | Dark Witch | John. Offstage. | Fair Witch | Witch Boy. Offstage. | John stands slowly. An Eagle cry is heard. He looks towards the moon. Then exits off left. | The Curtain falls on the end of second Eagle cry. | Finale. | HOUSE LIGHTS.' As an example of the typed stage directions on separate slips, those to the very first page of the play read: 'CHECK. | John UN Stage. | Flash. | Smoke. | Gauze. | Working Lights. | WARN Tabs | Lights | Pan | Flys | U.N. Stage | House Lights out. Proj On. | Curtain Up Proj Out. | UN. Stage Go On curtain out. | Flys Go (I).| (I) J. ent u. l. over rocks | X to cave D. L. | (2) Con m. ent thro cave. | Lights Go (I)'. Also present are programmes for the two London productions of the play, both in good condition, the first (4pp., 12mo) at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and the second (12pp., 12mo) at the Ambassadors Theatre, West Street, Cambridge Circus. Both carry the text of the ballad which inspired the play, 'Barbara Allen', on the front cover.