It starts at Oystermouth Castle!

 

August 13th 2021, Oystermouth Castle, was the setting and backdrop for the London based Quantum theatre, who performed, William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, the classic romantic comedy.

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing by
William Blake, 1786

The play, having been written during 1595/96, is set in Athens, and consist one of several subjects that revolve around the marriage of Theseus (mythical king and founder-hero of Athens)  and Hippolyta (daughter of Ares and Otrera, queen of the Amazons).  The subplot of the play involves a conflict between four Athenian lovers.  The play is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fiairyland, under the light of the moon. This play is one Shakespeare’s most popular and is widely performed.

Act 2. Scene 1. A wood near Athens. Oberon says “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania”

Ill Met by Moonlight
Stanley Moss , Crete, 1944

Taking that quote “Ill meet by moonlight”, it is the title of W. Stanley Moss’s 1950 book “I’ll Met by Moonlight”.  The book is about the kidnap of General Kreipe February – May 1944, which was executed by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the local resistance members located in Crete.  The operations was under the command of SOE officer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and the abduction teams was led by W. Stanley Moss. 

Heinrich Kreipe 
The target, Heinrich Kreipe, was a German career solider, who had served both in the First and Second World Wars.  March 1944, was appointed Commander of the 22nd Air Landing Infantry Division, operating on Crete.  After the kidnap, Kreipe, was sent to a prisoner of war camp located in Canada, and then transferred to Island Farm, Bridgend. 

It was here Island Farm, that 70 German prisoners escaped through a tunnel and breached the perimeter fence.  Some of the prisoners made it as far Birmingham and Southampton.  The prisoners knew their way around from crude drawings of Wales and surrounding areas.  Eventually all escapees were recaptured. 

Moss’s, book “I’ll Met by Moonlight”, when first published in 1950, W. Somerset Maugham selected the book as one the three best books of 1950.  The book was adopted into a film with the same name, 1957.  Dirk Bogarde portrayed Patrick Leigh Fermor; David Oxley portrayed W. Stanley Moss and Marius Goring portrayed Heinrich Kreipe.  1957, the story was parodied by Spike Milligan, in the Goon Show episode “I’ll Met by Goonlight”.

W. Somerset Maugham 
W. Somerset Maugham, the English playwright, novelist and short-story writer.  One of his works was the 1913 play “The Land of Promise”.  Maugham who entered int a relationship with married woman, Syrie Wellcome, wife of Henry Wellcome (American/British pharmaceutical entrepreneur).  They had a daughter Mary Elizabeth.  Wellcome filed for a divorce, naming Maugham as the co-respondent.

1917, following decree absolute, Syrie and Maugham finally married,  their daughter Mary Elizabeth, changed her surname to Maugham.

Syrie, during the 1920s and 30s, was the leading British interior decorator, as the daughter of Thomas John Barnardo, the founder and director of homes for poor and deprived children. 

It is this play, that was performed by Mr. Thomas C. Dagnall’s London Company, and started the Canadian actress Miss Eveline Ormonde, August 1915.

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