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Friendship and Falling Out of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien
Don Crews traveled more than 500 miles to see the East Coast premiere of the new stage production “Lewis & Tolkien.”
“Absolutely, it was worth it,” Crews said of making the trip from his home in Georgia to Washington, D.C., to watch the production in celebration of his 77th birthday.
For roughly an hour and 45 minutes, the gripping performance offers the audience a window into an intimate, funny, and sometimes contentious conversation between famed British authors Clive Staples Lewis and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. At times, audiences may even feel uncomfortable as if they are eavesdropping on a private conversation.
With a set intended to portray The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford Lewis and Tolkien frequented in the 1930s and ’40s, the play pulls on letters and writings from the two men to craft a lively dialogue between the authors, whose friendship grew cold in their later years.
The Eagle and Child public house in Oxford, England, was used as a meeting place by authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. (Amanda Lewis via Getty Images)
Lewis and Tolkien were a part of a small group of male writers called the Inklings who gathered weekly to read manuscripts of their works aloud and provide encouragement and critique. The group met consistently for 15 to 20 years.
Though there were other proficient writers among the Inklings, such as Charles Williams, the fame of Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” and Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” has drawn special attention to Lewis’ and Tolkien’s participation in the group—and also their personal friendship.
While the two men shared a close friendship throughout the years of the Inklings meetings, and Tolkien even played a role in Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, the men grew apart in the last decade of Lewis’ life.
The play explores some of the reasons Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship fractured, including Tolkien’s dislike of allegory in “The Chronicles of Narnia” and disapproval, as a devout Catholic, of Lewis’ marriage to Joy Davidman, a divorced woman.
It is reported that the two men met once before Lewis died in 1963 at the age of 64, 10 years before Tolkien’s death in 1973, but it isn’t known if they ever reconciled. The play “Lewis & Tolkien,” written by Dean Batali, explores what the men’s final conversation might have entailed if they had freely discussed their differences and offenses, and sought reconciliation.
Actors Bo Foxworth (left) and Arye Gross portray C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively, in the stage play “Lewis & Tolkien.” (Courtesy of “Lewis & Tolkien”)
The play is “especially about male friendship, which you don’t see represented in television, or film, or [on] stage that much,” Batali told The Daily Signal following the production.
Batali, who has been working in TV since 1995 and has written for shows, including “That ’70s Show” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” says he drew upon what is known about the character and logic of each man to draft the show’s involved dialogue.
Batali first went to Hollywood because he wanted to “see churchgoing characters, like myself, represented on television.” Within entertainment, it is “hard to find characters utilizing their faith, struggling through, and that’s what I wanted to represent,” he said. Fulfilling that desire, Batali wrote the play in 2022, and it has since been performed in Hollywood; Seattle; Calgary and Alberta, Canada; and now Washington, D.C.
Director Andrew Borba, who has also worked in television and has known Batali since high school, said he and Batali agree that the first rule in entertainment is “don’t bore” the audience. Approaching a nearly two-hour play set in one room with dialogue between three characters, Lewis, Tolkien, and a waitress named Veronica, the director says Batali was careful to follow that rule.
“The writing is really good,” Borba said, adding that the three actors were “specifically chosen for their ability with language.”
Arye Gross, who plays Tolkien; Bo Foxworth, who portrays Lewis; and Anna Theoni DiGiovanni, who plays Veronica, are all well-versed in Shakespeare, giving them, according to the director, an ability to “make things that are challenging more accessible.”
The themes of friendship, forgiveness, community, and faith are woven through the play, but Borba says he especially appreciates that the production showcases two men who have “a deep history and a deep disagreement, and they are willing to stay in the room together.”
Tickets to “Lewis & Tolkien” range from $35 to $59 with performances Thursday through Sunday all through November at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
The post Friendship and Falling Out of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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