During World War I, a Zurich-based group called The English Players put on stage plays in English. Joyce contributed – and took legal action against one of its members.
Missing Money and an Insult
The first play that The English Players performed was Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The performance of April 29, 1918 was a resounding success. One of the main parts was performed by a British consular official called Henry Carr, who had even used his own money to pay for his costume.
Prior to the performance, all the members of the Players had received a number of tickets that they were expected to sell. Joyce then collected the money, deducted the costs, and redistributed the proceeds among all participants. Carr felt slighted by the amount he received, while Joyce believed that Carr had not returned enough money for the tickets he sold. When Joyce confronted Carr at the British consulate, the latter apparently used some strong words (though what exactly he said remains uncertain).
A Victory, a Defeat, and Fictional Compensation
Joyce acted without delay. He asked for police protection, demanded that the consulate fire Carr and filed two separate charges: for payment of the allegedly outstanding returns on the tickets sold and for damages due to slander. On his part, Carr filed a countersuit for the costs of his costume. On October 15, 1918, the district court settled the first case entirely in Joyce’s favor.
However, the second case developed differently. After a first hearing on December 17, Joyce dropped the charges of slander on January 11, 1919 – probably because he realized that he would lose. The court ruled that Joyce had to pay both the court costs and damages to Carr. Joyce smarted under his defeat and used the powers of fiction to bend history into a more acceptable shape. For one thing, he later falsely claimed that there had been a second trial and that he only lost because his lawyer betrayed him by not showing up. In addition, Joyce immortalized Carr in the “Circe” chapter of Ulysses, where Carr appears as a common soldier who bursts “a volleyed fart” from his mouth.
Incidentally, this conflict between Joyce and Carr forms the basis for Tom Stoppard’s 1974 play Travesties, which also features Lenin and the Dadaist Tristan Tzara.
Table of Contents
- James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Law: An Introduction
- Obscenity and Literature: Legal Context around 1915
- James, Nora, and the “Konkubinatsverbot”
- Adultery as a Crime of Property
- Doubt as a Virtue
- Joyce Files a Lawsuit in Zurich
- Dying Without a Safety Net
- Ulysses Outlawed in the U.S.
- A Victory for Free Speech
- Suicide as a Crime
- A Difficult Return: Stricter Migration Laws
- A Defamation Case Against the BBC
Source: Rushing, Conrad L. “The English Players Incident: What Really Happened?” James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 3/4, 2000, pp. 371–388. | More information on Joyce, Carr, and The English Players is available on James Joyce Online Notes, in the entry “Exit Carr” by William Brockman and Sabrina Alonso.
