Playwright Jan de Hartog, whose hit comedy about marriage, The Fourposter, is running until August 28 at the Classic Theatre Festival at the Mason Theatre in Perth, led a remarkable life as a Nobel Prize nominated author, activist, and sailor. Equally fascinating is the life led by the late writer’s wife, Marjorie, who lived and worked with him for more than half a century.

Marjorie de Hartog will drive up from Pennsylvania and speak at a special post-matinee talkback session on the life and legacy of her husband on Saturday, August 20. While much of her talk after the 2 pm show will focus on the sometimes bumpy history of what became one of the most beloved shows in Broadway history – it won a Tony Award for best play – Marjorie will also focus in on the couple’s lives together as Quakers and socially concerned individuals who confronted the human misery produced by war, poverty, and racism.

Born just outside London, Marjorie went to high school during the Second World War, watching London burn from the periphery, growing up with a bomb shelter in her backyard and a gas mask strung to her shoulder. She recalls losing her best friend to a stray bomb, food rationing, and taking exams underground.

While Marjorie lived under the bombs in Britain, Jan was underground in Holland, an enemy of the Nazis given the popularity of his novel about Dutch sailors that the occupying army viewed as a metaphor to encourage nationalistic resistance. Jan helped smuggle Jewish children into safe homes and performed resistance plays to keep up people’s morale. It was while posing as an elderly woman in a nursing home that Jan came up with the idea for The Fourposter. Lying in a fourposter bed, he imagined the life he might not get to live given the high mortality rate of anti-Nazi partisans. He eventually escaped via a harrowing journey to the UK.

Following the war, the burgeoning British film industry beckoned for Marjorie, and she went to work for the legendary film producer Michael Powell as secretary and editor, contributing substantially to the acclaimed ballet film The Red Shoes.

It was through Powell that Marjorie met Jan de Hartog, then in Paris producing an English edition of one of his books. She says she became his editor for the next 50 years, and while there was no romantic spark at the beginning, within three years, things deepened into what she lovingly recalls was “a pretty nice arrangement.”

Marjorie says The Fourposter “failed miserably” when it was first staged in London, and Jan had more or less washed his hands of the project when it was picked up by the famous acting duo Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, who were fascinated by the possibility of carrying a two-character play. When director Jose Ferrer was brought in for the pre-Broadway run of the show, Jan changed the ending and buffed up the script. Jan knew he had a hit when a couple he described as “American Gothic” left the show with a comment that spoke to the play’s universal truths: “you could have had a microphone under my bed.”

Asked whether she saw echoes of her husband in the male lead of The Fourposter, Marjorie laughs. “If he was having a cold, it became a major incident in his life. He was a terrible hypochondriac, like the lead in the show, and he’d take his temperature every hour, record it on a yellow pad by the bed, and showed these figures with great gravity to his doctor.”

Marjorie recalls the French opening of the play in the Theatre de la Michodiere, run by a legendary French couple who were a bit too old to take on the roles. Yvonne Printemps, a major star of the stage, resented that a younger woman was brought in for the role, and staged dramatic “incidents” that distracted from the rehearsal process, forcing Jan to take command of the show while the director consoled the jilted but uncast star.

Predicting that such an “incident” would occur on opening night, Jan worked with the French actress Marie Daems to prepare her for any disruptions. Sure enough, on opening night, Ms. Printemps showed up in a silver lame dress with six male escorts and, at a critical moment, suddenly screamed and fainted, and had to be carried out. This caused a huge disruption, but Jan stood in the wings, encouraging the onstage actress to play her lines to him. She was so successful that she earned rave reviews for her performance under fire.

Much of the de Hartogs’ life was spent on an 85-foot houseboat both in Europe and North America, docking in lovely spots before they became tourist traps. That boat took them eventually to Houston Texas and an issue that catalpulted them to national notoriety.

Marjorie had been volunteering at Jefferson Davis Hospital, where poor, largely African American patients would go for care, but whose conditions were “disgraceful.” Because Jan was between books, Marjorie encouraged him to volunteer, and the result was a shocking novel, The Hospital, which stirred great controversy in a town carefully guarding its mythic image as a modern place associated with the NASA space program. W

While the novel did eventually generate much needed funding for the hospital and led to an exploration of social conditions in US hospitals, it did force the couple to leave the city.

Like many in the 1960s, their lives were also touched by the war against Vietnam, and with the Quakers, they started a group that worked with the Pearl Buck Adoption Agency to relocated Vietnamese orphans to US homes. While doing this work, the de Hartogs also adopted a pair of Korean children as well, the experience of which became the focus for yet another of the prolific de Hartog’s many works. Jan was also nominated for the Nobel Prize for his trilogy on the history of the Quakers.

The couple wavered between Europe and the U.S. and, finally fed up with their tax dollars going to support the war, Jan and Marjorie transplanted themselves to Belgium.

Marjorie recalls Jan as a strong, intense individual, a powerful speaker who drew people in with strong storytelling skills and a tremendous sense of humour.

“He was also very tender with people he really cared about, concerned about humanity and the fate of the world. He had a way of touching people’s hearts when they were with him. He was a good man with a great faith.”

The de Hartogs became members of the Society of Friends – or Quakers – a pacifist faith community, many of whose Ontario and New York State members will be attending the August 20 matinee of The Fourposter.

For tickets and further information, visit www.classictheatre.ca, or call 1-877-283-1283.