Alfred Sutro
OBE (7 August 1863 – 11 September 1933) was an English author, dramatist and translator. In addition to a succession of successful plays of his own in the first quarter of the 20th century, Sutro made the first English translations of works by the Belgian writer
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...
.
Life and career
Sutro was born in London, the third and youngest son of Sigismund Sutro, a medical practitioner and authority on continental spas and their cures. Sutro senior, who was of German and Spanish
Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
ancestry, had come to England from Germany as a young man and become a British subject.
[Hyamson, A M]
"Sutro, Alfred (1863–1933), playwright and translator of Maurice Maeterlinck"
ODNB Archive, accessed 4 August 2013 Alfred's grandfather was a
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
.
Sutro was educated at the
City of London School
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Boys' independent day school
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Alan Bird
, chair_label = Chair of Governors
, chair = Ian Seaton
, founder = John Carpenter
, speciali ...
and in Brussels.
[ He worked as a clerk in the ]City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
and when he was twenty he entered into partnership with his elder brother Leopold, trading as wholesale merchants. In 1894 he married Esther Stella, daughter of Joseph Michael Isaacs, a fruit broker and importer in Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
; her brother, Rufus Isaacs, became a prominent lawyer and politician.[ Stella Isaacs was a painter, and insisted that Sutro should give up business and earn his living in the arts.][
The Sutros lived for a time in Paris; among the friends they made there was ]Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...
, with whom Sutro established a lifelong friendship.[ Sutro undertook to translate Maeterlinck's works into English, and it was his versions of '']The Treasure of the Humble
''The Treasure of the Humble'' (french: Le Trésor des humbles) is a collection of thirteen deeply reflective mystical essays by the Belgian Nobel Laureate Maurice Maeterlinck. The work is dedicated to Georgette Leblanc.
Essays
* "Le Silence" ("Si ...
'' (1897), ''Wisdom and Destiny'' (1898) and ''The Life of the Bee'' (1901) that introduced Maeterlinck to anglophone readers.["Obituary – Mr Alfred Sutro", ''The Times'', 13 September 1933, p. 12] Sutro's other Maeterlinck translations, some made jointly with his friend Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos (April 9, 1865 – December 5, 1921), known as Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, was a Dutch-English journalist, literary critic and publisher, who gained his greatest fame as a translator.
Early life
The Teix ...
, include ''Aglavaine and Selysette'', ''Joyzelle'', ''The Life of the White Ant'', ''The Buried Temple'', ''Monna Vanna'', ''The Death of Tintagiles'', and ''The Magic of the Stars''.
Sutro's own work was chiefly as a playwright. After many false starts he achieved a moderate success in 1895 with ''The Chili Widow'', an adaptation of a French work, made jointly with Arthur Bourchier
Arthur Bourchier (22 June 186314 September 1927) was an English actor and Actor-manager, theatre manager. He married and later divorced the actress Violet Vanbrugh.
Bourchier was noted for roles both in classical drama, particularly William S ...
.[ His first great success was not for a further nine years, when his mildly satirical comedy ''The Walls of Jericho'' was presented at the ]Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, named after the stage actor David Garrick. It opened in 1889 with ''The Profligate'', a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, and another Pinero play ...
, with Bourchier in the lead. A B Walkley in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' was not greatly impressed by the play but correctly predicted a long run. It ran for 423 performances,[Gaye, p.1540] and established Sutro among the leading English dramatists.[
From then until his retirement, Sutro wrote more than twenty plays, most of them popular successes. ''The Times'' singled out for mention
*''Mollentrave on Women'' (1905),
*''The Perfect Lover'' (1905),
*''The Fascinating Mr Vanderveldt'' (1906),
*''John Glayde’s Honour'' (1907),
*''The Barrier'' (1907),
*''The Builder of Bridges'' (1908),
*''Making a Gentleman'' (1909),
*''The Perplexed Husband'' (1911),
*''The Fire-Screen'' (1912),
*''The Two Virtues'' (1914),
*''The Clever Ones'' (1914),
*''The Choice'' (1919) and
*''A Man with a Heart'' (1925).][
Sutro's biographer Katherine Chubbuck writes that in the 1920s "He had been overtaken by a new school of dramatists led by ]Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
".[ After the poor reception of his final play, ''Living Together'' (1929) he retired from the theatre.][Chubbuck, Katharine]
"Sutro, Alfred (1863–1933)"
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 4 August 2013
Sutro also published a volume of stories (''The Foolish Virgins'', 1904), a collection of sketches (''About Women'', 1931), and a volume of memoirs, (''Celebrities and Simple Souls'', 1933).[
Sutro died after a few days' illness at his home in ]Witley
Witley is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Waverley in Surrey, England centred south west of the town of Godalming and southwest of Guildford. The land is a mixture of rural (ranging from woodland protected by the Surrey Hills AO ...
, Surrey, on 11 September 1933. His widow died the following year. They had no children.[
]
Notes
External links
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Jewish Encyclopedia
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* Plays b
Alfred Sutro
an
A. Sutro
on Great War Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutro, Alfred
1863 births
1933 deaths
British Jews
British dramatists and playwrights
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at the City of London School
British male dramatists and playwrights