The Dog Beneath the Skin
Encyclopedia
The Dog Beneath the Skin, or Where is Francis? A Play in Three Acts, by W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

 and Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...

, was the first Auden-Isherwood collaboration and an important contribution to English poetic drama in the 1930s. It was published in 1935 and first performed by the Group Theatre
Group Theatre (London)
The Group Theatre was an experimental theatre company founded in 1932 by Rupert Doone and Robert Medley. It evolved from a play-reading group in Cambridge that Doone had been involved with during his years studying with the Festival Theatre there...

 in 1936.

The play describes the quest by the hero Alan Norman to find Sir Francis Crewe, the missing heir of Honeypot Hall in Crewe. The quest takes him on a satiric journey through Europe and England, accompanied by a large dog, who proves to be Sir Francis in disguise. Auden and Isherwood wrote two versions of the end of the play. In Ishwerwood's version, which appears in the printed text, Sir Francis denounces the villagers and leaves to join a vaguely-defined revolutionary movement. In Auden's revised version, which was performed on stage, Sir Francis denounces the villagers and is killed.

The play is based in part on two earlier plays by Auden alone, "The Fronny", written in 1930, and mostly lost except for a few fragments printed in the edition of Auden's Plays listed below; and The Chase, written in 1934, and printed in the edition of Auden's Plays. Auden sent a copy of The Chase to Isherwood, who suggested revisions that eventually transformed the play into The Dog Beneath the Skin. In "The Fronny" the central character (who is referred to as "Fronny" in the surviving fragments) was apparently based loosely on the archaeologist Francis Turville-Petre
Francis Turville-Petre
Francis Adrian Joseph Turville-Petre was a British archaeologist, famous for the discovery of the Neanderthal Galilee Man in 1925 and his work at Mount Carmel, in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. He was a close friend of Christopher Isherwood and W. H...

, but the character of Sir Francis in The Chase and The Dog Beneath the Skin has no resemblance to Turville-Petre.

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