A MUMMER’S PLAY

A Recollection by Tom Jones

When Harvey and I first arrived in New York, his career as a commercial artist flourished while mine as a would-be theatre director floundered.  To try and help me out, when he received an invitation from Abbott Laboratories to do a Christmas piece for their in-house magazine, he suggested that it might be something we could do together. I came up with the idea of a family mummer's play (based on the early English models I had studied under B. Iden Payne) and we wrote this song especially for the occasion.  We were paid one thousand dollars, to be split equally between us.  One thousand dollars!  Five hundred dollars for me!  At the time I was teaching a drama group at St. Bartholomew’s Community club for 25 dollars a week and drawing a weekly royalty from the Upstairs/Downstairs supper club of twenty-five dollars (for writing ten numbers).  Suddenly I was rich.  I decided to celebrate by going to Brooks Brothers, where I purchased grey slacks, a navy blue blazer, a button-down shirt and a subdued, but interesting, tie.  Wearing my fancy new duds to the supper club, I encountered the sartorially splendid producer Julius Monk, who had all of his suits tailored in London.  Proudly I displayed the new me and Julius, with just the slightest arch of an eyebrow, enquired: "Separates after dusk?"