Christopher Harris Fry (1907–2005) was an English poet and playwright best known for his verse dramas. His Lady’s Not for Burning, a play set in the Middle Ages, made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.
Born in Bristol and educated at Bedford Modern School, Fry was a schoolmaster before being appointed director of Tunbridge Wells Repertory Players (1932–36.) In 1940 he became director of the Playhouse at Oxford, having in the meantime written two pageant plays, Thursday’s Child and The Tower (both 1939,) and also The Boy with a Cart (1938,) a rustic play regarding the local saint, Cuthman of Steyning.
After service in the Non-Combatant Corps during World War II, Fry began a series of outstanding plays in free verse, often with religious and mystic undertones, including A Phoenix Too Frequent (1946,) The Lady’s Not for Burning (1949,) Venus Observed (1950,) A Sleep of Prisoners (1951,) The Dark is Light Enough (1954,) Curtmantle (1962,) and A Yard of Sun (1970.) Following prominence during the 1940s and 1950s, he fell from favor as theatrical styles changed.
Fry produced highly successful translations include Ring Round the Moon (produced 1950; adapted from Jean Anouilh’s L’Invitation du château,) Duel of Angels (produced 1963; adapted from Jean Giraudoux’s Pour Lucrèce.) His Hollywood screenplays include Ben-Hur (1959,) Barabbas (1962,) and The Bible: In the Beginning (1966.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Christopher Fry
Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith.
—Christopher Fry
Topics: Comedy
Between
Our birth and death we may touch understanding
As a moth brushes a window with its wing.
—Christopher Fry
Topics: Understanding
We must each find our separate meaning in the persuasion of our days until we meet in the meaning of the world.
—Christopher Fry
Topics: Motivation
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