Carrington

by Christopher Hampton

A "triangular trinity of happiness" was how Dora Carrington described her early life with her husband Ralph Partridge and the writer Lytton Strachey. But, as Virginia Woolf foretold, Carrington's marriage was riskier than the boundaries of the menage shifted, like ice flows, to accommodate lovers who came and went, but the pivotal focus of Carrington's life remained her all-abiding passion for Strachey. This screenplay is the story of their lives together, as depicted in a film starring Jonathan Pryce and Emma Thompson.

79 pages, Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement.

Hampton became involved in the theatre while studying German and French at Oxford University where OUDS performed his play When Did You Last See My Mother?, about adolescent homosexuality, reflecting his own experiences at Lancing College, the boarding school he had attended. The play was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and that production soon transferred to the Comedy Theatre, resulting in Hampton, in 1966, becoming the youngest writer to have a play performed in the West End in the modern era.

From 1968-70 he worked as the Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, and also as the company's literary manager. Hampton won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1988 for the screen adaptation of his play Dangerous Liaisons. He was nominated again in 2007 for adapting Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. Hampton forthcoming project is the translation into English of Michael Kunze & Sylvester Levay's Austrian musical Rebecca based on Daphne du Maurier's book which is scheduled to premiere in 2009 in Canada, and then move to Broadway in 2010.

Reviews

[Cera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't judge the screenplay separately from the movie it became, and that movie is what introduced me to the Bloomsbury Group, which has been an obsession of mine ever since. But as much as I *can* separate myself from the impact this work had on my history, I really do think it's an excellent screenplay; the dialogue is often funny and poignant at the same time, and Hampton did a good job of capturing the gist of the historical characters without veering into caricature.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carrington movie script which followed many biographies and letters and diaries of the time. Frances Partridge did not like the portrayal of Ralph. People said they made Lytton too nice, Carrington too much a tomboy and Ralph too stupid.