Call it a Day

by Dodie Smith

We first meet Roger and Dorothy at the unprepossessing hour of 8 a.m. when Vera wakes them with the early morning tea. We say farewell to them, less than sixteen hours later, as they turn out the lights and go to sleep. But in between there has been more excitement than most people manage to crowd into sixteen months.|11 women, 5 men

Genres: Plays

151 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Born Dorothy Gladys Smith in Lancashire, England, Dodie Smith was raised in Manchester (her memoir is titled A Childhood in Manchester). She was just an infant when her father died, and she grew up fatherless until age 14, when her mother remarried and the family moved to London. There she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and tried for a career as an actress, but with little success. She finally wound up taking a job as a toy buyer for a furniture store to make ends meet. Giving up dreams of an acting career, she turned to writing plays, and in 1931 her first play, Autumn Crocus, was published (under the pseudonym “C.L. Anthony”). It was a success, and her story — from failed actress to furniture store employee to successful writer — captured the imagination of the public and she was featured in papers all over the country. Although she could now afford to move to a London townhouse, she didn't get caught up in the “literary” scene — she married a man who was a fellow employee at the furniture store.

During World War II she and her husband moved to the United States, mostly because of his stand as a conscientious objector and the social and legal difficulties that entailed. She was still homesick for England, though, as reflected in her first novel, I Capture the Castle (1948). During her stay she formed close friendships with such authors as Christopher Isherwood and John Van Druten, and was aided in her literary endeavors by writer A.J. Cronin.

She is perhaps best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a hugely popular childrens book that has been made into a string of very successful animated films by Walt Disney. She died in 1990.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read her best known play, Dear Octopus, recently, I'm going back and looking at any other of Smith's plays that I can find. This was her 4th work for the stage, produced in 1935, and her most successful one till that time. Taking place on one day in spring, it follows the five members of the Hilton family, as each, except for 15-year-old Ann (modeled on Smith herself as a young girl). gets entangles in romantic escapades.

It all turns out innocently, of course - but it is interesting that the father is 'concerned' about 17-year-old son Martin's relationship with his rather flighty friend, Alaistair - he compares his son to Noel Coward, so I'm sure the implication was about the love that dare not speak - and they are all very relieved when he takes up with the new neighbor girl, Joan, instead.

The other astonishing thing if that there are 8 fairly detailed sets across 9 scenes (the first and last scenes take place in the parent's bedroom - complete with twin beds!) - and one wonders how these were changed out quickly.

Oddly enough, it was first adapted by Hollywood in 1937, with Olivia de Haviland as older daughter Catherine, and then there was a German film adaptation done in 1956 entitled 'The First Day of Spring'.

[Tamsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can really feel Dodie in all of the characters - from Ann the poet/writer*, to Catherine the foolish young girl in love with a married man, to Dorothy talking with her friend Muriel about the play they saw that afternoon. I don't think I'll ever love Dodie's plays like I love her novels, but that's okay.

*Dodie confirms this herself! "'The only photograph in any of my plays is Ann in Call It A Day,' Dodie once told a reporter, 'who is myself in girlhood.'"

From Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith by Valerie Grove:

"Dodie's new play was finished at the gallop, and Call It A Day remains the frothiest of that run of early successes. Nothing she'd wrote, Dodie said, amused her as much. Call It A Day was the play she had started the previous year, in which all the action takes place, in accordance with Aristotelian convention, on one day, the first day of spring. It follows the members of a single family, the Hiltons, who are all in various states of temptation, proving the truth of the adage 'The first spring day is in the devil's pay.' Since Dodie had actually invented this saying herself, she was astonished to hear it quoted on the BBC years later as a famous old saw." (100)

"Call It A Day was a tremendous hit. It got ecstatic notices and ran for 500 performances at the Globe... The play achieved the longest run ever for a woman dramatist: fifteen months." (101-102)

Spoiler alert - her next play, Bonnet Over The Windmill, is her first setback (her first four plays being a huge success) and Bonnet ends up losing her investors money. You can purchase the play for 78 pounds online and you can't find it anywhere in my local libraries, so I'm skipping it and moving straight to Dear Octopus, her most famous play!