That wide-open eye called imagination

“Imaginationis the wide-open eye which leads us always to see truth more vividly.” –Christopher Fry

 

Bornin England on this date in 1907, Fry was a multiple award winning poet andplaywright.  He is best known for his verse dramas, notably TheLady's Not for Burning, voted by critics as one of the 100 best plays ofthe 20th Century.  It has been revived a number oftimes and also made into a major movie.   His One ThingMore, a play about the 7th century Northumbrian monk Cædmon, who wassuddenly given the gift of composing song, also won wide recognition.

 

Henot only focused on his own works but also translated some of the better knownplays from other nations.  Among them were Norwegianplaywright Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, and French playwrightEdmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and TheFantastiks, all widely popularized through Fry’s stageproductions.

 Fry wrote or translated three dozen major worksand was voted the most popular playwright in England on manyoccasions.  He said that perhaps his popularity also was due to hisability to write for and about ordinary people and their lives.

 

“Inmy plays I want to look at life - at the commonplace of existence - as if wehad just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.”