The River Line

Synopsis

The River Line has as its central theme the idea of responsibility, particularly the responsibility for action forced upon peace-loving men who find themselves living in an age of violence during the War. The name ?the River Line' was given to one of those networks of communication which enabled Allied airman to get home through Belgium, France and the Pyrenees. The organisers always feared that they might be receiving ?a false Englishman' - that is, a secret agent introduced by the enemy into the Line in order to betray it. The story is rooted in this fear. Of the group of officers, American and English, concealed in Marie Chassaigne s granary, one was killed with terrible suddenness. Who was he? Where did the responsibility lie? A young American, having played his part in the adventure, comes to England in 1947 to visit his surviving friends who shared it. As a double story of 1943 and 1947 unfolds, his discovery of the whole truth affects his relationships with two women and his understanding of himself. It seems that that the present is bound to the past in that kind of tragic entanglement which everywhere afflicts the modern conscience. The solution lies in pardon and release.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 7 October 2011

After the exciting rediscovery of Emlyn Williams’s Accolade at the Finborough last year, here comes an even more revelatory excavation from the same period: Charles Morgan’s The River Line (1952) is a brilliantly constructed, almost mystical, story of love, guilt and reconciliation at a Gloucestershire dinner party in 1947.

The first and third acts are separated by a flashback to a country granary near Toulouse in 1943, where a group of soldiers are following the “river line” – the clandestine escape route across occupied France – helped by the Resistance.

Not only is Morgan’s writing expertly high-flown – with great slabs of poetry included – his plotting is superb; he’d “tried out” the story in a 1947 novel, but hit on the idea of this gripping second act, with its murderous climax, as an animated anecdotal interlude between the Gloucestershire scenes.

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Latest User Review

Steve - 20 October 2011:

Cannot recommend this highly enough. Never been so enthralled by theatre, and time just flew by. By the end I wanted to hug them all and say thank you! Felt like leaving a huge tip`1...

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