The Mitfords

Novelist. Communist. Duchess. Fascist. Nazi.

The real-life Mitfords were headline-grabbing upper-class English sisters who used their connections, wit, beauty, and fierce intelligence to become intimate with the men who power-brokered World War II. THE MITFORDS AT WAR is a timely exploration of what happens when a close-knit family is torn tragically apart by extreme politics.

 

THE SISTERS

 

Dark-haired, rosebud-mouthed DECCA (Jessica) is whip-smart and witty, winningly pert, passionate, and passionately bored with her life. She has embraced leftist politics, which puts her at odds with the rest of her aristocratic family. Her favorite sister is UNITY. Dreams of running away from home. Idolizes her second cousin ESMOND ROMILLY, whom she has never met, for his newsworthy schoolboy rebellion as recounted in his autobiography Out Of Bounds.

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UNITY, an extremely tall, regally beautiful Nordic blonde. Underneath her natural air of upper-class self-confidence, UNITY is self-conscious, easily hurt, congenitally bumptious, a misfit. She copes with her perceived outsiderhood by making a virtue of it; she lives to shock. Turned onto Fascism by DIANA, she becomes a Nazi and personal friend to HITLER. Her favorite sister is DECCA.

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NANCY, a tall, thin, sparkling, chic, dark-haired beauty with an irrepressible, often cutting sense of humor. Acclaimed author of frothy comic novels. NANCY’s speech is affectedly upper-class. Still lives at home, and is eaten up with jealousy of her even-more-beautiful, well-married sister DIANA.

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DIANA, tall, willowy, elegant, blond; a classical goddess come to life. Married to millionaire brewing heir Bryan Guinness, and mother to toddlers Jonathan and Desmond. A celebrated member of the Bright Young Things set, DIANA has a keen intelligence and a breathtaking sense of entitlement. Secretly involved with SIR OSWALD MOSLEY.

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DEBO (Deborah), a contented, attractive child, a lover of country sport and country life, whose looks suggest she will blossom into a striking dark-blond beauty. A natural peacemaker, the reserved and conventional DEBO is her parents’ favorite.

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THEIR SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

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Dark-haired, virile, with a moustache slightly more generous than HITLER’s, SIR OSWALD 

MOSLEY is a career politician with a conviction of his own magnificent destiny, entitled scion of a

titled family, and Olympic-level competitive fencer. Married to Lady Cynthia (“Cimmie”) Curzon but

a serial philanderer; currently involved with DIANA. Founder and leader of the British Union of

Fascists, a movement styled on those of Mussolini and HITLER.

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ESMOND ROMILLY, second cousin to the MITFORD SISTERS, has a wrestler’s build and

beige hair. In face and form, and with his air of dogged pugnacity, he resembles his uncle

WINSTON CHURCHILL as a young man. (It is rumored that CHURCHILL might be his

father.) An uncompromising, iron-hearted youth, ESMOND is almost completely fearless and

precociously self-reliant. ESMOND’s overriding political commitment is to the fight against

Fascism.

 

GILES ROMILLY, taller, slighter, more conventionally good-looking than his brother 

ESMOND, with dark hair. More introspective, the brother who considers—and therefore fears

—consequences. A precociously talented writer, GILES is bisexual, left-leaning, ironic,

intellectual, and in thrall to the emotional blackmail of his mother NELLIE.

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PETER RODD, upper-class, blond, handsome, and hunky. Brilliant linguist, know-it-all, celebrated

bore, self-regarding ne’er-do-well, carouser, and Rodd family black sheep, whose joking proposal of

marriage to NANCY seals his fate as MITFORD son-in-law. Compulsively unemployed.

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GASTON PALEWSKI, a stocky, pockmarked Frenchman of Polish-Jewish extraction, dark-haired,

with a toothbrush moustache. De Gaulle’s key aide and right-hand man, and part of the Free French

government-in-exile in London. Devoted to beautiful things—in particular, antiques, art, and women

(currently NANCY).

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.ADOLF HITLER, megalomaniacal, Jew-hating Chancellor of Germany

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CAST SIZE: 17

SETTING: THE MITFORDS AT WAR takes place from 1932-1941 in London, Munich, the South of France, New York City, Miami, and The White House

SCENIC REQUIREMENTS: Staircase, dummy piano, living-room furniture, projections

COSTUMING NOTES: 1930s gowns, street wear, and military uniforms

MUSICIANS: currently, just piano.