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BACK TO METHUSELAH AND THE BIRMINGHAM REPERTORY COMPANY I IN ENGLAND~ Back to Methuselah was first presented in 1923, by Barry Jackson! at the Repertory Theatre, Birmingham. With this production, Barry Jackson and Shaw became closely associated in a series of Shaw productions that led to the inauguration of the Malvern Festival in 1929. The Repertory Theatre Company had frequently performed plays by Shaw since the successful Rice-Ayliff production of Candida,2 but there was no personal contact with Shaw until H. K. Ayliff, who was to be the producer of Back to Methuse1ah~ presented his-production of Heartbreak House3 at the Repertory Theatre, Birmingham on 3rd March, 1923 (23 performances). Shaw himself explains what occurred: ~'I was induced, on some pretext, to attend a performance [of Heartbreak House] at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Here, at the end of the performance, I was accosted by a strange young man who seemed to have some grudge against me which good manners were obliging him to conceal. He said he was Barry Jackson. I had never heard of Barry Jackson, and possibly betrayed that fact unguardedly. I found out afterwards that he had been producing my plays for years, in some case giving the first performance , only to see that distinction ascribed to others in my published records. My secretary had arranged all these exploits as a matter of routine without calling my attention to them.«I felt my way cautiously, gathering that he had built the theatre and owned it, until he said that he wanted to produce Methuselah. I asked him was he mad. He intimated that though not sane enough to keep out of theatre management he could manage more or less lucidly. I demanded further whether he wished his wife and children to die in the workhouse. He replied that he was pot married. "I began to scent a patron. ~iIow much a year are you out of pocket by this culture theatre of yours? I said. He named an annual sum that would have sufficed to support fifty laborers and their families. I remarked that this was not more than it would cost him 1. Sir Barry Vincent Jackson. Kt. (created 1925); born in Binningham in 1879. Founder of the Pilgrim Players in 1907. Founder and Governing Director of Binningham Repertory Theatre. Took over -the Court Theatre, London in 1924, and the lCingsway Theatre in 1925. Provided the annual productions at the Malvern Festival 1929-1937. 2. Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The first night was on 1st March, 1913. There were six revivals of this production and a total of 55 performances. 3. World premiere by the Theatre Guild of New York at the Garrick Theatre, New York, U.S.A., lOth November, 1920. The play was first presented in England by J. B. Fagan at the Court Theatre, London. 18th October, 1921. Note that the production of Back to MethuseZah in Binningham (as in New York) was consequent upon a successful production of Heartbreak House. 115 116 MODERN DRAMA September to keep a thousand ton steam yacht. He said a theatre was better fun than a steam yacht, but said it in the tone of a man who could afford a steam yacht. "That settled the matter. The impossible had become possible. I handed over Methuselah; and the upshot was a production with a cast of provincial nobodies now famous as Edith Evans, Gwen Ffrangcon Davies, Eileen Beldon, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Scott Sunderland: in short, a cast unattainable in London, with Paul Shelving to design the scenes and dresses, and H. K. Ayliff to d· t "4 rrec. Mrs. Ayliff has maintained that the idea of a Birmingham production of Back to Methuselah originated with her husband, the late H. K. Ayliff.5 In 1923 when Ayliff suggested a production of Shaw's Pentateuch ,

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