Stephen Joseph: Theatre Pioneer and Provocateur by Paul Elsam (review)

Stephen Joseph was a profoundly influential theatre practitioner. Indeed, when he died in 1967 at the tragically young age of 46, the London Times obituary referred to him as “the most successful missionary to work in the English theatre since the Second World War” (xi). Yet today his name and contributions are virtually unknown in the United States and mostly unrecognized in his native country, with one notable exception: a two-venue playhouse in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, founded by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, who named it after his mentor and friend. To date, only two sustained discussions of Joseph’s life and work exist: Terry Lane’s The Full Round: The Several Lives and Theatrical Legacy of Stephen Joseph (2006); and “The Joseph Years,” a chapter in Ian Watson’s 1988 Conversations with Ayckbourn. The latter is limited to Joseph’s influence on the young man who answered an ad for a stage manager job, while the former, although a useful and well-researched biography, dwells little on its subject’s profound influence on British theatre. In his introduction to Stephen Joseph: Theatre Pioneer and Provocateur Paul Elsam inquires: “Who is, or was, Stephen Joseph? And why should his name mean anything to students, educators, theatre-makers and audiences around the world in the twenty-first century?” “The short answer,” he goes on to say, “is that Joseph was a theatre all-rounder who, dying young, left behind him twin gifts: a radical legacy—still there but now obscured; and a print record of experimentation and provocation—still there, but now little read.” In this well-researched study, the author strives to offer “a fresh and deep reappraisal of Joseph’s work, and a thorough re-examination of his discoveries” (x)—which he does.

Of particular interest to scholars of twentieth-century British theatre is Elsam’s description of the fringe theatre movement of the 1950s, which also situates Joseph’s innovations in historical and cultural contests. Believing the established theatre to have grown conservative (artistically and politically), Joseph advocated replacing traditional proscenium theaters with open, more flexible spaces, ideally ones “in the round,” and expanding audience demographics by attracting people beyond those who frequented the West End. Elsam is particularly adept at describing how Joseph’s philosophies on staging and directing in flexible theatrical spaces forward his political ends of democratizing theatre in England. He weaves brief summaries of Joseph’s six published books with impressive amounts of incidental writing, such as excerpts from Joseph’s copious correspondence, including that with his most famous protégés, Ayckbourn, the renowned playwright and director, and Peter Cheeseman, a leading exponent of documentary drama. Although it is widely known that both worked in Joseph’s company—as writers, directors, actors, stage managers—no researcher until Elsam has examined the extent of Joseph’s influence on these two major British artists, each of whom would found a permanent theatre-in-the-round—Ayckbourn’s in Scarborough, Cheeseman’s in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Both continue to profoundly influence British theatre today.

Along with writing and staging his own plays, Joseph actively invited submissions by unknown playwrights, including his students. Despite positioning himself as a radical outsider, he also judiciously collaborated with those more “established” members of the theatre community who had easy access to new, high-quality writing, including from the nascent world of television drama. Additionally, he challenged members of his company to write their own plays—most famously Ayckbourn, whose first play, The Square Cat, resulted from the young actor’s dissatisfaction with the roles he was given. Joseph told him to write a play, give himself the lead, and if it had merit the Studio Theatre would produce it. He did and it did. Joseph also encouraged playwrights who had “fallen foul of the English theatre establishment” (68), notably Harold Pinter, whose first full-length play, The Birthday Party, opened in the West End in 1958 only to close after five performances, a casualty of abysmal reviews. The dejected playwright wrote to...