The Making of Theatrical Reputations: Studies from the Modern London Theatre

Introduction

Introduction in the wings: mediation in the theatre Who is the true producer of the value of the work—the painter or the dealer, the writer or the publisher, the playwright or the theatre manager? —Pierre Bourdieu, 1980 When I began thinking about the puzzling oscillations in the theatrical reputations of specific events, theatre companies, and individual playwrights reflected in various studies of the modern London theatre, Pierre Bourdieu’s intriguing question served as my cue. Who are the figures— individuals or organizations—that authorize theatre companies or playwrights and influence their position on the cultural map? What are the strategies employed by these figures to endow the theatrical work with value and to make it more accessible to audiences? What are the channels they employ to introduce, promote, or evaluate the work? What sorts of patterns of interaction are established among these authorizing figures, and how do they affect the perceived value of the work? What role do the playwrights themselves play in the reception and perception of their works? In sum, how do these authorizing figures and these configurations of interrelated parties, modes, or mechanisms that help organize what I call the processes of mediation operate in the theatre and how does mediation influence the status of an event or the position of a company or playwright in the cultural or historical memory? In setting out to answer these questions, I offer four case studies from the modern London theatre concentrating on the 1950s and 1960s. The first centers on a specific event—the English Stage Company’s production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger; the second deals with the trajectory of a specific theatre company—the Theatre Workshop—and in particular with the company’s first decade at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London ; the third and fourth focus on the careers of individual playwrights— John Arden and Harold Pinter, respectively. These four case studies primarily serve to illustrate the various processes of mediation. Accordingly, in all four cases I present the workings of various individuals or organizations that act as mediators. Mediation in the theatre encompasses theatre reviewers, journalists, interviewers (in the press or on radio or television), funding bodies, censors, publishers, critics and academics—those who describe, comment, judge, assist, reward, restrict, support,promote,evaluate,orassess(orreassess)theatricalworks(playsor productions) and theatre creators. Mediation is also practiced by the participants in theatre production, such as producers, managers, and artistic directors of a given theatre company, as well as directors, playwrights, actors , stage designers, and members of a theatre company’s council or committees .Amongthosewhopartakeinonewayoranotherintheatricalproduction , the role of mediation is ascribed here to those who enhance the value of a work as a result of one or more of the following: their function as decision makers (e.g., artistic directors, producers), their involvement as theatre practitioners (e.g., directors, actors), their prominent standing, or their active promotion of the theatrical enterprise. Promotional mediation is also often carried out directly through participation in theatre festivals , advertisement, press releases, and other media interventions. Let me clarify at the outset that I do not view the practice of mediation as resulting from arbitrary decisions by powerful individuals or organizations ; nor do I perceive it as motivated by a conspiracy of forces operating solely in the name of power or profit. Rather, I perceive those who act as mediators to be driven, more often than not, by their own current conceptions of artistic quality and merit, in addition to their ideological or political orientations, and sometimes possibly also by revised perceptions of the relevant sociocultural issues. The subject of this book is the making of artistic reputations. In considering the contributing roles of the various participants in theatre production I examine how artistic events, companies, works, and writers are constructed by critics, academics, media, institutions, funding agencies, and governmental decisions. I investigate the methods, aims, assumptions , and modes of description and analysis, as well as the objectives and policies of those who partake in theatre production, and the promotional means employed by them. Drawing upon previous scholarship, I examine how the theatrical works were received; the ways that theatre reviewers, critics, academics, newspapers, journals, and other media, as well as organizations , contributed both separately and collectively to the perception of the theatrical creators and their work. I investigate the role of the theatre creators themselves in shaping the reception and perception of their work and I explore the effect of...