A Last Look Round the English Theatre

A Last Look Round the English Theatre E. Martin Browne It is with regret that I stop looking round for Drama Survey; and my regret is all the greater because in the last year our theatre has shown a heartening capacity for self-renewal. Its life outside London has become more vigorous; while the fate of the big old theatres that supplied mass entertainment before the mass media is being considered at government level, the new medium-sized civic theatres are mostly flourishing and producing much new work. The subsidized theatres are doing this too: and while one may not always feel that they achieve a sound balance of judgment between what has immediate entertainment value (and should be the commercial thea­ tre’s business) and what has more lasting significance, the mixture keeps their work full of life which flows also into their revivals. All these companies are also going outside their own buildings, to serve young people or to tour the rest of Britain. London has its proper share of small experimental houses, and so have some of the other cities, notably Edinburgh with the Traverse which has sparked off a number of other ventures. And as we shall see, experiment has not been entirely confined to them. It is several months since my last “look,” so many indeed that the program of the coming summer’s Chichester Festival is already an­ nounced. It contains some outstandingly attractive items, most notably Margaret Leighton and John Clements (who has established a super­ lative standard as Director) as Antony and Cleopatra. There is also Maggie Smith in Pinero’s The Magistrate and The Country Wife (bewitching casting!) and Topol in The Caucasian Chalk Circle. But it is not my business to detail coming delights to aspiring visitors, but to look back at last summer. This too was a program of distinc­ tion. Peter Ustinov appeared in a new play The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, which I found sadly repetitive and got bored with, though many did not share my disappointment. Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of our Teeth was translated from Atlantic City to the near­ by seaside resort of Brighton: it sounds a good idea, but fantasy must be based on the particular details of real life if it is to make a success­ ful jump off the ground, and the Englishing of Wilder’s dialogue robbed it of the necessary verisimilitude. It was a colorful romp, but Wilder’s point got lost; and the device of presenting the play as if it were being made into a television film introduced a second set of interjections from actors and director which cut across Wilder’s origi133 134 Comparative Drama nal ones. The performance was brisk and strong but heavy-handed: a typical example might be Millicent Martin’s Sabina with a floormop where Vivien Leigh had a feather duster. The Tempest fared much better, being allowed to speak for itself. Ralph Koltai gave it a decor all in white and shiny synthetic fabrics, which he is particularly adept at using to achieve a transparent effect; and the Ariel that he and Richard Kane created was the most credible executor of Prospero’s charms that I have ever seen. The effect was added to by John Clements’ Prospero, with his matter-of-fact delivery covering deep feeling. This worked less well with Caliban (Clive Reveil recalling an early slave rather than a primitive being), since it emphasized the overbearing attitude which Shakespeare has sug­ gested but which is no more acceptable now than the behavior of the “ Christians” in The Merchant to Shylock. But this was a minor blemish on a good production. O f the four, ,the show which this time moved to London was The Cocktail Party, revived with Alec Guinness not only in the part he took in my original production (but never played in London) but also as director. It was a bold move to stage a play which Eliot wrote so deliberately for the cosy proscenium on the vast open spaces of Chi­ chester. Guinness made it work well, both by adding much more movement than the play demands, especially in the duologues, and...