Off-Centre Stages: Fringe Theatre at the Open Space and the Round House 1968-1983 (review)

How accurate or reliable is the newspaper theatre review as source in historical research? Taken as a whole, it may be argued, the reviews, written to offer guidance to the contemporary newspaper reader, provide a useful picture of the performances observed. In her meticulous and scholarly account of the histories of two ground-breaking theatres - the Open Space and the Round House, between the years 1968 and 1983 - Jennie Schiele makes regular use of the newspaper theatre critics of the time, often quoting a phrase or sentence from their columns as the principal means by which an impression of the experience for the audience of seeing the work is given. These round-ups of the critical reception of the work are accompanied by a wealth of source material, generated within the theatres - much of it gleaned from the archives of the two theatres, which the author had the "good fortune to 'discover.'"(xi). These archives have now been placed in the care of the Theatre Museum, where they are in the process of being catalogued.

Moving smoothly back and forth through these brimming archives, the author succeeds in creating lively portraits of two epoch-making theatres at a time of great innovation and change. As Charles Marowitz, the founder of the Open Space theatre, prophetically announced in 1972:

Something, I'm not sure what exactly, happened in '68. It had to do with the students in Paris, with Dubcek, with the Chicago riots at the Democratic convention. It's going to continue sending out its waves until about 1978 , I calculate. At that time I'd like to think that the Open Space will be closed and that something else will have taken its place.

(Qtd. on 191)

In the event, as Schiele comments, "[I]t had a good ten years, with two more in decline - a long stretch for a fringe theatre" (191). During that period a staggering number of plays were produced - more than 175 are listed as an appendix - and many of the writers and directors starting careers that were significantly to influence the course of theatre history over the following thirty years.

Amid this torrent of talent and ground-breaking activity, Marowitz himself directed a number of productions, including his controversial Shakespeare "cut-ups" or "collages": A Macbeth, An Othello, The Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Variations on the Merchant of Venice. As Marowitz commented, these productions did not simply attempt to provide a different perspective on well-known plays but rather sought to confront "the intellectual substructure of the plays, an attempt to test or challenge, revoke or destroy the intellectual foundation which makes a classic the formidable thing it has become" (qtd. on 15).

This somewhat confrontational spirit underpinned not only Marowitz's approach to the classics but also his approach to running the Open Space theatre as a whole. A stream of articles, letters, policy statements, and program notes emanated from the theatre, excoriating the theatre establishment of the day for its complacency and setting out a radical alternative agenda for these small inauspicious basement premises in the Tottenham Court Road. Meanwhile, at the Round House, where Arnold Wesker provided the initial energy and impetus for the acquisition of the building for Centre 42, it was the unique properties of the building that soon began to hold sway, often determining which work was successfully staged there and which work which struggled for definition within its cavernous spaces. One of the casualties of the space was arguably Wesker's own production of Friends, which plunged the enterprise into further financial difficulties and inspired the wounded Wesker to write an analysis of the critical process, "Casual Condemnations," for New Theatre Quarterly in 1971.

In an intriguing afterword to her book, Schiele visits the Round House, witnessing the RSC Season there in 2002, and it is evident how...