Tag: Gerry Raffles
Littlewood, Theatre Workshop and the Move to Theatre Royal, Stratford East
Interview with Nadine Holdsworth: Part 5
Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick. Her research has two distinct, but sometimes interconnected strands in Twentieth Century popular theatre practitioners and theatre and national identities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. She has worked particularly on Joan Littlewood and has written Joan Littlewood for the Routledge Performance Practitioners Series in 2006 and Joan Littlewood’s Theatre with Cambridge University Press in 2011.
email: n.holdsworth@warwick.ac.uk
Connections to the GCSE, AS and A level specifications
- Social, cultural, political and historical context
- Theatrical purpose
- Key collaborations with other artists
- Theatrical style
- Influence
- Significant moments in the development of theory and practice
- The relationship between actor and audience in theory and practice
PC: I know that she enjoyed touring, did this inform her relationship with space? Did they always have ambitions to be in one space?
NH: They were touring when Theatre Workshop formed in 1945 and they toured until the end of 1952. The ambition was always to try and reach this working class audience that would completely get what they were doing but it never really happened. It happened sometimes, but mostly not. They’re touring little theatres around the Lake District and then going up to Scotland, mainly travelling around the north. The decision to move to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East was really because they were poverty stricken. They were doing one night stands left, right and centre and not able to make a living; they were living this really hand to mouth existence. The opportunity at the Theatre Royal, Stratford came up and I’m not sure what the exact arrangements were but the theatre manager, Gerry Raffles, who was her partner by that stage led the move. But the company was reluctant as they saw it as a sell out, particularly Ewan MacColl and he didn’t go with them to Stratford East. He refused and as one of the founders of the company that was a big deal. His view was that the move to London would mean that they would then be courting the critics; they’d be really small fish in a big pond, having to play the game of the commercial theatre world. He believed they wouldn’t be reaching the broad working class audience that he was really keen to try and attract. The counter argument that Littlewood presented was that Stratford East is a working class community, so rather than going out and trying to reach those communities, those people, those audiences, let’s try and work within a community. She wanted to get that local working class community into that space – the continuous loop. They did a lot of work to try and achieve that: they made lots of connections with trade union organisations: getting write ups in the local newspapers; commissioned a local journalist, Anthony Nicholson to write about the local railway industry which was a big employer in the area, a play called Van Call. So, in terms of the space, that was the journey if you like.
PC: Did they venture out much during that time in Stratford East, back to the job centre queues?
NH: No not until that shift back to the work at the end in the late 1960s and early 70s and even then it was more about animating communities through fairs and fun palaces rather than political activism in the traditional sense.
PC: So how did they get people into this new theatre out in East London?
NH: There was a distinct body of work that was done around the classics including her productions of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson. Again that was about responding to what was going on at the time in terms of the productions of Shakespeare; it was the time of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. All very much about these heroic leading figures, about the beauty of the verse being very predominant. She wanted to bring the social guts back to Shakespeare and did these amazing productions: Richard II, Edward II, she did Arden of Faversham: a little known Renaissance play. Influenced by Adophe Appia, they were very stark visually: stark, plains of light and ramps. It was about bringing the social world of Shakespeare into play; it was about political intrigue; it was about power and who has power, who doesn’t have power; how do people lose their humanity in the search for power. It was about coming out of the Second World War and responding to those big political ideas. Doing Macbeth, for Littlewood, becomes even more pertinent at the time. But she sees all these very glossy, glamorous productions of Shakespeare and thinks: “No that’s not it! Absolutely no! That is not what this is!” She was interested in the guts the gore and personal, political ambitions. She wanted to get that social world in with the Shakespearean productions that she did. Then there was another shift: she had got a good reputation for putting on these really imaginative and creative and vibrant theatrical pieces. So writers started sending her unsolicited scripts, she got sent 19 year old Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey and she got sent Brendan Behan’s The Hostage and The Quare Fellow and then local writers as well – You Won’t Always Be On Top was by Henry Chapman an actor who had started to do a bit with Theatre Workshop. It evolves, if you like, rather than there being a conscious decision to say I’m now going to do my Shakespeare. It just evolves.
Summary
- The decision to move to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East was really because they were poverty stricken.
- The company was reluctant as they saw moving to London as a sell out, particularly Ewan MacColl and he didn’t go with them to Stratford East.
- Stratford East was a working class community, so rather than going out and trying to reach those communities, those people, those audiences, Littlewood wanted to try and work within a community.
- She wanted to bring the social guts back to Shakespeare and did these amazing productions influenced by Adophe Appia, they were very stark visually.
- Writers started sending Littlewood unsolicited scripts: she got sent 19 year old Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey and she got sent Brendan Behan’s The Hostage.
Littlewood’s Continuous Loop and the Authentic Voice
Interview with Nadine Holdsworth: Part 3
Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick. Her research has two distinct, but sometimes interconnected strands in Twentieth Century popular theatre practitioners and theatre and national identities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. She has worked particularly on Joan Littlewood and has written Joan Littlewood for the Routledge Performance Practitioners Series in 2006 and Joan Littlewood’s Theatre with Cambridge University Press in 2011.
email: n.holdsworth@warwick.ac.uk
Connections to the GCSE, AS and A level specifications
- Social, cultural, political and historical context
- Key collaborations with other artists
- Influence
- Methods of creating, developing, rehearsing and performing
- Theatrical style
- Innovations
- The relationship between actor and audience in theory and practice
PC: What was her existence during the Second World War? Did she continue making theatre?
NH: She was making a living by doing lots of radio. There is an early period when she went to Manchester because she’d met a guy called Archie Harding at RADA. He’d come and examined a verse speaking competition that she’d won. So she went off to search for this guy and he offered her work at the BBC. This led to her doing quite a few documentary pieces; most famously a piece called The Classic Soil. She’d go out, again you can see real links with the theatre, she’d go out and interview ordinary people in their ordinary working or living environments and just talk to them. She had a big thing about wanting to hear the authentic working class voice.
PC: How common was the documentary style that presented the authentic working class voice?
NH: Not common at all; it was a really new thing; it was again with Ewan MacColl. We mustn’t underestimate the importance of him in that early period. The two of them were totally in cahoots and developing things. It is worth looking up The Classic Soil.
PC: This search for an authentic voice and specifically an authentic working class voice in Joan Littlewood’s work, along with Erwin Piscator’s Living Newspaper technique and Peter Cheeseman’s Stoke documentaries, are seen as early examples of what has become known as verbatim theatre. Joan’s legacy can be seen in Alecky Blythe’s Little Revolution or Dan Murphy’s new play Carry on Jaywick. Are there examples in her theatre work that were influenced by the radio documentary form?
NH: Yeah, I think definitely that idea of presenting the authentic voice is a root of modern verbatim theatre. She felt the authentic working class voice wasn’t being heard on the British stages at that time so it became really important to her. A good example is a play called You Won’t Always Be On Top (Henry Chapman), which was set on a building site. It was one of the plays that she did in the 1950s in which she collaborated very closely with the writer and the script was evolving in rehearsals, which happened a lot with her work. She took all the performers off to a building site and they had to learn how to build a wall because they had to build one in the production every night. She had this incredible replica of a building site on stage. But more important than the visual authenticity, was the focus on patterns in the voice. Joan wanted to have that very real quality of back and forth banter that happens in lots of contexts, but this building site in particular. I think that idea of trying to document and record and authenticate the voice does have a line through to verbatim theatre today.
PC: In terms of records of those things. Is there the play text?
NH: Yes there is the play text of You Won’t Always Be On Top and there are some great photographic images as well. Another is The Long Shift, a play she wrote with Gerry Raffles, who became her partner.
Courtesy of Theatre Royal Stratford East Archive Collection.
It is about miners down a mine shaft so you see that attempt at visual authenticity there.
This is the set for You Won’t Always Be On Top.
Courtesy of Theatre Royal Stratford East Archive Collection.
You can see she is trying to create a truthful recreation, a very naturalistic looking environment.
PC: She is not usually associated with that style of work.
NH: No but it was a major part of what she did. I think that is one of the things that is really interesting about her: there is no set style. She believed that theatre should always be organic, made in the moment.
PC: The authentic voice seems to be an important debate at the moment, in the theatre and broader society. Theatre is accused of being too London centric, whilst the country, post-EU Referendum, as a whole is suffering a disconnect with working class people, particularly illuminated by the Labour Party’s current identity crisis. So a hypothetical question: How might Joan Littlewood respond to modern Britain in terms of creating her theatre?
NH: She referred to the idea of the continuous loop between the theatre, the audience and the local community. So I think it would be interesting to think about what the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, has become. When Littlewood was there it was a staunchly working class environment predominantly. It is now an incredibly multi-ethnic community and the theatre has evolved to reflect that community. Theatre today, like in Littlewood’s day, is predominantly a white middle class pursuit but at Theatre Royal, Stratford East it absolutely isn’t. It is one of the most diverse audiences and I think that is because they work with that ethos of the continuous loop. You have to go out into the community, find out about the people, who the people are, what their narratives are, what the voices are, what the stories are that they want telling. Then you go back into your theatres and you make that work, you commission it, you make it.
Summary
- Ewan MacColl was an important part of Joan Littlewood’s life and career in that early period. We mustn’t underestimate the importance of him.
- Littlewood had a big thing about wanting to hear the authentic working class voice. She’d go out and interview ordinary people in their ordinary working or living environments and just talk to them.
- The idea of trying to document and record and authenticate the voice does have a line through to verbatim theatre today.
- You Won’t Always Be On Top and The Long Shift had a set that tried to be a truthful recreation, a very naturalistic looking environment.
- The continuous loop: you have to go out into the community, find out about the people. Then you go back into your theatres and you make work in response to what you find.
