"Howard Brenton a Critical Study of the Plays." Richard Peter Boon
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
"HOWARD BRENTON A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE PLAYS." RICHARD PETER BOON DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE Submitted for the degree of Ph.D., December 1986 RICHARD PETER BOON "HOWARD BRENTON: A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE PLAYS." SUMMARY. The subject of this thesis is the plays of Howard Brenton, published and unpublished, from 1965 to 1973. The period is identified as the writer's "apprenticeship". An Introduction provides a short biography of the writer's early life and accounts of his first, now suppressed, works for the stage. Chapter One examines his involvement with the Fringe theatre of the late nineteen-sixties. The short plays produced for the Brighton Combination and Bradford University are considered in the light of how style and form evolved largely out of practical circumstances. Chapter Two describes the impact of contemporary political unrest on Brenton's attitude to his work. The plays Revenge and Christie in Love are discussed with reference to their . - production by the Royal Court Theatre and by Portable Theatre, which are identified as key agencies in furthering the writer's career. Chapter Three deals with more Fringe work, charting the playwright's growing doubts about the efficacy of such work, and his increasing assimilation of new political thought. In Chapter Four, Brenton's increasing desire to write for the bigger stages and audiences of the established theatre is discussed. The chapter concentrates heavily though by no means exclusively on Hitler Dances as both a summary of the Fringe work and the progenitor of the later, full-scale, "epic" plays. Chapter Five is concerned with Magnificence as the first of those plays and the first to be ~roduced on the main stage of a mainstream London theatre. Particular reference is made to its troubled production history. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my supervisor, Dr Philip Roberts, for his help and encouragement. In particular, he has freely made his own research available to me where it has crossed the path of my study. My greatest debt of gratitude must belo~g to Howard Brenton. He has been most generous in giving me access to unpublished work and early drafts of published work. He has also given me foresight of introductions to published work. In formal interview, correspondence and private conversation he has been helpful and supportive to a degree I could hardly have anticipated .. R.P.B. December 1986 i PREFACE The subject of this thesis is the plays of Howard Brenton from 1965 to 1973: from his earliest work to Magnificence, his first full-length, original play to be performed on the main stage of an established London theatre. In that time, Brenton developed from a novice writer at the University of Cambridge to a leading dramatist of his generation, and one of the first of that generation to make the move from the Fringe to the established theatre. He has subsequently become, for many, one of the most important contemporary British playwrights. Throughout his career his work has attracted controversy and his critical reception has been mixed. The period I have identified may be thought of as the first phase of Brenton's career. This phase saw produced some twenty-two performed pieces of work. These comprise "Ladder of Fools" and "Winter, Daddykins", 1965; "It's My Criminal", 1966; Gum and Goo, Heads, The Education of Skinny Spew, Revenge and Christie in Love, 1969; Wesley and "Fruit", 1970; Scott of the Antarctic or What God Didn't See and "A Sky Blue Life: Scenes after Maxim Gorki", 1971; Hitler Dances and "How Beautiful with Badges", 1972; "Mug" and Magnificence, 1973. In addition to these original pieces, three adaptations were produced: "Gargantua", 1968; "Measure for Measure: ii A Comedy", 1972; and "The Screens", 1973. Brenton was also involved in three collaborative projects - Lay By, 1971; "England's Ireland", 1972; and "A Fart for Europe", 1973 - and wrote two screenplays: a television play, "Lushly", 1972; and a film, "Skin Flicker", 1973. (The List of Plays below has fuller details of this work and includes the rest of Brenton's work to date. ) Of this work, the first three plays are regarded by the author as novice pieces and are no longer available for performance. Of the remainder, only ten plays have so far been published. In the case of unpublished work I have consulted typescripts from a variety of sources: these are indicated in the Bibliography. I have been unable to trace a copy of "The Screens". With the exception of "Measure for Measure" (Northcott Theatre, Exeter) and Magnificence (main stage, Royal Court Theatre, London) none of the stage plays after 1967 found a home in the established theatre, although it should perhaps be noted that the novice plays, "Ladder of Foo1s","Winter, Daddykins", and "It's My Criminal" were produced at, respectively, the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, Nottingham Playhouse (as part of a triple bill) and - as a Sunday-night performance - on the main stage of the Royal Court Theatre. Two unperformed pieces were also produced during the period: a stage play, "The Plague Garden", 1967, suppressed by the author; and a radio play, "Government Property", 1972, commissioned by the BBC but never recorded. iii I have had access to typescripts of both. The body of work in toto may be regarded as Brenton's apprenticeship, and it is in this light that I have made my study of it. Throughout I have concentrated on those plays which seem to me to carry the burden of Brenton's development as a dramatist, irrespective of whether they have been published. Inevitably, this means closest attention is paid to the stage plays of his single authorship. I have considered the work which falls outside this definition only in terms of the contribution it makes to the central thrust of the writer's growth: for example, I have avoided lengthy discussions of the nature of collaborative writing in favour of assessing Brenton's reasons for participating in such work and, most important, what he takes from it. However, I have provided accounts of all the plays, and particularly of those which have not been published. I have tried, too, always to relate my findings to later work, whilst avoiding the temptation to see in every line or image the seeds of some future development. My aim has been to establish why Brenton has become the kind of writer he is by examining his earlier work in the historical, cultural and practical context of the contemporary British theatre. I have considered him as a leading member of. the so-called "second wave" of new British playwrights, tracing his development from a writer of "joke" plays, aimed largely at challenging iv audience assumptions about theatre, to the key role he has played in bringing on to the established stages a new kind of "British epic" theatre. Above all I have tried to show how Brenton has always been an essentially practical writer, evolving his craft through a process of experiment and self-education, writing to and for the human, technical and financial resources of the theatres that have produced his work, however limited or abundant those resources may have been. I treat the work chronologically, except in rare instances where clarity is better served by seeing a particular strand through to its conclusion. My division of the material reflects the pattern of Brenton's career, because although there is a general movement towards longer, larger and more complex plays, there are also periods when there occur small "explosions" of shorter, more diversified work. I have allowed the structure of my thesis to reflect this, rather than impose or imply a spurious neatness or coherence. v THE PLAYS OF HOWARD BRENTON* "Ladder of Fools" First performance 1965, A.D.C. Theatre, Cambridge. "Winter, Daddykins" First performance 1965, Lantern Theatre, Dublin. "It's My Criminal" First performance 21 August 1966, Royal Court Theatre, London. Gum and Goo First performance January 1969, Brighton Combination. Heads First performance June 1969\ University of Bradford. The Education of Skinny Spew First performance June 1969, University of Bradford. Revenge First performance 2 September 1969, Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London. Christie in Love First performance 23 November 1969, Oval House, London. Wesley First performance 27 February 1970, Eastbrook Hall, Bradford. * It has not been possible to establish the precise dates of some of the early work. I give the fullest details available. vi "Fruit" First performance 28 September 1970, Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London. Scott of the Antarctic or What God Didn't See First performance February 1971, Mecca Ice Rink, Bradford. "A Sky Blue Life: Scenes after Maxim Gorki" First performance 18 November 1971, Open Space, London. Hitler Dances First performance 20 January 1972, Traverse Theatre Club, Edinburgh. "How Beautiful with Badges" First performance 2 May 1972, Open Space, London. "Mug" First performance 9 June 1973, Inter-Cities Conference, Manchester. Magnificence First performance 28 June 1973, Royal Court Theatre, London. The Churchill Play First performance 8 May 1974, Nottingham Playhouse. "Government Property" First performance 1975, Aarhus Theatre, Aarhus, Denmark. Weapons of Happiness First performance 14 July 1976, National Theatre, London. vii Epsom Downs First performance 8 August 1977, Round House, London. Sore Throats: An intimate play in two acts First performance 8 August 1979, The Warehouse, London. The Romans in Britain First performance 16 October 1980, National Theatre, London. Thirteenth Night. A dream play First performance 2 July 1981, The Warehouse, London. Subsequently broadcast 4 December 1983, B.B.C. Radio. The Genius First performance 8 September 1983, Royal Court Theatre, London. Bloody Poetry First performance 1 October 1984, Haymarket Theatre, Leicester. ADAPTATIONS "Gargantua" After Rabe1ais. First performance 1968, Brighton Combination.