Theatre: the Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings

Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings

‘Saint- Denis had a clairvoyant divination into the soul of acting’ – Lord Olivier ‘His inﬂ uence on all of us has been tremendous’ – Sir Alec Guinness ‘A great director, a great artist, a great man’ – Sir Michael Redgrave

Michel Saint-Denis was one of twentieth-century theatre’s most inﬂ uen- tial directors and theorists. This book combines his seminal Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style with material from Training for the Theatre, newly edited to create a work that moves seamlessly from theory to practice.

• Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style collects ﬁ ve of Saint-Denis’s key lectures, given during his time in America, and perfectly encompasses his synergy of classical theatre and modern realism. • Training for the Theatre is a key practical resource for actors, directors, and teachers alike. It covers crucial areas such as understanding a play’s context, training schedules, improvisation, and dealing with stage space, as well as a section on Saint-Denis’s use of masks in actor training.

Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings beneﬁ ts from Jane Baldwin’s new biographical introduction and annotations, that put Saint- Denis into context for a contemporary audience. It brings a wealth of inspirational material to both the rehearsal space and the classroom.

Michel Saint-Denis was one of the pre-eminent theatrical theorists of the twentieth century. Aside from his contributions to acting, directing, teaching, and writing, he also founded theatre schools in London, Montreal, Strasbourg, and New York.

Jane Baldwin is a leading expert on Saint-Denis. She is a theatre historian at the Boston Conservatory, and author of Michel Saint-Denis and the Shaping of the Modern Actor. Routledge Theatre Classics

The Routledge Theatre Classics series brings some of the theatrical world’s seminal texts to a new generation. Drawn from Routledge’s extensive archives, including the renowned Theatre Arts imprint, each volume has received expert editorial attention to update it for today’s reader. This collection brings the theatre of the twentieth century into the spotlight of the twenty-ﬁ rst.

Titles include:

On the Art of the Theatre Edward Gordon Craig, edited by Franc Chamberlain A prescient vision of the state of theatre from one of its great modernis- ers, still bearing huge inﬂ uence almost a century after it was written.

Theatre Arts on Acting Edited by Laurence Senelick A compendium of articles from the pages of Theatre Arts Magazine, with contributions from John Gielgud, Michael Chekhov, Konstantin Stanis- lavsky, and Lee Strasberg among others.

Stanislavsky in Focus (2nd edition) Sharon M. Carnicke A crucial exploration of one of theatre’s towering ﬁ gures. Dispels the misconceptions that dog his teachings and explains the truth behind the myth.

Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings Michel Saint-Denis, edited and introduced by Jane Baldwin Combines Saint- Denis’s two major works, moving seamlessly from theory to practice and addressing everything from actor training to the synergy of modern and classical theatre. Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings

Michel Saint- Denis

Edited and introduced by Jane Baldwin First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Dr Jane Baldwin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Saint-Denis, Michel, 1897–1971 Theatre: the rediscovery of style and other writings / Michel Saint-Denis; edited by Jane Baldwin p. cm. First work originally published: New York, 1960, under the title: Theatre. 2nd work originally published: New York, 1982, under the title: Training for the theatre. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Theater. 2. Drama. 3. Acting—Study and teaching. I. Baldwin, Jane. II. Saint-Denis, Michel, 1897–1971 Theatre. III. Saint-Denis, Michel, 1897–1971 Training for the theatre. IV. Title. PN2037.S29 2008 792—dc22 2008010332 ISBN 0-203-89089-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–45047–0 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–45048–9 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0– 415–45047–8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0– 415–45048–5 (pbk) Contents

Foreword by Sir Peter Hall vii Illustration credits xi Prologue by Jane Baldwin 1

PART I The classical theatre 21 1 The classical French tradition: contradictions and contributions 23

PART II Classical theatre and modern realism 39 2 Style and reality 41 3 Style and stylisation 55 4 Style in acting, directing, and designing 68 5 Training for the theatre: the Old Vic School 82 Illustrations 97

PART III Acting guidelines: excerpts from Training for the Theatre 107 6 Guiding principles: the progression of the training 111 7 The actor’s techniques: physical and vocal expression 118 8 The imaginative background 146 9 Silent acting: improvisation 156

Appendix: Introduction to the ﬁ rst edition of Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style by Sir Laurence Olivier 191 Index 195

Foreword Sir Peter Hall

Michel Saint-Denis’s life was a quest for truth in the theatre. Readers of this book will fi nd that the pattern of his life refl ected that quest. He lived not by fi xed principles, but by often ambiguous and contradictory responses to differing circumstances. For Michel, his own contradictions were opportunities for renewal and continuing growth. Even ‘truth’ – his key word for praise and achieve- ment – was in some sense ambiguous. What can be said to be ‘true’ about the theatre? The actor is dressed in somebody else’s clothes, saying somebody else’s words, and asking the audience to make believe with him. I always insisted to Michael that the word ‘credible’ is more accurate and true – an easier way for an audience to imagine with the actor. But ‘truth’ sounded more compelling in his thick French accent. Who was this man really? He was a person of extreme contradiction, an intellectual whose work was instinctive; a paysan who by his very bearing and intelligence seemed an aristocrat; a radical who was passion- ate to conserve the past; a man of control who could yet fi ght recklessly for his beliefs; sceptical and responsible; ironic and dedicated. I can hear Michel laugh at my inability to categorise him. He was a Frenchman whose infl uence on British theatre directly changed the way most of us work. Four major companies – the Royal Court, the Royal National Theatre, the English National Opera, and the Royal Shake- speare Company – have all been infl uenced by his beliefs, and inspired by his passions. As I remember the man of the theatre, I also remember that in the War years he turned to what was then more important than any play-acting. Michel was Head of the French Section of the BBC, and, as the legendary Jacques Duchesne, spoke almost every evening to his countrymen in the name of Free France. This combination of perception, civilisation, and sense of the value of human communication (which is still remembered in France) gave courage and hope. This ‘truth’ did much to eradicate the lies of Nazi propaganda. My personal debt to Michel is enormous. In 1961, at my invitation, viii Foreword he and Peter Brook joined me as directors of the newly founded Royal Shakespeare Company. We all had a sense that we were beginning something that could take the Shakespeare tradition into a new era. The company was young, messy, bustling, adventurous – indeed all over the place. And Michel, a man of great wisdom, decided to join this adventure because, I believe, many of his fervently held beliefs were already part of our way of working. I was a very lucky young man: Michel gave me bal- last and direction when it was critically needed. Perhaps English pragmatism, our ‘openness’ (incidentally, another favourite word of Michel’s) attracted him to us. But our ‘openness’ also encouraged us to distrust theory, perhaps as an excuse for avoiding craft. This was a danger which Michel never failed to point out to us. What he did for the Royal Shakespeare Company and for me is quite incalcula- ble. He spoke to a new generation of young actors and directors about our European heritage – about Stanislavsky, Copeau, and Brecht. He had known these men. But he did not imprison us in cold theory. Michel hated dogma. He knew well how quickly yesterday’s ‘truth’ becomes today’s comfortable convention, imitated unthinkingly and without effect. A healthy society needs a lively theatre, responsive to change. Michel was a superb teacher who loved the young. For him, they were the future – instinctive, and full of energy. He took from them as much as he gave. They could be dogmatic and obstinate – but not for long with Michel. Theory was always subjected to his sceptical (and very Gallic) challenges. He believed, of course, in craft, in technique; but only as ‘means’. Acting was not a trick to be learned and then performed; it was not imitation but rather a revelation of the whole actor’s personality. He had a deep rooted suspicion of any ‘method’ – old or new. He hated any formula which stopped questions or inhibited change. His method was indeed change itself. The years with Michel made me begin to understand the responsibility of working in the theatre. If you invite an audience to surrender two or three hours of their lives to you, you must offer them something consider- able in return. You must try and you may fail; but it is better to fail than to repeat an old and empty pattern. Michel felt that all of us working in the theatre were responsible not just for displaying our talents to their best advantage, but also for being at our best as people. This may sound sentimental, but he meant it to be. For him, the two qualities were one: talent did not excuse unbalanced or selfi sh behaviour. Talent was only diminished by it. His favourite question about a colleague with whom he was about to work was ‘Is he in a good state?’ If he was in a good state, he would do good work. If not, then he should be persuaded to have a holiday or a rest. He ought not to risk wasting the time of an audience. Michel was very careful of people. The reasons why we work in the theatre are complex. Many use it as a kind of childhood nursery – an easy place to enter the world of fantasy. Foreword ix You can hide in it and, if need be, throw your toys across the room. For Michel though, the theatre was not a place to hide; it was a place to be. Its purpose was to reveal the man. Reading the biographical notes for this volume I was reminded that Michel, although he gave so much, suffered a great deal from the events of his life. He was in many ways a tragic fi gure. But his ideas and his example are still capable of inspiring the theatre. His career is a testimony to his own quality, his own integrity. He was the sworn enemy of dead convention and dishonesty. For Michel, the theatre was something which changed as our lives change: the search for truth was never ending. And, even if I insisted on the performance being credible rather than truthful, it was still not a comfortable conclusion. But it was alive. March 2008

Illustration credits

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge copyright in the follow- ing images:

97: From the collection of Professor Brian Smith, University of Calgary. Photographer Lawrence Baldwin. 100 [top]: From the Département des Arts du spectacle, Bibliothèque nationale de France. 100 [bottom]: Angus McBean © Harvard Theatre Collection. 101: Photographer John Vickers. 103 [top]: From Outre-scène. 103 [bottom]: From Outre-scène. 104 [top]: From the RSC archives. 105 [top]: Photographer Robert Gold. 105 [bottom]: Photographer Robert Gold. 106 [centre]: From Outre-scène. 106 [bottom]: © Beth Bergman, 2008.

Although every effort has been made to trace other copyright holders, if any have been overlooked the publisher will be happy to make the appro- priate acknowledgement at the next printing.

For Grisha

Prologue Jane Baldwin

Who was Michel Saint-Denis? Several years ago, while researching my book Michel Saint- Denis and the Shaping of the Modern Actor, I went to the bilingual National Theatre School of Canada (co-founded by Saint-Denis) to observe classes and interview faculty and students. Standing outside the building named for Saint-Denis, a French acting teacher asked me, ‘C’était qui Michel Saint- Denis?’ (Who was Michel Saint-Denis?) As Saint-Denis’s biographer, the irony was not lost on me. During his lifetime, Michel Saint-Denis (1897–1971) was a peripatetic theatrical luminary whose work had a profound effect on the theatres of France, Canada, the US, and most especially England. Yet a generation after his death, Saint-Denis was slip- ping out of history. It is a commonplace that a theatre practitioner’s work is ephemeral, that unlike most other forms of art a theatrical creation is collaborative, ever changing, and lasts only as long as its run. And of all the artistic contributors to a theatrical production, the director’s work is perhaps the most diffi cult to recapture, evaluate, or even discern. Even today in a period of celebrity directors, reviews tend to focus more on the playwright and/or the actors, whose input may seem more salient. Saint-Denis’s fl eeting fame may also be explained by his career as a teacher, in which role he was at least as important as he was as a director. Contrary to received opinion, pedagogy is as evanescent, abstruse, and style-dependent a discipline as directing. In the teaching of theatre, a symbolic and metaphorical fi eld, these characteristics are compounded. At their best, students absorb a personal understanding of their instruc- tor’s vision, which may, however, adulterate or even subvert the material and ideas the teacher felt he or she was presenting. Moreover, in the popular imagination, success is measured in terms of the individual students’ achievements, in particular stardom. Few big stars were created by Saint- Denis the teacher. Yet, despite his tenuous hold on cultural memory, Saint-Denis left a solid record of accomplishment behind him. Sometimes literally solid as in the case of his remaining theatre schools: L’École supérieure d’art 2 Prologue dramatique (1954), the National Theatre School of Canada (1960), and the Juilliard Drama Division (1968). In addition, he bequeathed us a corpus of writings in the form of articles and, more importantly, two books. The fi rst, Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style (1960) is the more signifi cant. The second, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Prom- ises (1982), edited by his widow Suria Magito Saint-Denis and published posthumously, is considered uncharacteristic, likely because she compiled much of his unpublished writing, obviously working without his feed- back. Saint- Denis’s long promised autobiography never materialised, perhaps because of an old-fashioned reticence to discuss himself. While his writings are oftentimes anecdotal, they raise more questions than they answer about his personal life. Nonetheless, both these books offer today’s reader more than a glimpse into his principles on theatre practice and aesthetics allowing us to understand his important contribution to the evolution of the art. Saint-Denis viewed himself as a reformer whose lifework was to purify, revitalise, and reshape twentieth-century theatre. It is my pleasure to introduce a new generation of students and practitioners to the words of this great ‘homme de théâtre’. In this volume, Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style appears in its entirety, while Training for the Theatre contains only those chapters pertinent to Saint-Denis’s teaching methods.

The world of Michel Saint-Denis Saint-Denis was born on 13 September 1897 in Beauvais, France, a medium-sized provincial town best known for its cathedral. Once well- to- do, Michel’s family had fallen on hard times due to his father Charles’s drinking, gambling, and lack of business acumen. Fortunately for Michel’s future, his mother Marguerite turned to her brother, the director Jacques Copeau, for help. The Saint-Denis family moved to Versailles to be closer to the Copeaus. To Michel, Copeau was everything his father was not and the boy soon became his adoring disciple, spending as much time as he could at his uncle’s Paris apartment and later at his avant-garde theatre, the Vieux-Colombier. At the point when Saint-Denis came to know his uncle, Copeau’s reputation as a critic, writer, actor, and director was in its ascendancy. Copeau was supported in his efforts by his friends, among them some of the leading French intellectuals and writers of the day: André Gide, Jules Romains, Roger Martin du Gard, Charles Péguy, and Paul Claudel. Much of Saint-Denis’s boyhood was spent metaphori- cally at these men’s feet listening to his uncle discourse with them, an experience that shaped his cultural and artistic outlook. But the major infl uence in his life was Copeau’s theatre, which opened in 1913. Fascinated, even obsessed by the Vieux-Colombier, Saint-Denis, still a lycée student, often skipped school to watch rehearsals and make himself generally useful. He felt himself part of his uncle’s experiment to Prologue 3 restore the theatre to its central place in the human community. Copeau’s self-imposed mission of ‘renovating’ the theatre had multiple tasks including the rediscovery of theatrical form through an investigation of its illus- trious eras; upgrading the quality of acting; the development of a poetic dramaturgy; the creation of a new theatrical architecture; and most important, the establishment of a drama school that would train students to fulfi l Copeau’s vision. The Vieux-Colombier had completed one season when World War I broke out putting the theatre on hold for the duration and interrupting Saint-Denis’s theatrical apprenticeship. Fresh out of the lycée, Saint- Denis was called up by the army in 1916. He served four years, often on the front lines, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for courage. Those years affected him profoundly, exposing him to a broader spec- trum of people, foreign countries, the horrors of war, and, for the fi rst time, leadership, as he rose through the ranks from private to lieutenant. Nevertheless the theatre was never far from his mind, as his correspond- ence with Copeau indicates. He dreamed of the day when he could dedi- cate himself completely to his uncle’s teachings. 1920 to 1924 were formative years for Saint-Denis. He functioned as a general factotum at the reopened Vieux- Colombier, assuming whatever tasks were assigned him – company secretary, box offi ce manager, public relations, stage- manager, and rehearsal assistant – learning the profession from the bottom up, eventually making his acting debut in 1922. Never formally a student at the Vieux- Colombier school, he frequently attended its unorthodox classes, learning from observation. The opportunity to direct a school show, Amahl ou la lettre du roi, in 1924 was the reward for his talent and assiduousness. A departure from traditional training, the school emphasised inventiveness and movement, especially gymnastics and circus techniques. To stimulate their imaginations, the students, frequently unsupervised, worked on improvisations. Despite Copeau’s interest in the school, he seldom taught classes, his time taken up with directing, acting, and the duties of artistic director. Later in 1924, Copeau, dissatisfi ed with the results of the Vieux- Colombier despite its artistic success, closed his theatre and led a group of followers – Saint-Denis, a few actors, and his pupils – to the countryside in Burgundy to concentrate on training and practical research. Saint- Denis was accompanied by his wife Miko and their young son Jérome. A daughter Christine was born not long after their arrival. The fi ve years of Saint-Denis’s Burgundy stay would be instrumental in his professional development. There, he honed his skills as a mime, mask maker and per- former, farceur, and character actor. And there, out of necessity – but also growing ambition – he learned to write, to direct, the rudiments of teaching, and the responsibilities of an artistic director. Upon the group’s arrival in Burgundy, classes resumed with everyone – actors and students alike – participating, except Copeau. Those who 4 Prologue had a particular expertise in a discipline taught the others. Classes were, in effect, hands-on experimentation into areas that fascinated Copeau and the actor-students, such as the Commedia dell’Arte and other forms of popular entertainment. Frustrated by ongoing classwork that led only to further classwork and Copeau’s inconsistent governance, confl icting ambitions, and remoteness – he had undergone an intense religious con- version – the actors and students made a group decision to form a theatre troupe. Most were inexperienced; all were idealistic and saw their company as a vital step towards the hoped-for theatrical revolution. Because of a dearth of suitable material, they began developing their improvisations into performance pieces, inadvertently originating twentieth- century collective creation. Seemingly at odds with their democratic ethos, the group nonetheless felt the need of a director. Saint-Denis, by virtue of talent, force of personality, and experience in the rehearsal hall, was appointed. Copeau retained unspecifi ed powers. Generating a repertory, audience-building, and developing their skills into a personal style were the order of the day. The repertory had to appeal to an untested public, the winegrowers of the region, most of whom had never seen a play. Comedy, particularly physical farce, offered the best hope for success. It drew on much of their previous training and would likely attract a rural audience. The troupe, dubbed the Copiaus (‘Copeau’s children’ in the regional dialect) by the locals, turned to Molière’s farces and the Commedia dell’Arte for inspiration. At fi rst, performances consisted of several selections. A typical programme might be composed of an existing seventeenth- or eighteenth-century one-act comedy, a musical and/or movement selection, and a collective creation piece. The Copiaus toured the region customarily playing on Sundays and at harvest festivals, free time for the vineyard workers. The actors’ youth, verve, and acrobatic and clowning skills won over their audiences. Their response prompted the Copiaus to develop material that would relate to their public’s lives. In an attempt to create prototypical characters, they ventured into the domain of comic masks. Saint-Denis, an actor with the troupe as well as its director, was most successful in this area, creating two masked characters (Jean Bourguignon and Oscar Knie) that were incorporated into productions. The company began touring more widely, going as far afi eld as Switzerland and Belgium. Their growing renown pushed them into developing more complex and longer creations. Although the Copiaus practised collective creation avant la lettre, they differed in an essential way from their descendants of the 1960s and 70s. Unlike the later collectives that were activated by political considerations, the Copiaus were impelled by an artistic quest. Their dreams remained Copeau’s, although tension between the company and their mentor had deepened. The Copiaus looked to Copeau to provide material for their productions. He responded intermittently. More of the writing and generating of ideas were taken on by Saint-Denis. On occasion, Saint-Denis, Prologue 5 sometimes in concert with Jean Villard, one of the actors, toured the countryside interviewing the inhabitants and observing them at work, an anthropological approach to making theatre that would be further exploited by others in the 1960s and 70s, the golden age of collective creation. Their resulting highly theatrical performances combined mime, dance, choral speech, song, and mask. But storylines tended to be weak, a frequent shortcoming of collective creation. The Copiaus were growing restive. While they had accomplished much in their fi ve years in Burgundy, life remained hard, salaries nominal. Their communal life in the tiny village of Pernand-Vergelesses gave rise to jeal- ousies, competition, and strain. The pressures of this hothouse existence led to the breakdown of Saint- Denis’s marriage. He became involved with Marie-Madeleine Gautier, an actress and designer with the Copiaus. A son Blaise was born of this relationship. Copeau’s periodic reassertion of power combined with his perennial dissatisfaction eroded the company’s self-confi dence. This was particularly true in the case of Saint-Denis, whose sense of autonomy was worn down by Copeau’s incompatible demands – on the one hand, requesting Saint-Denis to assume complete responsibility for the Copiaus and, on the other, undermining his authority. In May of 1929, Copeau unexpect- edly disbanded the troupe, leaving them at a loss. Saint-Denis seized the occasion and, over the next several months, reconstituted the Copiaus to his own specifi cations as the Compagnie des Quinze, named for its fi fteen members.1 A young, talented, novelist with playwriting ambitions, André Obey, joined the group.2 It seemed an ideal match. Director, actors, and playwright shared a desire to experiment with popular culture forms, to explore mythologies, and to revive poetic drama in ways relevant to contemporary audiences. For Saint-Denis poetic drama was the antithesis of naturalism, whose attempts to replicate the details of everyday life he found anti-art. While he appreciated lyrical language, it was not a prerequisite. Yet expres- sive elevated language contains a quality indispensable to his concept of theatrical poetry – the enhancement and transcending of reality. While director of the theatricalist Compagnie des Quinze, the productions he mounted were ritualistic, movement-based, and made use of rhythmic and/or choral speech. Scenery was symbolic, stylised, and minimalist. In Saint-Denis’s later career, his view of poetic theatre expanded to include certain realistic texts such as the plays of Chekhov. In staging these plays,

1 The dates of the birth and death of the Compagnie des Quinze are somewhat arbitrary since the troupe evolved from the Copiaus. Although its fi rst production opened on 7 January 1931, the company members had begun working on their fi rst two productions considerably earlier. While its last performance was in the autumn of 1934, Saint- Denis struggled to keep it going until December 1935. 2 Perhaps as reparation for his dissolution of the Copiaus, Jacques Copeau arranged an introduction of the playwright and the company members. 6 Prologue he represented their poetic qualities in a subtler fashion, emphasising their atmospheric qualities. With a company playwright refi ning and elaborating their dialogue, the Quinze found they could focus less on low comedy, though it remained integral to their work. The repertory became more eclectic to include deeper subject matter, which they anticipated would be well received by urban audiences. Although the Copiaus had worked on serious themes in their training improvisations, none had reached performance stage. They turned back to these for the fi rst two productions Obey did with the Quinze: Noé (Noah) and Le Viol de Lucrèce (a dramatic adapta- tion of Shakespeare’s poem ‘The Rape of Lucrece’). Saint-Denis had long thought the biblical story of Noah would suit the company’s particular abilities. The Copiaus had yearned to tackle a Shakespearean work. Like all the plays that Obey created with and for them (six in total) they were presentational and symbolist in style. The introduction of a playwright did not profoundly affect the troupe’s rehearsal methods, unique at the time, but one of various traditional techniques in today’s collectives. In the early rehearsal phase, Saint-Denis, the actors, designers, and playwright participated in planning discussions. Under Saint-Denis’s watchful eye, the actors developed themes and characters through improvisation. Stylistic aspects were worked on throughout the rehearsal procedure. Unlike some later versions of collective creation, the director – always Saint-Denis – was present at every stage of the work. The reason, in part, was that Saint-Denis functioned as a company actor, but it was more directly attributable to the company’s production history and Saint-Denis’s meticulousness. The Quinze actors regarded themselves as an egalitarian company in which no member was subordinate to any other. While they had never considered working without a director or even sharing directing duties among the company, they insisted on an equal voice in decision-making. Nonetheless, by virtue of their standing, Saint-Denis and Obey were able to act independently of the company. Obey, in particular, was in a strong position, since he brought the Quinze a patron willing to fund a percent- age of the Quinze’s expenses. Confl icts arose quickly. Saint-Denis with Obey’s approval cast Pierre Fresnay, a star who wanted to stretch himself artistically, as the lead in Noé. It seemed clear to the actors that Fresnay was meant to ward off box offi ce failure. They regarded the decision as a lack of faith in their mission and their acting abilities. This decision marked an important change in their relationship and in Saint-Denis’s view of the directorial role. While collaboration remained crucial to their process, the fi nal word was Saint- Denis’s. This was refl ected in his directing style, which since he was working with more literary scripts, put greater emphasis on the actor as textual interpreter. However, the mise en scène continued to stress imagery, sound, and movement. Prologue 7 The Fresnay contretemps notwithstanding, the troupe rehearsed enthu- siastically, convinced that their long apprenticeship would be rewarded and that the innovative Noé and Lucrèce would impart a new conception of theatre to Parisian audiences. Disappointingly, reviews for Noé, the Quinze’s premiere production, were mixed, several uncomprehend- ing. Undoubtedly discouraging for Saint-Denis was that the more positive reviews credited the production’s success to Copeau. The artistic director and his actors were still perceived as ‘Copeau’s children’. This iden- tifi cation of the Quinze with Copeau continued, much to Saint-Denis’s chagrin. Certainly, Saint-Denis and his actors acknowledged that their point of departure had been Copeau’s aesthetic and his mises en scène at the Vieux-Colombier. But the Quinze had expanded upon Copeau’s accomplishments. Surprising today is that their pioneering approach – collective creation – went unremarked. Audiences were also divided in their opinion. Fresnay, who soon left the show, was not the drawing card Saint-Denis and Obey had expected. Lucrèce, which alternated with Noé, was greeted more favourably. Nevertheless, only alternative theatre practitioners like Charles Dullin fully valued the Quinze’s achievements. Invited to London to perform in the summer of 1931, Saint-Denis and his troupe dazzled its theatre world. Critics, audiences, theatre artists acclaimed their originality, so different from the British theatre of the time, which was locked in tradition and convention. Both Noé, the comic piece, and Lucrèce, the tragic, made use of a chorus and masks. Both contemporised ancient forms: Noé, the medieval mystery play; Lucrèce, the theatre of the English Renaissance and the Japanese Noh. While the British appreciated the texts, it was the productions’ visual aspects that enchanted. Unusually for the era, some of the notices detailed the blocking. As Le Viol de Lucrèce is emblematic of Saint-Denis’s mises en scène at this phase, a brief description is in order. Saint-Denis’s directing scheme went beyond the text and merged four distinct styles: Medieval, Ren- aissance, Greek tragedy, and the Noh. In essence, the Noh form combines drama, dance, music, and poetry and is performed by two actors and a chorus. The principal actor, called the shite, relates the story through dance, playing multiple masked characters, some supernatural; the secondary actor, the waki, supplies most of the exposition; the chorus, accompanied by music, narrates the shite’s climactic dance. Similarly, Lucrèce makes use of narrative devices, two récitants or com- mentators, and a chorus. Unlike the Noh, Lucrèce has two main characters, the eponymous heroine and her rapist Tarquin. The male récitant recounted Tarquin’s story, the female, Lucrèce’s. To highlight their almost supernatural role as observers of human frailties, they wore half-masks, long-haired wigs, and fl owing gowns, making them androgynous in appearance. In a sense, they commingled the role of waki and shite. The récitants sat on elevated thrones on either side of the set for most 8 Prologue of the action; the waki too remains seated on the side of the stage during most of the play. Lucrèce played the majority of her scenes centre stage, similarly to the shite. On the one hand, the opening scenes in which she was surrounded by her maids spinning brought to mind images of medieval tapestries; on the other, their dreamlike tempo was inspired by the Noh. The play’s climactic moment is obviously the rape, a scene that would be diffi cult to stage even today because of its primal sexual brutality. Saint-Denis’s production attenuated the graphic aspects through symbolic movement, gesture, and sound, which served as distancing devices. To illustrate: the scene began as ‘a bell of delicate timbre struck twelve’. After a long moment, the female commentator entered slowly, crossed to her place, the tinkle of keys at her belt gently breaking the stillness, sat, and slept. Paradoxically, those two soothing sounds created an omi- nous mood, preparing the way for Tarquin’s stealthful approach. Tarquin mimed his way through the palace moving through invisible winding cor- ridors to Lucrèce’s bedroom, to the accompaniment of the male narra- tor’s account of the rapist’s lascivious imaginings. The female described what she saw. As Tarquin neared Lucrèce, the rhythm intensifi ed; the nar- rator’s voices were broken, gasping with fear. Tarquin opened the bed’s blue draperies – the blue of the immaculate conception, noted one critic – revealing Lucrèce’s vulnerable sleeping body, reached out, and touched her breast.3 She awoke with a frightened cry. The narrators turned their heads aside as Lucrèce pleaded, prayed, and sobbed to no avail. Tar- quin responded cruelly, insisting on fulfi lling his desire. Now speaking for themselves, the two were fully enacting their own drama. This scene moved the play closer to realism, yet its rhythmic and incantatory speech patterns represented a very different style. The scene ended with Lucrèce thrown back on the bed, her face bathed in light, moaning piteously, as the curtains closed. This stylisation of violence was not lost on the critics, who were touched, entranced, not repulsed. Partly out of necessity (the company never found a home) and partly for aesthetic reasons, the Quinze employed an all-purpose architectural setting that was easy to transport. It consisted of a collapsible stage, pil- lars, and hangings, which could be assembled in multiple arrangements. Simple, suggestive props and set pieces were designed for each production. This frankly theatrical setting, at once antique and modernist, was reminiscent of both the Commedia dell’Arte trestle stage and a circus tent – factors contributing to the unity of their non-realist productions. Saint-Denis’s concern for style extended to scene design, acting space, and playhouse. Throughout his career, he collaborated closely with his designers, usually long-term colleagues. As he moved away from the presentational and mostly symbolist repertory of his early years, he became involved in developing a fl exible stage for theatres that would work for

3 Latinité, April 1931, 81. Prologue 9 a broader range of plays. Given that style was his principal interest, it is noteworthy that as a director he limited himself to a fairly narrow repertoire. But all that lay in his future, whose most signifi cant period would take place in London. This French practitioner, whose background, culture, and practice differed strikingly from his British counterparts, would become a dominant infl uence for theatrical change in his adoptive country. The Quinze visit to London was mutually advantageous for Saint- Denis and a rising generation of British progressive theatre practitioners. With a few notable exceptions, European innovations had been largely ignored in England. London’s West End leaned towards drawing room comedies, melodrama, and musical revues; the predominant mode of acting was naturalistic underplaying; scene design was generally out- moded; the director not yet a force. The Old Vic, committed to productions of Shakespeare, provided an alternative to commercial theatre. Rare alternative companies presented either an unusual repertory and/or staging methods, but like the Old Vic, were fi nancially starved. What these troupes did was provide idealistic practitioners with novel models of theatre. These young rebels wanted to discard habit and embrace the future. For them, the Quinze, with its emphasis on ensemble playing and singular style of combining the text with theatricalist sound and movement techniques, seemed to be the future. Artists such as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peggy Ashcroft, Tyrone Guthrie, to name only a few, turned to Michel Saint-Denis for counsel. Saint-Denis, excited by the interest in his talent, but immersed in the Compagnie des Quinze, returned to France and André Obey to create another work. It was La Bataille de la Marne, loosely based on an improvisation about the anguish of war that the troupe had explored in its Copiaus days. Here war was particularised, commemorating the World War I battle in which emergency troops were dispatched in Paris taxis to stop the advance of the German army. The script has Brechtian overtones, although the Quinze were unaware of his work. Less linear than Lucrèce, it shared similarities of form: a messenger commented on the mimed action, characters were archetypal, and it contained a chorus. A suffering woman represented France, Saint-Denis played multiple roles as a peas- ant, mayor, doctor, and taxi driver; a female chorus embodied the French provinces; a male chorus, the army. The play was also notable for its use of ‘grummelotage’, an invented language of sound and movement that the Copiaus had experimented with. From today’s vantage point, La Bataille de la Marne seems a further progression in the Quinze’s search for a new theatre. But while it had its champions among artists and intellectuals, who praised its stunning tableaux, critical notices varied.

Over the next few years old problems resurfaced: rivalry, discourage- ment, fatigue caused by constant touring, fi nancial diffi culties, distrust of an authority fi gure – now Saint-Denis, in place of Copeau – and lack of 10 Prologue material. Gifted as he was, Obey could not supply the company’s entire repertory. It was diffi cult to fi nd other dramatists capable of meeting the Quinze’s demands. Actors began to leave the company. Saint- Denis struggled to replace them, but while there were numerous candidates, none had the requisite training. The Depression caused their patron to with- draw her support. In 1934, in a last ditch effort to keep the diminished company alive, Saint-Denis returned to London to raise money. After the Quinze’s four annual tours, Saint-Denis was well aware that his work as an actor and director was respected in England. The company remained a model for theatre organisations like England’s Group Theatre. Saint-Denis’s rudimentary English notwithstanding, he had made valuable contacts. Importantly, two of the later recruits to the Quinze, Marius Goring and Vera Poliakoff, had come to it from London. Goring and Poliakoff had entrée into a select group of young and ambitious theatre practitioners, among whom were Saint-Denis’s future colleagues George Devine and the designers known as Motley (Margaret Harris, Sophie Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery). Warmly welcomed into this coterie, Saint-Denis found little, if any, support for resuscitating the Quinze. Instead, he was encouraged to remain in England and join forces with them in an as yet undefi ned collaboration. As Saint- Denis put it: ‘Without realising it, I was consorting with those who were to shape the English theatre for the next thirty years.’4 It was a painful decision. He would be cutting himself off from his language, culture, family, and his acting career. (His heavy, indeed almost com- ical, accent eliminated that possibility.) At the same time, England offered an artistic independence unavailable to him in France, where he remained in his uncle’s shadow. Ultimately, he was persuaded by Tyrone Guthrie’s offer of £1,300 to establish a school. Other contributions followed. The London Theatre Studio (LTS) was founded in 1935 as a ‘non-conforming’ school open to experimentation whose course offerings exceeded those of a conventional drama programme. Despite or perhaps because of Saint- Denis’s ‘anxiety of infl uence’, he borrowed from Copeau’s pedagogical theories, but introduced his own revisions. LTS, the fi rst of six training institutes Saint- Denis established, served as the prototype for the others. (The earlier school planned for the Quinze was never fully instituted because of economic problems.) Saint-Denis believed that a drama school and a permanent theatre company committed to research should exist in symbiosis, one nourishing the other. Accordingly, a theatre company was envisaged for LTS from the beginning. Saint-Denis’s ideal drama school was a self-contained institution whose larger goal was the transformation of the theatre. To this end, LTS’s two-year programme developed actors, designers, stage-managers,

4 Michel Saint-Denis, ‘The English Theatre in Gallic Eyes’, trans. J. F. M. Stephens, Jr., Texas Quarterly 4 (Autumn 1961), 31. Prologue 11 and technicians. Its curriculum made it exceptional at a time when drama schools taught acting, future designers studied at art institutes, and stage- managers and technicians learned on the job. At LTS all aspects of the instruction were integrated. Its future practitioners shared a single vision of theatre. The faculty was made up of working professionals. LTS’s acting course had three sections: one for students, another for professionals, and a third French section for students with speaking pro- fi ciency. Its rationale was that performing in a foreign language would improve diction. In practice, the course did not work out because of insuf- fi cient enrolment, just six students of varying abilities in French and acting. Beginners were cast in productions alongside professionals like Vera Polia- koff and even Saint-Denis. Sadly for Saint-Denis, its removal from the curriculum effectively ended his opportunities to act in England.5 Professional actors – sixteen in the school’s fi rst term – attended classes geared towards their level. Most famously, Alec Guinness was coached by Saint-Denis and Laurence Olivier took a theatrical gymnastics class. It was Saint-Denis’s hope that the professionals would form a talent pool for the projected company. However, the main thrust of the acting programme was the student section. Its broad curriculum – judged radical in many quarters – encompassed voice, speech, music, movement, silent and spoken improvisation, comic and tragic mask, text, theatre history, and performance. Saint-Denis also introduced aspects of the Stanislavsky System into the acting programme, surprising for some given Saint- Denis’s anti-naturalistic bias. But conversely, his conception of truth in acting demanded a balance between external and internal techniques. In 1937, LTS graduating students gave their fi rst public performance, a test not only for the students, but the training as a whole. In general, critical response was highly favourable. Directed by the instructors, most of the production was in the hands of the students. In keeping with the school’s philosophy, technical students played bit parts and acting students assisted on the technical side. Typically, this annual event incorporated one act each of an Elizabethan drama, of a classic comedy, and of a poetic modern drama. A new work developed in the improvisation classes was the most experimental part of the programme. Collective creation for Saint-Denis survived as a training tool. Shows were presented in LTS’s 200-seat theatre designed by the Bau- haus architect Marcel Breuer. Saint-Denis worked closely with Breuer, as he had with the designer of the Quinze’s transportable stage, André Bar- sacq. Breuer designed a modernised version of a Georgian stage for LTS. As such, it was useful for both presentational and representational productions, denoting a change in Saint-Denis’s repertoire. Concurrently with teaching and running the school, Saint-Denis was

5 Prior to its removal, Saint-Denis played a bit part as a French-speaking cab driver in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 fi lm, Secret Agent. 12 Prologue active as a director. During this period, with varying degrees of success, he mounted nine plays professionally, an enormous learning experience for him as well as for those he worked with. His debut play was Noah (an English-language version of Noé) mounted per request of John Gielgud, eager to benefi t from what he perceived as the Saint-Denis magic touch. It was a transitional production in that Saint-Denis was working with Quinze material, but without the specially trained ensemble that made the production so memorable. In spite of a talented cast that included Alec Guinness, Jessica Tandy, Marius Goring, and John Gielgud in the title role, it was a shadow of the original. The actors lacked the movement ability, mask training, and ensemble spirit, while the usual English three weeks of rehearsal were inadequate for a director accustomed to several months of preparation. The production pleased the critics, but only reinforced Saint-Denis’s conviction that a permanent company and school were essential for the reform of British theatre and the development of his own career in England. Without a permanent company of his own, he would be a transient director at the behest of others. Shortly after Noah, Saint- Denis bid farewell to the Quinze era and began experimenting with Jacobean drama. In 1936, Tyrone Guthrie invited him to direct the obscure Witch of Edmonton at the Old Vic, which starred the distinguished actress Edith Evans. Saint-Denis staged it surrealistically, for which he was attacked by traditional reviewers who found it ‘arty’, an opprobrium that would stick. Unknowingly, Saint-Denis had stepped into dangerous and sacrosanct territory, the classical British theatre. Still, The Witch of Edmonton was not without its fans. Laurence Olivier, keen to play Macbeth and drawn by Saint-Denis’s fresh approach, asked him to direct it. Expressionistic in style, the production was conceived as a projection of Macbeth’s mind. The eerie lighting, immense set pieces, and costumes refl ected his delusional state, as did the fantastical masks worn by the witches and Banquo. Again, the same critics assailed Saint- Denis’s experimentalism. Imagistic qualities that they had praised in the Quinze productions were too avant- garde, too ‘foreign’ for their national playwright. Years later, Margaret Harris, one of the Motley designers, ascribed the hostile reviews to xenophobia. For her, Saint-Denis’s classical productions had ‘an excitement and character that was unique and thrilling’ but ‘unappreciated’ by the critical community at the time.6 While Saint-Denis might not have lived up to the critics’ expectations, he remained an inspiration, leader, and innovator in his profession. And so it was that John Gielgud, in charge of the 1937/8 season at the Queen’s Theatre, turned to Saint-Denis to direct Three Sisters in 1938. Three Sis- ters was a decided stylistic departure from Saint-Denis’s earlier professional productions. Realism was still new to him, although at LTS, he had begun exploring it to prepare students to tackle not only classical,

6 Margaret Harris, interview, 5 June 1989. Prologue 13 but modern theatre. Saint- Denis distinguished between realism and what he termed ‘the mud of naturalism’.7 For him, naturalism dealt with the detailed depiction of the banal and the sordid, while realism at its best, as in the plays of Chekhov, portrays more universal themes, is more lyrical in style, and is ‘capable of [expressing] the essence of . . . life itself’. 8 The two forms are similar in that each recounts a tale of contemporary issues faced by contemporary characters living in contemporary times. Two factors enabled Saint-Denis to hone his handling of Chekhov. He had a stellar cast – numbering among them John Gielgud, Peggy Ash- croft, Michael Redgrave, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, and George Devine – and Gielgud gave him two months of rehearsal. Saint-Denis’s preparation included a comprehensive study of the recently published translation of An Actor Prepares. In 1922, he had been impressed by Stanislavsky’s production of The Cherry Orchard. Now Saint-Denis looked to the master’s book to discover techniques that would result in the spontaneity and internal truth that had moved him in The Cherry Orchard. In what might seem a paradoxical approach to fi nding the improvisational quality of Stanislavsky’s production, Saint-Denis meticulously blocked the script prior to rehearsal. He did not, however, discard improvisation as a rehearsal technique. Using exercises analogous to sense memory, the cast spent days creating mood and atmosphere. The effect was to deepen their characterisations. As can be seen in production photographs and critical comments, Saint-Denis integrated physical characterisation in modifi ed form into Three Sisters. The dance-like movement of the Quinze was transformed into more representational gesture and motion, but still care- fully choreographed. The long and unfamiliar approach to developing a play stimulated the actors’ imaginations and produced ensemble playing of a quality unknown in British productions. Critical consensus was that Saint- Denis had rethought the essence of Chekhov, whom the English had long considered depressing and diffi cult to stage. He was lauded for being the fi rst in England to bring out the humour of Chekhov’s drama.9 Reactions were summed up in this comment: ‘We shall never see this production of Three Sisters surpassed and we owe homage to the genius of M. Michel Saint-Denis that he has given it to us.’10 A year later Saint-Denis’s work was disrupted by the outbreak of World War II, this time in mid-rehearsal for The Cherry Orchard. Called up to rejoin his old WWI regiment, he returned to France. In the span of four years in London he had accomplished much and laid the ground- work for future endeavours. He had acquired a team of disciples imbued with his methods. Through his teaching and productions, he had brought

7 See p. 67. 8 Saint- Denis, ‘The English Theatre in Gallic Eyes’, 40. 9 ‘He that Directs the King’, Times Literary Supplement, 15 July 1960, 442. 10 Lionel Hale, News Chronicle, 1 February 1938, 9. 14 Prologue a seriousness of purpose to British theatre. He had introduced directing, architectural, scenic, and acting reforms. LTS trained actors to work as an ensemble, unlike standard drama programmes whose focus was on developing stars. He had proven that he could take charge and succeed in a foreign culture. And while he had given much to the British theatre, he had adopted and adapted what he felt was the best of their tradition. His projects were still incomplete, however. LTS’s anticipated theatre company never left the planning stage. The closest Saint-Denis had come to it was directing two plays for John Gielgud’s season with actors of his own choosing and a few of his best students as supernumeraries and bit play- ers. Whether the future held the possibility of attaining his ambitions was in 1939 an open question. Saint-Denis’s time in the army ended when he was evacuated at Dun- kirk after the French defeat in June of 1940. He returned to London anx- ious to participate in the war effort wherever he would be most valuable. The BBC enlisted him to play a vital role in an evolving idiom – radio propaganda. His assignment was to write, direct, and perform a half- hour daily programme Les Français parlent aux Français whose purpose was to counteract the misinformation the Germans fed the occupied French. The longer-range goal was to arouse the French to rebel against their German masters. Saint- Denis had no previous radio experience nor, since this was the fi rst war to be fought on the airwaves, was there a model for him to follow. As a man of the theatre, he was aware of the importance of captivating his audience and brought to the programming the tricks of the trade. He interspersed drama, news reporting, and topi- cal comic sketches that employed contemporary stock characters. The programme, forbidden to the French by their occupiers, was avidly followed clandestinely. His honest journalism, which reported Allied losses as well as victories, swayed his information-deprived audience. Under the nom de guerre of Jacques Duchesne, Saint-Denis became ‘the voice that does not deceive’.11 Saint- Denis’s alias served to protect his family in France from government retaliation. Ironically, Saint-Denis’s parents and sister, supporters of Marshal Pétain, the puppet leader of France, were alienated by the broadcasts. In 1945, Saint-Denis was welcomed in liberated France as a hero. But he was unable to rejoice; his eldest son had been killed in battle three months before the war’s end fi ghting on the French side. Confl icted about his future – to stay in France or return to England – he mulled over pos- sibilities. If he remained in France, he would be close to his two surviv- ing children. But what direction would postwar French theatre take? Would there be support for the reforms he envisaged? He took an interim job as director of the English Service for the French national radio, but

11 Saint- Denis, translated typescript, ‘In London between Churchill and de Gaulle’, Crap- ouillot, no. 17 (1954). Prologue 15 resigned because of unsatisfactory conditions. An offer to direct Laurence Olivier in Sophocles’ Oedipus at the Old Vic brought Saint-Denis back to London. He was excited by the opportunity on a number of counts. It reunited him with Olivier, for Saint-Denis the consummate actor. Saint-Denis had long been fascinated by Greek tragedy, but until now had investigated it only at LTS. Oedipus was unexplored territory in England, where there had never been a professional homegrown performance. Saint-Denis’s previous productions had few political overtones, but the fi ve years he spent as a political commentator had affected his artistic viewpoint. In 1945 with the anguish of World War II an everyday fact of life, Saint- Denis wanted to draw connections between the mythical Greece of Sophocles and contemporary Europe. Among the examples he probed were the crushing force of irrationality – in Oedipus, the gods or fate, in the twentieth century, fascism – and the rise and fall of a tyrant. Saint- Denis drew the parallels subtly, in part through a merging of styles, clas- sicism with modernism. In so doing, he broke with Motley and engaged the artist John Piper, known for his eerily beautiful paintings of wartime devastation. Piper, both an abstract and a representative artist, combined the two styles in a striking, but spare set. Antony Hopkins’s dis- sonant music was contemporary with echoes of archaic times. While the occasional critic was uncomfortable with Greek conventions such as the chorus, Saint- Denis’s Oedipus was considered a landmark production on a par with his Three Sisters. Laurence Olivier’s bravura performance was widely praised. Perhaps the most telling indication of the production’s power was the bottle of smelling salts the theatre kept for spectators who fainted. Oedipus was the fi rst step in a more extensive project that appeared to be the fulfi lment of Saint- Denis’s ambitions, the Old Vic Theatre Centre. Olivier, artistic director of the Old Vic Company (along with Ralph Rich- ardson and John Burrell), invited Saint-Denis to develop a training programme. Although loosely connected to the parent company, the Centre operated independently, but was accountable to the Old Vic Board of Governors. Postwar government funding made it possible for Saint-Denis to formulate plans for a three-tiered institution that would consist of a school, a children’s theatre, and eventually his experimental theatre. Each level was to feed into the next. The children’s theatre (the Young Vic) would offer the best students their entrance into the professional theatre; the experimental theatre in turn would incorporate the best of those into a permanent company largely made up of more experienced actors. Saint-Denis expected the experimental theatre to be the testing ground for research in acting, directing, scenography, and dramaturgy. When the Centre was founded, the Old Vic Company was located at a West End playhouse. The Old Vic Theatre had suffered severe bomb damage; Saint-Denis was charged with its renovation for use by the 16 Prologue Centre. Over several years Saint-Denis and the French architect and scen- ographer Pierre Sonrel laboured over its redesign. Key to Saint-Denis’s plans for the Centre was the development of new dramatists. He felt that a fl exible stage would open the playwright’s imagination to the pos- sibilities of theatre. Consequently, the Old Vic’s new stage included an extended apron which could be raised or lowered via a hydraulic eleva- tor, changing the actor–audience relationship, an advance in theatre architecture.

The Old Vic School (1947–1952) expanded and improved upon the work done at LTS, and became the pre-eminent drama school in the English- speaking world. One dynamic that worked in its favour was a larger talent pool, brought about by Saint-Denis’s increased reputation and government scholarships. Saint-Denis modifi ed the curriculum through the creation of England’s fi rst directing programme and the inclusion of a playwright to work with the students on collective creation. A few changes and additions to the faculty were made. Glen Byam Shaw, an actor who had worked under Saint- Denis, became director of the School, while Suria Magito headed up the Young Vic with George Devine. The responsibilities of Suria Magito, Saint-Denis’s second wife, continued to grow over time. Saint-Denis was to be in charge of the experimental theatre, which for complex reasons never materialised. But regardless of the sharing of administrative responsibilities, Saint-Denis was the fi nal arbiter on all artistic, pedagogical, and administrative affairs. In spite of the School’s success and groundbreaking methods of training actors, discussed in the fi nal chapter of Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style, the Centre lost the Board’s support. (The Byzantine chronicle of these events is treated at greater length in both my book Michel Saint- Denis and the Shaping of the Modern Actor and Irving Wardle’s The Theatres of George Devine.) On the most basic level, the primary reasons were the change in the artistic directorship of the Old Vic, confl icting ambitions, and chauvinism. Olivier and his associates were driven out for budgetary reasons and replaced by a management hostile to the Centre. Post-WWII subsidy was turning England’s long cherished dream of a national theatre into a reality and the Board of Governors lobbied hard to have that honour fall to the Old Vic. Hugh Hunt, the new artistic director of the Old Vic, nursed fantasies of being director of the National. In pursuit of that aim, he convinced the Board of Directors, led by Lord Esher, that the Vic’s candidacy would be stronger if the company returned to its own theatre. Once it was clear that the experimental theatre had lost its future home, Saint-Denis’s offi cial position evaporated. Compli- cating matters was Lord Esher’s suspicion of Saint- Denis. Fed by rumours spread by the Old Vic’s administration, Esher turned against the School’s teaching methods, questioning how improvisations and mask work might benefi t a classical actor. Equally serious, unable to understand Saint- Prologue 17 Denis’s commitment to the experimental theatre, Esher thought that he was vying for the directorship of the National. At a time when prejudice was more overt, he made no secret of the fact that he resented him as ‘a foreigner . . . whose proper place was somewhere else’.12 The School closed in 1953, to the distress of most of the British theatrical profession. For a while the newspapers made its reinstatement a cause célèbre, but to no avail. Jobless, Saint-Denis accepted his only viable option, the directorship of the Centre Dramatique de l’Est (CDE) in Alsace, the fi rst of France’s postwar decentralised theatres, which had been established in 1946. Theatrical decentralisation was part of a larger governmental scheme to revivify the French provinces culturally and economically. As the Centre’s third director – the previous two having failed to win the population’s confi dence – Saint- Denis was by far the most experienced in setting up theatrical institutions. In taking on the position, Saint- Denis was return- ing to his roots when as a Copiau he struggled to create a viable company in the provinces. However, in 1953 he was fi fty- six, his health compro- mised by a stroke several years earlier, and emerging from the devastating disappointment of the Old Vic Theatre Centre. With an effort of will, Saint-Denis put aside his ambivalence and embarked on the project with energy. The task assigned him was to develop a drama school, serve as artistic director of the Centre’s theatrical troupe, and to oversee the design of the building in Strasbourg that would house them. Thus, he would realise his ambition of running a company and school in tandem and would have the satisfaction of designing a theatre in its entirety, once again with Pierre Sonrel as his partner. (Inadequate funding had forced Saint-Denis and Sonrel to abridge their plans for the Old Vic.) Saint-Denis began by engaging the troupe, which proved harder than anticipated. Actors were reluctant to leave Paris for what they regarded as the boondocks. A further obstacle was his relative obscurity to a younger generation of French actors. Jacques Duchesne was a national hero; Michel Saint- Denis the director was a stranger. Undoubtedly, having to persuade unknowns to come to Alsace with him was humiliating to Saint-Denis, who had directed England’s greatest actors. The inexperienced troupe placed an added burden on Saint-Denis; rehearsals sometimes resembled acting classes, as he strove to raise the performance standards. The troupe operated on similar principles to the Quinze, touring almost constantly, carrying with them a fl exible set, designed by the gifted Abd’el Kader Farrah, the last of Saint-Denis’s designer-collaborators. However, since Saint-Denis wanted to reach as wide a public as possible, he split the company into two sections of ten so that the tours covered seventy

12 John Elsom and Nicholas Tomalin, The History of the National Theatre (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), 100. 18 Prologue towns and villages, mostly in France, but including Belgium and Swit- zerland as well. His fi rst production (1953) was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, favourably greeted by audiences and critics alike. One positive aspect of Saint-Denis’s return to France was his freedom to experiment with Shakespeare. That same year while awaiting the completion of the school’s building in Strasbourg, acting classes were initiated in Colmar; technical classes were added when the school was completely set up. Initial coursework was rudimentary because of the limited facilities, small class size, and the tiny faculty of three: Saint-Denis taught improvisation, general culture, and theatre and art history; Magito, movement and acting; and Daniel Leveugle, a French director, acting. When the Strasbourg school opened in 1954, Magito was appointed its director, although the modifi cations made to the curriculum model were Saint-Denis’s. Actor training was expanded to three years; additional movement classes were put in place; much of the student repertoire was changed to conform to French culture; and the student body was opened up to ‘foreigners capable of working in French’.13 This last was a necessity – at least at the beginning – if the school were to attract qualifi ed students. Potential students reacted in much the same way as the actors Saint-Denis had auditioned in Paris. Saint-Denis avoided similar problems with his faculty by bringing in a number of his trusted Old Vic teachers, once settled into the Strasbourg facility. Saint-Denis’s multitasking with limited resources took a toll. He com- muted approximately fi fty miles from Colmar, where the troupe rehearsed, to Strasbourg to supervise the building of the theatre and to teach. In order to make the Centre more salient in the region, he wrote articles, gave public readings, and lectured. He struggled with his recalcitrant actors who resisted his perfectionism. (Approximately fi fty per cent of the company was replaced each season.) Pressures grew and in 1955, he suffered a severe second stroke, which temporarily left him paralysed on one side and unable to speak clearly. Incapable of continuing for several months, he brought in two more of his Old Vic colleagues, John Blatchley and Pierre Lefèvre, to help Suria Magito run the school. Partially recovered, Saint-Denis’s health did not permit him to continue as the head of such a multifaceted organisation as the CDE. He soldiered on directing plays until the end of the 1955 season when, worn out, he relinquished the direction of the original play Le Pays noir to Pierre Lefèvre. He submitted his resignation with the stipulation that he stay on until the theatre was up and running, though it would never be his to run. Saint-Denis was not ready to abandon his career, in spite of his ill- health. Nor could he afford to. A lifetime’s work in the theatre had not

13 Saint- Denis, programme notes, Centre Dramatique de l’Est (1954). Prologue 19 provided him with retirement funds. Serendipitously, the renowned Juil- liard School in New York City, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, had decided to integrate a Drama Division into its Music and Dance School. In searching out the best person possible to undertake its creation, they discovered Saint- Denis. Saint- Denis left the Strasbourg school in the hands of his loyal disciple Pierre Lefèvre and the theatre in the charge of Hubert Gignoux, a French director whose background was linked to the Copeau legacy. The last dozen years of Saint-Denis’s life involved him in numerous projects, despite his fl uctuating health. He advised, set up, and activated drama programmes in the United States, Canada, and Europe. His role varied in each one. A brief description of the three most signifi cant fol- lows. In 1960, he opened Montreal’s National Theatre School of Canada (NTS), which like Juilliard followed the Saint-Denis training model, with cultural adaptations. NTS was a prime mover in the development of professional Canadian theatre. In addition to setting up the curriculum, he engaged the faculty, and went to Montreal periodically to supervise and critique the work. In 1962, Peter Hall, the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and an admirer of Saint-Denis, invited him along with Peter Brook to become his associate directors. Saint-Denis’s special mandate was the creation of a studio to train the less experienced company members in how to approach differing styles, particularly material that was still new to English actors such as epic and absurdist theatre. After more than ten years of preparation, the Juilliard Drama Division opened in 1968. It was a leader in providing an alternative to the dominant Method-based teaching in the US. Saint-Denis devised Juilliard’s curriculum, consulted on the design of its theatre spaces, hired the faculty, and taught and directed a reading during the Drama Division’s debut year before being struck down by a third stroke, which put an end to his professional life. After leaving Strasbourg, he continued to direct in England. At the Royal Shakespeare Company, he mounted Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in 1961 and Brecht’s Squire Puntilla and His Servant Matti in 1965. In 1960 he directed his fi rst opera, Stravinsky’s oratorio Oedipus Rex at the Sadler’s Wells, conceptually different from his earlier production of Sophocles’ Oedipus. The highly lauded mise en scène remained in the company’s repertoire for fi fteen years. In his last years, he was a very active proponent of actor training, engaged in writing, giving lectures internationally, and involved in the International Theatre Institute (ITI). His death in London in 1971 sad- dened the theatre community, perhaps most in England where he had garnered his greatest reputation.