The Rattigan The Newsletter of The Terence Rattigan Society ISSUE NO. 25 JULY 2018 Version Changing views on Rattigan he first time I taught Rattigan in the mid- period regarding The Winslow Boy. One bold student 1970s, he was the second half of a seminar, the declared in response to my question about whether T first half being Shaw. The student reaction I they were moved by Ronnie Winslow’s plight, “I remember most vividly was from a Chinese young think the little bastard did it.” No argument I gave woman. She used a striking image when him would convince him that the play she told me she thought Rattigan was tells us Ronnie is innocent, that without “weak tea” compared to Shaw, in the his innocence the play falls apart. sense that Shaw came on with the big “Back from the ridiculous and on to guns, big ideas, big characters, most of the sublime: somewhere during the late them fighters, ready to argue with one 1990s the students had changed in their another, trying to persuade one another, views of Rattigan. The turning point trying to dominate others or assert them- became evident to me when teaching selves. To her, because Rattigan’s charac- Flare Path—a play I thought to be a ters were weak, his plays were weak. As masterpiece upon first reading. I noticed Jacques Barzun has pointed out, if you An extract from the change of attitude when I was dis- open a Shaw play to any page and begin cussing the scene where Teddy breaks reading you will think the characters are Professor John down in front of his wife, Patricia, and discussing life and death issues. Ratti- A. Bertolini’s reveals the part of himself he has hidden gan’s characters are more likely to address at the from everyone including his wife. He retreat from self-assertion, to hide them- Annual Birthday tries to convey the feelings he has selves and their pain, or if they do assert Dinner whenever he goes on a mission in which themselves, it will be at a great cost. he bears the responsibility for seeing “The next time I taught Rattigan was in a Modern that his men return alive. Teddy tries to express the British Drama course, where I was able to test The fear he experiences and the connection he feels to his Deep Blue Sea against Look Back in Anger, a play I men. He says to Patricia, “I’m their captain.” And dislike intensely, the book of which I usually abuse in then he repeats the last two words, “Their captain”— class by jumping up and down on it, to convey to the a separate sentence that is as understated as it can be students my feelings. Much to my chagrin, though and therefore implies so much about the great burden they liked Deep Blue Sea quite a bit, when we subse- of being responsible for their lives. quently read Look Back, they opined that they found “Henceforth whenever I taught Rattigan, the it more exciting and provocative than Deep Blue Sea. students responded intensely, particularly to the One representative student in particular was drawn to emotions of the plays especially where they were Jimmy Porter’s violent rhetoric, shouted from the conveyed through Rattigan’s highly wrought window on the street. language of understatement and implication.” “I must now insert a comic memory from this same For a report on the Birthday Dinner see page 3... THE ANNUAL BIRTHDAY DINNER, PP 1, 3 ROGER MILLS ON KEEPING REVIVALS SIMPLE, PP 2, 3 THE WINSLOW BOY ON TOUR, PP 4, 5, 8 OBITUARY: ROSALINDA ZAZZERA, P 6 IN APPRECIATION OF PATRICK LONGFORD, P 7 1 PERSONAL DATA, P 8 / DIARY DATES / TOADS, P 8 The Terence Rattigan Society President: David Suchet CBE Vice-Presidents: Michael Darlow, Lord Fellowes, Dr. Holly Hill, Greta Scacchi, Geoffrey Wansell Chairman Barbara Longford Membership Secretary Diana Scotney Treasurer Andrew Kenyon Newsletter Editor Giles Cole Webmaster Stephen Bradley Theatre Liaison Michael Wheatley-Ward Media Liaison/Co-Editor Roger Mills US Representative Dr. Holly Hill Drama School Liaison Prof. Michael Gaunt Secretary & RAF Liaison Gp. Capt. Clive Montellier Events Liaison Susan Cooper OBE, FCIPD, FCMI, RAF Email: [email protected] Editor’s note: Any views expressed in this newsletter are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Terence Rattigan Society or its Committee. owed more of a debt to Brian Rix than any other Keep Revivals Simple theatrical figure of living memory. Well that’s the view says Roger Mills of yours truly who knows the piece and has seen it a few times. My family, who’d not, thought it was a good ————————————————— show and enjoyed it thoroughly. Which just goes to Four revivals of twentieth century plays, three from the show something. The reviews were similarly split. But forties, seen in around six weeks displayed such varied my question here concerns again the duty to the play approaches I fell to wondering how directors and actors and the playwright. Crudely, would the newcomer gain should ideally approach such things. Mind you, the any sense of the real Coward, the delicacy, the wit, the really furious thinking kicked off after one of my pathos from this pratfall-packed highly physical and infrequent exposures to Brecht, which brought back all bellowed interpretation? that ‘nature of theatre’ stuff imbibed in seventies LAMDA’s final year acting seminar rooms—time which would have been better student’s version of Coward’s spent in the bar. Hay Fever (1925) on the stage of So I’ll deal first with the Royal Central’s production their very pleasant new of The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948) in the new Sainsbury Theatre just round the translation by Frank McGuiness. Sadly for me this was corner from Barons Court tube an almost total disappointment. OK, this production, in contrast was a delight. And which had two directors, was obviously designed to yet Hay Fever is nearly as big a show what as many as possible final year students could temptation for broadness and do. It ended up with too many cooks spoiling the pot sheer silliness as Present and sank torpedoed by the weight of the sometimes Laughter, with which it shares many similarities in my conflicting ideas it was expected to bear. The plot, which view. But this was resisted and in a fairly straight is essentially simple, was lost to view amongst a mêlée of reading, which let the lines have their full value, the acting and technical notions, a grossly intrusive sound humour flowed unforced and naturally. I spoke to some design, and the distraction of an ‘in the round’ of the cast afterwards and Coward was to all a new, but I presentation which left the audience opposite and the felt a pleasant, discovery. Coward wasn’t much older technical crew in clear view. Some of this was based, I than an undergrad when he wrote this piece and the cast suspect, on Brecht’s theories of the theatre driven by the I think instinctively knew this and reacted to it. urge of doing right by the playwright’s views but the Which brings me to The Winslow Boy (1944) which result was overthought and overwrought. I got the opened at Chichester in February and completed its tour impression the students were having a blast. I could see, at Richmond in May. I don’t expect ever to see a better or think I could see, what they and the show were version - or indeed a better Arthur Winslow than that trying to do. For that reason I’d vote it in the end a very given us by Aden Gillett (see our review on pp 4 & 5). I noble failure. can pay it no higher compliment than to say I felt for all The cast of Chichester Festival Theatre’s revival of the world as if I was seeing this wonderful piece for the Noel Coward’s Present Laughter (1942) seemed also to first time. Even its Edwardian setting seemed somehow be having a blast, none more so than the lead Rufus contemporary and relevant. Insight followed insight, Hound. For me Deputy Dawg might have felt equally at delight followed delight. Best of all was the sense of the home in this unceasingly noisy overblown farce which Winslows as an ordinary family trying to do their best in 2 extraordinary circumstances with Arthur more The Annual Birthday Dinner wracked by doubts than he is allowed in many an A report by Michael Wheatley-Ward interpretation. And yet there was nothing novel here, _____________________________ no line I hadn’t heard a zillion times before, no new version, no bells and whistles. It was a straight down The Society could not have organised the Annual the middle interpretation by an ensemble of unusual Birthday Dinner better. Not only was it Terence mutual sympathy where one could ‘hear the music’ so Rattigan’s birthday but also the 100th Anniversary of clearly on its own terms. It should be running in the the RAF, in which he played a significant part. The West End yet and Rachael Kavanaugh showered with weather was also less humid than in the recent past! awards.… We offer a big thank you to Denis Moriarty, a If this quartet has convinced staunch TRS member and our host for the evening. me of anything it’s that revivals Denis is a long-standing member of the venerable are best when they keep things Oxford and Cambridge Club.