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Introduction: a British Theatrical Avant-Garde

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Introduction: a British Theatrical Avant-Garde Notes Introduction: A British Theatrical Avant-Garde 1. The American Haillie Flanagan, later to become director of the Federal Theatre Project, had already given the premier of this play at V assar College, New York on 6 May 1933 (Badenhausen 2004, p. 123). 2. ‘Ottoline’ refers to Lady Ottoline Morrell, the patroness who opened her home Garsington Manor for artists and pacifists during the war . ‘Raymond’ is almost certainly Raymond Bell Mortimer the critic and man of letters. He conducted his apprenticeship under Desmond MacCarthy who wrote a ver y favourable review of Sweeney Agonistes. ‘Hope’ is Hope Mirlees, the writer, whose poem, ‘Paris’ was amongst the first to be pub- lished by Hogarth Press. For these biographical descriptions I am indebted to the editors of Virginia Woolf’s diaries. 3. Sidnell suggests that Brecht was at the final December production. However, in Ian Donaldson’ s edited edition, Transformations in Moder n Drama, John Willett suggests that Brecht visited Group Theatre in 1935 (1983, p. 165). Whichever version Brecht saw , the consensus is that he was impressed by the play and by the company itself (Badenhausen 2004, p. 142). 4. This claim is substantiated by Matei Calinescu in Five Faces of Moder nity (1987, p. 143). 5. Interesting examples of this recent turn can be found in books like Lucy Delap’s The Feminist A vant-Garde: T rans-Atlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Centur y, Michael Saler’ s The A vant-Garde in Inter war England , Paul Peppis’ s Literature, Politics and the English A vant-Garde and Edwar d Comentale’s Modernism, Cultural Production and the British Avant-Garde. 6. Actually this inadvertently mirrors Mike Sell’s approach in his 2011 edited edition Avant-Garde Performance and Material Exchange . Rather than ‘dia- logues’, he uses the term ‘vectors of the radical’. Interestingly though, both Sell’ s ‘vectors’ and my own ‘dialogues’ are, appropriating Sell’ s description, ‘a kind of thing that moves and interacts with the people and places it encounters’ (2011, p. 1). Neither are fully realised or set- tled categories; they are imbued with a sense of movement in their ver y definition. 7. In this respect it takes up the mantle of Andrew Davies in Other Theatres: The Development of Alternative and Experimental Theatre in Britain who wrote that ‘although the mainstream or commer cial theatre is always likely to occupy the most prominent position, the other traditions deser ve much greater attention from critics, historians, publishers and theatre-goers. Other Theatres is a small step in that direction’ (1987, p. 11). 183 184 Notes 8. See, for example, Sascha Bru’ s Democracy, Law and the Moder nist Avant- Garde. 9. The response from regional audiences seems to challenge the W est End’s suspicion of Uranium 235. In taped inter views MacColl recollected that ‘they loved it, ordinar y people. The response was fantastic’ (Orr and O’Rourke 1985, Part Four). 10. As Luca Somigli puts it, ‘it is precisely through manifestoes that avant- garde artists and writers confront their audience with the problem of the loss of the halo and attempt to articulate new strategies of legitimation of their activity’ (2003, p. 20). 11. Christopher Isherwood, too, has become the focus of recent plays, films and television programmes. The interest begins with John van Druten’ s I am a Camera (1951) which, with Isher wood’s Berlin Stories, was later an inspiration for Kander and Ebb’ s Cabaret (original Broadway produc- tion, 1966). More recently Isherwood’s life and work has been reassessed through the Oscar-winning film adaptation of his novel A Single Man (2009), and the recent BBC series, Christopher And His Kind (2011). 12. Britten and MacColl worked on a piece entitled The Char tists March in 1938. Although MacColl’s libretto was not entirely satisfactory to Britten, it did mark the beginning of a continuing relationship (Harker 2007, p. 163: Mitchell and Reed 1998, p. 555). 13. There are obvious, though not necessarily accurate, connections in com- pany names here. ‘The Red Megaphones’ came from a distinct German tradition (Innes 1972, p. 55). Furthermore the titles, ‘Theatre Union’ and ‘Theatre of Action’ can be seen in American theatre of the period (Clurman 1957). Theatre Workshop used all these names during its early incarnations. Interestingly , while the Group Theatre in England was establishing itself as a foremost innovator in experimental theatre, an American theatre company with the same name appeared. There doesn’ t seem to be any direct link between these two companies, though both are attempting to create a new theatrical language. Unity, by contrast, did seem to consider a range of typical Continental European names before deciding on ‘Unity’ which ‘summed up the prevailing political strategy of the moment’ (Chambers 1989, p. 46). 14. See Chambers 1989, pp. 39–45 for details of this acrimonious split in the WTM. 1 Structure: The Fragmented and Episodic 1. Interestingly, though there is a distinct home-grown naturalist tradi- tion, the British scene was greatly influenced by both local productions of naturalist plays and the visits of Continental companies. A play such as Ghosts, for instance, produced by Jacob Grein’ s Independent Theatre Society in 1891, caused such an outcry that ‘the general playgoing public hereafter associated a naturalistic play , especially one from abroad, with Notes 185 outrage and scandal in some form or other’ (Styan 1997, p. 56). V isits from overseas were also extremely influential. The tour of the Saxe- Meiningen company, as an example, encouraged British practitioners to develop methods that enabled them to present accurate mimetic images (Schumacher 1996, pp. 384–5). 2. This latter episode marks an interesting parallel with Bertolt Brecht’ s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, written in 1941, a year later than Last Edition. It too examines the history of Nazism using an American gangster scene. 3. Samuel Hynes also points to this parallel saying, ‘while the climb in F6 is a fable based on a ‘thirties myth of heroism, it is also close to reportage’ (Hynes 1976, p. 237). 4. It must be noted, however, that those involved with Group Theatre were anxious to partly disassociate themselves from Continental Expressionism. Group Theatre member Robert Medley addressed this, saying, ‘neither were we, as some have thought, an English offshoot of the continental expressionist theatre, in spite of Rupert’ s association with Reinhardt and his admiration for the work of Kurt Jooss’ s (Medley 1983, p. 159). This seems to be an attempt to claim a local tradition, decidedly British and distinct from the innovations overseas. 5. Two other T oller plays were produced in Manchester during this pre- Second W orld W ar period: The Blind Goddess and Pastor Hall were performed by the Manchester Rep in 1935 and 1939 respectively . J. M. Ritchie suggests that ‘it is perhaps permissible to conclude by com- plimenting Manchester on the part it had to play in helping to promote the work of expressionists in exile like Ernst T oller’ (Behr, Fanning and Jarman 1993, p. 38). Breaking down the centre–peripher y dialectic, it is interesting to note the importance of the Northern city in the develop- ment of a local tradition. 6. Ashley Dukes’s name reappears in a range of contexts throughout the British avant-garde. He is affiliated to the ILP , as mentioned, but also set up the innovative Mercury Theatre in 1933. Later he worked closely with Group Theatre on productions like The Ascent of F6: ‘Group Theatre oper- ated “in association” with Ashley Dukes, who hired the actors, arranged for the scenery and costumes, paid a royalty to the authors, and managed performing rights’ (Auden 1988, p. 502). He is an interesting and use- ful character transcending that barrier between the political and poetic traditions. 7. While being somewhat reluctant to claim an American historical avant- garde, Arnold Aronson does recognise the innovations of pre-1950s play- wrights, citing both Eugene O’Neill and Elmer Rice, in addition to Federal Theatre (Aronson 2000, p. 2). 8. Important for our later discussion of critical naturalism, Priestley obvi- ously held a certain admiration for O’Casey’ s work and particularly for the ‘three Dublin plays’, as he terms them in Particular Pleasures (1975, p. 146). Theatre W orkshop too, admired O’Casey’ s work and performed Juno and the Paycock in its first season at Stratford East (Leach 2006, 186 Notes p. 110). There is also the suggestion that O’Casey saw Ewan MacColl’ s play, Uranium 235, performed by Theatre W orkshop in 1946 and 1952, and greatly enjoyed it (ibid., p. 77). 9. Kokoschka visited Britain in the 1920s and later , like a number of other artists from across Continental Europe, moved to Britain to escape fas- cism. See Hoffman’ s Kokoschka: Life and W ork and Keegan’s The Eye of God: A Life of Oskar Kokoschka for further information about these trips and his eventual residency in Britain. As he wrote in his 1945, A Petition from a Foreign Artist to the Righteous People of Gr eat Britain for a Secur e and Present Peace, ‘Great Britain was the only countr y to admit me when, as a “degenerate artist”, I had been deprived of civil rights in an Austria signed away to Hitler’ (Hoffmann 1947, p. 246). 10. Richard Murphy confronts the central aims of this Expressionistic frag- mentation: By contrast with the solidity of naturalist verisimilitude, what the expressionist text attempts to do is to undermine appearances in order firstly to shock the audience and undermine both the inherent con- servatism and the sense of reassurance it derives from recognizing the familiar, and secondly to destroy the audience’s comforting illusion of having a conceptually mastered or fixed reality.
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