Black and Asian Theatre in Britain ‘An important and long overdue book on the huge contribution that Black and Asian artists have made and continue to make to Britain’s theatrical landscape.’ – Meera Syal Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an unprecedented study tracing the history of ‘the Other’ through the ages in British theatre. The diverse and often contradictory aspects of this history are expertly drawn together to provide a detailed background to the work of African, Asian, and Caribbean diasporic companies and practitioners. Colin Chambers examines early forms of blackface and other representations in the sixteenth century, through to the emergence of black and Asian actors, companies, and theatre groups in their own right. Thorough analysis uncovers how they led to a flourishing of black and Asian voices in theatre at the turn of the twenty­first century. Figures and companies studied include: • Ira Aldridge • Indian Art and Dramatic Society • Henry Francis Downing • Temba • Paul Robeson • Edric and Pearl Connor • Errol John • Tara Arts • Mustapha Matura • Yvonne Brewster • Dark and Light Theatre • Tamasha • The Keskidee Centre • Talawa. Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an enlightening and immensely readable resource and represents a major new study of theatre history and British history as a whole. Colin Chambers was Kingston University’s first Professor of Drama. Formerly a journalist and theatre critic, he was Literary Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1981 to 1997. His books include The Story of Unity Theatre (1989), the award­winning biography Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent (1997), The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre (editor, 2002), Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company (2004) and Here We Stand (2006). Black and Asian Theatre in Britain A History Colin Chambers First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2011 Colin Chambers The right of Colin Chambers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 8ith the eYception of Chapter 8 no part of this book maZ be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in anZ form or bZ anZ electronic mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented including photocopZing and recording or in anZ information storage or retrieval sZstem without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 8 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging­in­Publication Data Chambers, Colin. Black and Asian theatre in Britain: A history/Colin Chambers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Black theater–Great Britain–History. 2. Theater, South Asian– Great Britain–History. 3. English drama–South Asian authors– History and criticism. 4. English drama–Black author s–History and criticism. 5. Blacks in literature. 6. South Asians in literature. I. Title. PN2595.13.B34C43 2011 792.089'96041–dc22 ISBN: 978­0­415­36513­0 (hbk) ISBN: 978­0­415­37598­6 (pbk) Typeset in Bembo by HWA Text and Data Management, London For my grandchildren,Alfie, Mia and Louis CONTENTS List of figures viii Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 The early era 10 2 Aldridge and the age of minstrelsy 38 3 After Aldridge 57 4 Between the wars 83 5 Postwar struggles: 1940s–1960s 108 6 New beginnings in the 1970s 137 7 Asian Theatre: Tara Arts and beyond 158 8 ‘All a we is English’ 175 Notes 200 Select bibliography 242 Index 264 FIGURES Every effort has been made to seek permission to reproduce copyright material before the book went to press. If any proper acknowledgement has not been made, we would invite copyright holders to inform us of the oversight. 1.1 Black musician in the procession from a Westminster tournament, 1511, thought to be John Blanke or Blanc 12 1.2 Crossing­sweep entertainer Billy Waters and street entertainer Joseph Johnson in the early 1800s 36 2.1 Ira Aldridge as Othello 39 2.2 Ira Aldridge as Mungo in the comic opera The Padlock 41 3.1 Samuel Morgan Smith featured on a playbill 58 3.2 Dusé Mohamed Ali, actor, playwright, producer and journalist 67 3.3 Announcement in the Stage of The Lily of Bermuda by Dusé Mohamed and Ernest Trimmingham 70 3.4 Kedar Nath Das Gupta in the Indian Art and Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan 75 3.5 Cover of the programme for The Goddess 80 4.1 The League of Coloured Peoples’s magazine The Keys reports in 1934 on Una Marson’s play At What a Price 100 4.2 Robert Adams in Colony, Unity Theatre, 1939 105 5.1 Negro Theatre Company rehearsing in 1948 113 5.2 Errol John’s Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Royal Court, 1958 117 5.3 Barry Reckord’s Flesh to a Tiger, Royal Court, 1958 121 5.4 Anna Christie, performed by the West Indian Drama Group, 1959 124 Figures ix 5.5 Edric and Pearl Connor, founders of the Negro Theatre Workshop 127 7.1 Genesis, 1999, the first part of the Tara Arts touring trilogy Journey to the West, directed Jatinda Verma 163 7.2 Tamasha touring production of Ruth Carter’s Women of the Dust, directed by Kristine Landon­Smith, 1992 169 8.1 Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock, National Theatre Mobile production directed by Paulette Randall, 1995 179 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the following for their help: Mustafa Abdelwahid, Michael Abbensetts, Hakim Adi,Yemi Ajibade, June Baden Semper, Martin Banham, Jeremy Barlow, Jane Bernal, Rustom Bharucha, Colin Blumenau, Stephen Bourne, David Boxer,Yvonne Brewster, Ian Brown, and Martin Brown. Conrad Brunstrom, Suman Buchar, Tess Buckland, John Burgess, Margaret Busby, Gilli Bush­Bailey, Earl Cameron, Malcolm Chase, Geraldine Connor, Karen S. Cook, Chris Cooper, Sean Creighton, Andy Croft, Sarah Dadswell, John Davis, Alan Dein, Rachel Douglas, Ian Duffield, Clare DuVergier, John Faulkner, Margaret Ferguson,Anne Fletcher,Tony Flood, Peter Fraser, Sophie Fuller, Dimple Godiwala, Christopher Gordon,Tony Graves, Jeff Green, John Greene,Trevor Griffiths, Jagdish Gundara, Simelia Hodge­Dall away, Chr istian Hogsbjerg, Peter Holland, Isobel Howson, Mark Howell, Robert Hutchison, Paul Iles,Alby James, Stephen Johnson, Nesta Jones, Raminder Kaur Kahlon, Rashid Karapiet, Farah Karim­Cooper, Naseem Khan, Nicolas Kent, David Killingray, Kaylan Kundu, Shompa Lahiri, Ananda Lal, Bernth Lindfors, Joyce MacDonald, Rob Marx, Joan­Ann Maynard, Isha Mckenzie­Mavinga, and Peter Millington. Sara Moore, Chris Morash, Gregory Mosher, Hugh Murray, Norma Myers, Alistair Niven, Max Novak, Marian O’Connor, Susan D. Pennybacker, Thelma Perkins, Anton Phillips, Richard Pilbrow, Daphne Power,William Radice, Ahmad Rahman, Amalia Ribi, Brian Roberts, Andrew Robinson, Lawrence Rodgers, Alaknanda Samarth, Jonathan Schneer, Stephen Solley, Pat Stone, SuAndi, Michael Tadman,Alda Terracciano, Peter Thomson, Joanna van Gyseghem,Virginia Vaughan, Jatinder Verma, Rozina Visram, Tony Walton, Hazel Waters, Lisa Whistlecroft, Karina Williamson, Steve Wilmer,Val Wilmer, and Peter Woodford. Archivists, administrators, librarians, and registrars of the various collections, libraries, and organisations I contacted and/or visited: Acknowledgements xi BBC Radio 7, BBC Wales South West, Bernie Grant Archives (Middlesex University). Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Boughton Trust, Bournemouth Library, British Council Archive (National Archives), British Library, British Sociological Association, Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, City of Westminster Archives Centre, East Sussex Libraries, and Eastbourne Local History Society. George Padmore Institute, Gray’s Inn Library, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Haringey Local History Library and Archives, Housman Society, and Howard University. Inner Temple Archives, Institute of Race Relations, Kali Theatre Company, Lancashire Records Office, Leverhulme Family Archive, Lewisham Local Studies, Lincoln’s Inn Library, London Metropolitan Archive, Marx Memorial Library, National Theatre Archive, New York Public Library, Oval House, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, People’s History Museum, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Royal Albert Hall Archive, Samuel French, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Somerset Studies Library, Strode Theatre,Theatre Royal Margate,Theatres Trust, Universities of: Bristol (Theatre Collection), Kansas (Spencer Research Library), Nottingham (Manuscripts and Special Collections), Pennsylvania Library, Sussex (Special Collections), the West Indies (West Indiana and Special Collections, Victoria and Albert Museum (Theatre Collections),Westminster Library,Wigmore Hall, and Women in Jazz. Funding for research visits came from the British Academy (small grant) and Kingston University. INTRODUCTION If there is no struggle, there is no progress … Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass, former slave and emancipation leader, 1857 In aiming to chart the history of black and Asian theatre in Britain, this book is attempting to recover a history that has been downgraded, ignored, or suppressed. 1 It is a long and complicated history of a struggle for self­definition, of a struggle in an often­hostile culture to create spaces for self­assertion and self­expression. It is a history that, because of its subject, the nature of the society in which it took place, and the available sources, focuses at the outset on individuals and groups of individuals. It then moves beyond the achievements of such individuals in the last decades of the twentieth century when the black and Asian presence in British theatre, however disputed, fraught, and fragile, acquired a level of organization, dynamism, and reach that made it recognizable as a distinct and autonomous phenomenon.