The Sunday Night Productions Without Decor at the Royal Court Theatre, 1957-1975
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1984 The undS ay Night Productions Without Decor at the Royal Court Theatre, 1957-1975 (England, Playwriting, Drama). Gordon Maxwell Bolar Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Bolar, Gordon Maxwell, "The undS ay Night Productions Without Decor at the Royal Court Theatre, 1957-1975 (England, Playwriting, Drama)." (1984). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 4006. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/4006 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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University Microfilms International 30C N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8515130 Bolar, Gordon Maxwell THE SUNDAY NIGHT PRODUCTIONS WITHOUT DECOR AT THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE, 1957-1975 The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col. Ph.D. 1984 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1985 by Bolar, Gordon Maxwell All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE SUNDAY NIGHT PRODUCTIONS WITHOUT DECOR AT THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE, 1957-1975 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfullment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech Communication, Theatre, and Communication Disorders *>y Gordon Maxwell Bolar M.A., Hendrix College, 1970 M.F.A., Ohio University, 1972 December 1984 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © 1985 GORDON MAXWELL BOLAR All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank my parents Max and Mary Bolar for their steadfast support and for their constant encouragement over the past seven years. I thank my wife, Anne Thompson Bolar, for sharing her optimism in the face of adversity during the planning and the research of this project. Most of all I thank my son, Matthew Thompson Bolar. May he read this someday and know that his life has rekindled my spirit and inspired the completion of this work. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................... ii ABSTRACT ................................................ iv PREFACE............................................... vi INTRODUCTION......................................... 1 Chapter I. BOLICIES AND PRACTICES GOVERNING THE SUNDAY NIGHT PRODUCTIONS............................. 16 II. THE FIRST TWO SUNDAY NIGHT SEASONS (1957-1959). 51 III. THE SUNDAY NIGHT PRODUCTIONS DURING THE FINAL YEARS OF THE DEVINE ERA (1959-1965)............ 88 IV. THE LEGACY OF GEORGE DEVINE AND THE GASKILL YEARS............................................131 V. ALTERNATIVE THEATRE, THE THEATRE UPSTAIRS, AND THE SUNDAY NIGHT PRODUCTIONS..................... 172 VI. THE DECLINE OF THE SUNDAY NIGHT SERIES...........199 CONCLUSION...............................................233 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................246 APPENDIX................................................. 256 VITA..................................................... 264 APPROVAL SHEETS......................................... iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The Sunday night productions without decor were a series of ninety-nine fully rehearsed plays each presented with minimal scenery or costumes for one or two nights at the Royal Court Theatre, in London, from 1957-1975* This program, along with the main bill productions of the English Stage Company, staged the works of new playwrights who gave voice to the concerns and problems of the young and the working class, two groups previously ignored in the English theatre. After the success of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956), the ESC, under the leadership of George Devine, was unable to accommodate many of the new scripts that arrived at the Royal Court. Devine needed a second stage also in order to test and train directors for future responsibility in the company. The productions without decor, created by Devine in 1957* satisfied both of these requirements. During the late fifties this series not only introduced several significant playwrights, such as John Arden and N.F. Simpson, but was instrumental in discovering three important directors for the ESC: John Dexter, Lindsay Anderson, and William Gaskill. During the sixties the private club status of the English Stage Society allowed the productions without decor iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to evade the scrutiny of the Lord Chamberlain and played a role in abolishing censorship in British theatre. Edward Bond and Christopher Hampton were two of the major playwrights who emerged through the Sunday night series in the sixties. The production withhout decor of A Collier's Friday Night in 1966, helped launch Peter Gill’s directing career and led to the discovery of D.H. Lawrence as a dramatist. In 1969 the ESC opened by the Theatre Upstairs in the roof of the Royal Court to provide another outlet for new scripts. This space consumed a great deal of the company’s energy during the seventies. Because of the loss of critical attention, the rise of alternative or fringe theatre, and increasing union scales for actors and technicians, the Sunday night series became undesirable as a means for staging plays. Although the productions without decor were terminated in 1975» the ESC has continued its commitment to developing new playwrights and young talent through the Young People's Theatre Scheme and a series of Rehearsed Readings. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE Most of the plays seen by the public at the Royal Court were produced on the main bill and given runs of from four to six weeks, in contrast to the one-night-only practice of the Sunday night series of productions without decor. Another body of work produced at the Royal Court during these years was presented in the Theatre Upstairs, a small, flexible laboratory space established above the mainstage in 19&9- This study, however, excludes main bill and Theatre Upstairs productions except in cases where the scripts, productions, artists, or the general nature of these programs relates in some way to the Sunday night series. The Sunday night series was an auxiliary program of the English Stage Company that presented ninety-nine fully rehearsed one-act and full-length plays with minimal use of sets or costumes at the Royal Court Theatre between 1957 and 1975. The plays, staged