'A high average' on the British stage

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 9

'A high average' on the British stage

(By

J. C. TREWIN,

theatre critic of the “Illustrated London Neus.'')

One of the excitements of the theatre is its unpredictability. But 1971 has brought genuine growth and disciplined vigour: no one play or performance has dominated. Instead there has been a high average of artistic success, and little merely futile or anarchic. Certainly British acting and direction are now even richer in achievement and promise than they have been during two decades. Britain is fortunate in her major companies the National Theatre, which expects in 1973 to have its new building on the south bank of the Thames, and the Royal Shakespeare Company (R.S.C.) at Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Aldwych in London. GOOD R.S.C. YEAR Probably the R.S.C. has had the better year. At Stratford, revivals included a decorative “Merchant of Venice,” distinguished by its Portia (Judi Dench); a charmingly original “Much Ado About Nothing,” in a midnineteenth century frame, with Elizabeth Spriggs—now a leading classical actress — as a Beatrice more mature than usual, of warmth and sensibility; and a “Richard II” in which Richard Pasco gave as moving a portrait as we have known in this emotional showpiece. In London, the R.S.C. programme moved between a notable rediscovery of Gorky’s “Enemies,” Pinter’s “Old Times” and Peter Brook's unexampled “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (from Stratford in 1970), a key modem re-creation for which there has not been an empty seat. “Old Times” has been closely examined—a play of memory and illusion in Pinter’s most compressed style, still for some people an acquired taste, it is applauded generally for its precision in manner and performance.

Elsewhere, the R.S.C. took a small “fringe” theatre during the autumn to present a repertory of three plays in the most intimate conditions, with spectators banked up on three sides. The method suited Strindberg’s "Miss Julie” (a strongly sensual interpretation by Helen Mirren), but the best night SPONSORSHIP

8.0.A.C. is to sponsor a series of London Symphony Orchestra concerts in 1972. For many years the orchestra has been one of 8.0.A.C.’s regular customers, in the last 12 months flying to North America and the Far East.

was “Occupations,” by a new dramatist, Trevor Griffiths. Here he reported, from a hotel bedroom in Turin, the events of the Com-munist-inspired and abortive rising of Italian factoryworkers in 1920. Written with economy and dramatic truth, it was as surprising a new work as appeared during the year.

MESMERIC GIFTS The National Theatre, also using three stages—those of the Old Vic, the New (in the west end), and the Young Vic —had its sharpest effect with a version of Zuckmayer’s “The Captain of Kopenick.” Paul Scofield, new to the National company, showed his mesmeric gifts as the exconvict with the grey, drifting voice who so richly i hoaxes the civic authorities. ■ It was one of the year’s most ! intricately-conceived periformances; Scofield added to it the restraint of his avenging husband in Pirandello’s [“The Rules of the Game.” Joan Plowright was beautifully sincere as the wife in Heywood’s Jacobean rarity, “A Woman Killed With Kindness.”

Other National choices were less happy. Thus a “celebration” of William Blake, a musical called “Tyger,” with a libretto by Adrian Mitchell, proved to be anachronistically chaotic. At the end of the year playgoers were looking forward to Lord Olivier’s appearance as the father in O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” On the flexible stage of the Young Vic the most compelling production was n “Measure for Measure,” with Ronald Pickup as the tempted governor. He, like Richard Pasco and lan McKellen; is a hope of the classical theatre. McKellen brought his Hamlet to the west end, a first effort that time will ripen and confirm; in outline, persuasive, but helped neither by the production on a mirror-backed stage nor by a capriciously edited text. / LONG RUNS

The west end had a profitable sequence of long runs and a good deal of highly professional playing, such as Alan Badel’s in “Kean,” based (curiously) by JeanPaul Sartre on an old drama by the elder Dumas. Though the character was not much like the early nineteenthcentury English actor, it gave to Mr Badel room for an exercise in romantic bravura; consciously histrionic, swiftly ironical and in aspect a' very leonard of a man.

We can set against this the quietness of Sir Alec Guinness as the blind father in John Mortimer’s family play, “A Voyage Round My Father.” Like another piece of family reminiscence, Peter ■Nichols’s .“Forget-Me-Not 'Lane” (from World War II jand afterwards), it began at

the Greenwich Theatre in the south-east of London. Triumphant after only two years Greenwich is now with Hampstead Theatre Club in the north-west—one of the capital’s two major experimental houses: “test-tubes,” they have been called. We are grateful also for Sir Bernard Miles’s courage at the Mermaid in the City of London. He has presented on his immense stage such work as Robert Lowell’s uncompromising statement of the “Prometheus Bound” of Aeschylus; a version of a novel, “The Old Boys” (men who never forget their schooldays) which returned Sir Michael Redgrave to the theatre after a long absence; and Shaw’s almost forgotten “Geneva,” dated but historically absorbing. Shaw, indeed, has had his customarily good year, though Ingrid Bergman was hardly exact casting as the very English Lady Cicely in “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion”; and, down at Chichester Festival, “Caesar and Cleopatra” was mistakenly directed. But Sir John Gielgud’s Caesar was a noble portrait and the director (Robin Phillips) redeemed himself by an imaginative handling of the Anouilh fantasy, “Dear Antoine," which reached London. NEW WORK

Several of the applauded British dramatists had new work: Pinter and Nichols; John Osborne, with an uneven but forthright and topical conversation-piece, “West of Suez”; David Storey, also at the adventurous Royal Court, with an affectionate passage of straight, plotless realism, “The Changing Room” (from the world of Rughy league football in the north of England); Simon Gray, with his full-length portrait, “Butley,” of failure, an egotistical don; Edward Bond, with his horrifying “Lear"; and Alan Bennett, in “Getting On,” which considered the onset of age with a wryly sympathetic imagination.

Yes; it will be a year to remember: one of ampler writing—dramatists are less ready to be anarchic for the sake of anarchy—and of most assured playing in a variety of moods. I would suggest as names to watch in the future Anna CalderMarshall (the Chichester Cleopatra), Emrys James (lago at Stratford), and John Wood; and, as a long shot, the highly talented actress Heather Canning (also with the R.S.C.). Any record of the year, however pleasant to recall, must be sternly selective. Perhaps it is enough to say that John Masefield’s famous phrase, “The acted passion beautiful and swift” has seldom recurred to mind more forcibly than during the high season of 1971.