CONTEMPORARY ARTS
SURPRISES AT STRATFORD
THE PLAYS : The Merchant of Venice—King Richard III—Antony and Cleopatra—The Taming of the Shrew—King Lear. (March 17th to October 31st, 1953.) THE present season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, from the materialistic viewpoint of box office takings, is the most success- ful ever. No doubt contributory factors are the influx of visitors to the Coronation and the continued employment of stage actors of star quality. No doubt also, as jealousy prompts the retort in darker corners of the London theatre, tourists and trippers who go to watch the swans fly along the Ayon or pay their money to walk where William Shakespeare may, or may not, have been born are more easily drawn in to a performance of his work at the end of a sightseer's day than in London, where the latest 3-D film and the Palladium are in exhilarating competition.
But to admit this does not detract from the fact that Stratford has changed in the past few years from being simply a tourists' theatre to one of international artistic importance. While the Old Vic, for a long time exciting and for a short time great, has in the last few years been steadily conducted by its Governors into a backwater of mediocrity, kept afloat by Arts Council grants and film-star pub- licity campaigns, Stratford has thrust ahead. The National Theatre, in all but name, stands by the Avon, not the Thames. Indeed, apart from the occasional flashes of Sir John Gielgud, the English theatrical tradition based on the playing of Shakespeare has recently been better served in Bristol and Birmingham than in London.
Theatrical reputations are ephemeral ; what is this year may not be next. And that is much more true of a theatre than of an actor. The Old Vic, under its new director Michael Benthall, may now throw off some of its shackles : we can hope so. But this year policy, produc- tions and performances at 'Stratford have certainly reached an extraordinary degree of schematic integration. Here, we feel, after seeing the plays, is something approaching closely the ideal of national repertory. Repertory as ,a system, of course, imposes its own handicaps. Perfection may not be expected from any, or at the best more than one, of the productions. Lear must suffer because the casting of Antony and Cleopatra is exceptionally good. The last two plays in the repertory get far too little rehearsal time. But these difficulties are overcome to some extent this season by the versatility and idealism shared by the group of artists employed. It is significant in this context that the two principal producers, the two successful designers, and the four leading players all owe much of their training or development to the inspiration and practical teaching of that great servant of the English theatre, Michel St. Denis. Theatre, particularly traditional theatre, depends ultimately on performances. And repertory for its theatrical justification depends rather on brilliant surprises than on standards of expected competence. Miss Peggy Ashcroft is, we know in advance, to be a beautifully spoken, slightly stylised and subtly comedic Portia : a set-piece, one might-say, for students. Surprising though, and rewarding, to find her giving a sensual, blown, coarsely mocking Cleopatra ; a courtesan regnant of infinite variety from the voluptuous uncoiling of her sinuous body to the taunting quixotry of her death. Cleopatra is a more " unplayable " part technically than any other ; certainly than Lear. Shakespeare , overloaded the woman with wildly rich description and refused her more than cursory tantalising oppor- tunities to illustrate their truth. He was, of course, writing for a boy-player. But I think this Cleopatra on Miss Ashcroft's best nights (and it is time for critics to concede to players of great quality that performances, particularly of intricately emotional parts, may be extremely variable) is the most lucid, exciting and total interpre- tation we have had, or shall have, for many years.
Setting it off is the flashing sweep of Mr. Glen Byam Shaw's production. Mr. Byam Shaw has an impeccable line : both Antony and Richard III are examples of the producer's true craft—the self-less illumination of other artists' work. i suspect that he is unique in the modern theatre in understanding with full sympathy the problems of author, designer and actor. Mr. Michael Redgrave, in himself the triple pillar of this Stratford season, plays Shylock, Antony and Lear. Mr. Redgrave, it is always said deprecatingly and wrongly, is an " intellectual " actor. He is an emotional actor. Settling this finally and clearing up the con- fusion is his playing of Lear ; a performance, I feel, which in its simplicity must also seal his claim to greatness ; a hard-won great, ness which, if this actor would now cast aside his two vocal tricks— the guttural and the breaking voice, would be absolute. Lear may be played two ways ; as the finest opportunity in drama for conscious, tutored histrionics, or as classically pure, relentless tragedy ; the story of the consequences of mental and spiritual blindness. The actor who plays intellectually chooses the former ; the actor who, as an intellectual, perceives the truth is bound to attempt the latter. And if his approach to the playing is entirely emotional, as Redgrave's is and Olivier's for instance is not, the result may be greatness both of conception and execution. It is interesting to compare this season Redgrave's Antony—pure Roman, the physical transcending the mental—and his Lear, which is essentially Greek, and to note that by each the audiences are moved.
There are two other major surprises. The reclamation of Marius Goring to serious theatre ; brave casting for Richard in which only his long-neglected voice prevents his, at least, challenging the memory of Olivier. But where he fails in the grand way there, his exquisite, sweetly spoken, contrapuntal Fool and his incisively developed Octavius Caesar have about them an unsuspected perfection. Throughout this, his first season in full control, Mr. Byam Shaw has bravely mixed the experimental with the certain. He may have expected, perhaps, that Miss Yvonne Mitchell would carry off the impossible wooing scene of Lady Anne by Richard, and that she would get, without sentiment, to the pathos beneath Cordelia's priggery. But her Katherina, a wild, gypsy Shrew in love, was not so obvious. Yet with Goring's bluff, Laughtonesque Petruchio as a foil and in a beautifully toned if rather fussy production by Mr. George Devine, she sets the style which turns one of the most unpalatable knock-about farces in history into a romantic comedy of perfectly valid wit and charm. There arc many other fine things—notably the final emergence of Mr. Harry Andrews as a major actor—but there are also faults which upset the high quality of artistic integration which has been the achievement of the season. Chief is the saccharine production of The Merchant of Venice ; oddly out of key with the others and notable only for the Portia and the Shylock. There are serious lapses in the secondary casting of each play, and most strangely three student-standard performances in important parts. There is the failure of the bold, justifiable experiment of employing the painter Robert Colquhoun to design Lear. His static setting and awkward costumes hinder both players and production. Mr. Devine allows us such a clean development of the tragedy that this lapse—I suggest of supervision—is a great pity. It is also miserable still to find at Stratford music drowning the voices. The words are the thing in this theatre and we should be allowed to hear them at all times. They have been spoken most
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