Joan Littlewood

by Peter Rankin

  I want it to be an effective answer to the defeatist poison of the Koestlers and their tribe, the fashionable disillusionment with the Soviet Union. They turned tail and now stand at the very head of the forces of reaction. When things were bad and the poor were downtrodden, it was all right to speak up for them but not now that action has been taken. Now people are frightened of the working class. We see the same in David, Rosalie, Mavis [Clavering], Ruth and the rest of the riff-raff that litter the road to a living theatre art. They are like certain whores who imagine that a disease in themselves can be cured by passing it on.

  The tone of this letter suggests that isolation had stoked up bad temper, particularly the attack on members of the company. It’s a rant from inside a bubble, with no sense that some of the others were fed up with his work. Facing soldiers barracking his play would have left him little time for those thoughts.

  His attitude to Russia and communism and the unmentioned but very present Stalin seems to put him even more out of step with the others but that was not entirely the case. He, Joan and Gerry had signed up, in their minds, to an idea that was established before the war. Joe Stalin was a good thing. None of them, not just Jimmie, would, or even could, bear to hear anyone say anything against him and that would continue long after they were confronted with his atrocities. Knock Stalin and you were defending capitalism. Holding on to the idea of communism and separating it from Stalin didn’t seem possible for them, the two together were so ingrained.

  Of course, holding strong beliefs is not enough when it comes to writing a play. Joan had already sent one of Jimmie’s, Blitz Song, to Bernard Shaw, only to have it returned with the comment: ‘Powerful but depressing’. It was therefore likely, with Gerry’s and Freddie Piffard’s opinion of Jimmie’s writing on her mind, that she was not looking forward to this new play as enthusiastically as its author was. Nor was it only Gerry’s and Freddie’s opinion. Somewhere along the line, Michael Macowan had managed to get himself to one of Theatre Workshop’s shows and declared it ‘Boring.’ ‘What would he know?’ Joan might have argued but once a remark is made, even by someone you despise, it nags. Could there have been some truth in what Macowan had said?

  Gerry picked at the company too:

  Let’s be small and beautiful instead of, as now, smothered in shifting sand. If you concentrated your efforts on a few people, had David doing nothing but sound, Camel nothing but lights, got rid of everybody who showed no promise, we’d crash the big time much sooner . . . I only hope Scrooge [Jimmie] stays in gaol long enough for you to decide without him. Otherwise we will have a new influx of demi-vierges stirred to attempt creativity after a few nights’ clumsy love with a red-bearded playwright.

  One thing Jimmie and Gerry had in common was that, to sort out problems, they both turned to Joan. You couldn’t blame them because at work she was so strong. For the rest, her forthright manner made people think she was strong. Inside, she frequently didn’t feel it at all. Right then, she was in a position that was uncomfortable, but it was hers. Letters demanding action were being fired at her from opposing forces, while in England she had to hold immediate auditions to make up for the threatened loss of half the company, while simultaneously rustling up a psychiatrist, preferably with a German accent, to get Jimmie out of gaol. The latter, she achieved, including the German accent, so at least she was genuinely making herself useful. What she wasn’t doing was facing that tour. Gerry, aware of Joan’s ability to galvanize the company and aware also of his weakness when faced with a pretty girl, begged her repeatedly to join them in Germany but she didn’t.

  Still, one good thing came out of this tour and it foretold the company’s reception over the next few years. Germans who saw the show not only liked it but also said that the English didn’t understand it. Gerry, putting it more bluntly, wrote to Joan that the British troops were behaving like Nazis. The point was, Europe, right from the start, took to Theatre Workshop in a way that the UK didn’t.

  What emerges from the letters is also a prediction that came true. Gerry’s demands made Joan chide her young lover for being such a hothead, but most of what he asked for happened. However, it was not Joan who made it happen.

  On its return from Germany, the company could put together only a handful of dates. One was back in London, this time at the Rudolf Steiner Theatre near Regent’s Park, but the national critics stayed away. One critic who did turn up, admired what he saw and admonished the others for their no-shows. This was Robert Muller, a German Jewish refugee, who would go on to write plays for television, marry Billie Whitelaw and become the theatre critic of the Daily Mail.

  A few weeks later, the company, almost in desperation, mounted Professor Mamlock by Friedrich Wolf, whom they had met in Germany. Desperation because, though it wasn’t a bad play, with its clashes between Nazis and communists, fascists and Liberals, Germans and Jews, it didn’t suit Theatre Workshop. It required naturalism and heavyweight actors. They couldn’t do the one and they didn’t have the other. Joan knew it and so did Ossia Trilling, critic and long-time supporter of Theatre Workshop. He went to see it at the Dolphin Theatre in Brighton. It wasn’t Joan’s non-naturalistic production – two opposing slopes, no walls – that he objected to. That was the best part, even if not Brighton’s cup of tea. It was the lack of talent in the company and plain old inaudibility that was bothering him. This was a reminder of Jo Hodgkinson’s reservations and, closer to home, Gerry’s, though he was in it. 1947 was winding down and so, it appeared, was Theatre Workshop. It could look forward to absolutely nothing. If ever there was a point when there seemed nothing else for it but to chuck in the towel, this was it.

  At that time, the Arts Council was only interested in financing companies that had a base. Nobody at Theatre Workshop has said they were aware of this but was it simply a coincidence that one member of the company announced that if it didn’t find a base, and soon, Ormesby Hall being too small, it would die? That member instinctively researching and pushing to find places for the company to go, was Gerry. What he knew for sure, because it was announced at that very time, was that local councils were empowered to levy sixpence on everyone’s rates to help in the establishment or the maintenance of theatres. No council was actually doing this but they could have. So, even though the company disbanded, the drive to start up again had some fuel. It helped too that most remained in Manchester, where they found temporary work.

  Joan, still the company’s one old pro, wrote another Visit to... for the BBC. Jimmie, out of gaol and still convinced he was the voice of Theatre Workshop, went to Oak Cottage to carry on writing. Gerry went anywhere that had half a chance of becoming a base. Most places were dispiriting but he had hopes for the David Lewis Centre in Liverpool. In fact he concentrated all his efforts on it.

  Having had notepaper printed with Joan’s name on it – his faith in her put into practice but also the start of trouble, the company having been anonymous – Gerry set to work. While Jimmie wrote and Joan went for rambles – ‘Why did he bother with us?’ asked Joan – he drummed up letters of support from famous fans of Theatre Workshop, got anyone who was anyone in Liverpool onside and explained to the Board, very patiently, what a wonderful influence Theatre Workshop would be on Liverpool. Not only would it mount plays but it would teach theatre, and get famous people in the arts world to come and talk.

  This makes it sound like the David Lewis Centre was sitting there doing nothing. It wasn’t. It was packed with activities, not necessarily interesting ones, but well established. Going to it would mean having to fit in. It would also mean putting down ten thousand pounds in advance.

  Although Mike Thompson had left and Gerry had assumed the role of General Manager, Gerry was still regarded as a junior. He had to put his idea first to Jimmie and then to a meeting attended by Howard, Kristin, Camel and his new wife Maggie, Jimmie and Jean Newlove. Jimmie spotted the flaws in Gerry’s plan at once. Theatre Workshop had never fitted in and was not going to start. This was in sp
ite of the company not doing anything at all at the time. Where was the ten thousand pounds going to come from? The company already had enough debts. Those mooted activities would weaken the central aim of Theatre Workshop: getting its voice out into the world through plays.

  As it happened, Gerry had made a list of plays. It included The Playboy of the Western World, Bartholomew Fair and Blood Wedding; what a national theatre might put on, really. How long would there be to rehearse each one, though? Two weeks, to start with. Things were looking bleaker for Gerry by the moment. Finally, why was there nothing by Jimmie? After all, his new play was nearly finished.

  This was really awkward. It was too early for Gerry to express his opinion, even less appropriate to back it up with Freddie Piffard’s letter. With Joan, clearly uncertain, he could be putting himself out on a limb, and one he couldn’t get back from. A confrontation was just about avoided because the excitement of the others at the thought of a new play brought the meeting to an end.

  However the two problems raised at the meeting remained: whether to go to the David Lewis Centre, and the choice of plays. As to the first, that was way up in the air. As to the second, there was, on the one hand, a play that hadn’t been read. On the other, there was Gerry’s list which, because he was pleasing Joan, sounded borrowed. Were they what he, Gerry, wanted to do, never mind anyone else. Another play on that list was a new Macbeth to be commissioned from Hugh MacDiarmid. Joan, provoked by the sight of Michael Redgrave in a plaid at the Aldwych Theatre, had been researching the true story and thought it would be less insular than the Shakespeare. A leaning towards Scotland, headed by Jimmie and MacDiarmid, was always in the company, and Joan was leaning with it. However, it made Gerry’s position even more complicated. He’d put the play on the list but did he believe in it? Joan’s mind at work was exciting – she wanted to do Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata as well – but could you say that either that, or the new Macbeth, or the rest of the list jumped out as likely to be popular? Gerry would have to bide his time and learn as he went along.

  The first problem was solved almost at once. Nobody had to worry about Theatre Workshop being compromised by the David Lewis Centre because it turned Gerry’s proposal down. It didn’t need a theatre company. Problem number two was a fight that was just beginning.

  Joan may have liked the plays on Gerry’s list but she didn’t direct one of them. The prospect of doing Jimmie’s play, which he soon finished, was exciting the others too much. There was a reading. David Scase and Rosalie Williams, Jimmie’s ‘riff-raff that littered the way to a living theatre art’, as he had previously described them, loved it and so did Jean Newlove. Their reaction was understandable because Jimmie wrote finely. In this case, it was verse and it sounded terrific, so vigorous and rich. But what did it mean, this play? Probing was needed but the one British director Joan had time for, Tyrone Guthrie, to whom she sent it, wrote back that he couldn’t be bothered and was content to say he hadn’t a clue.

  Joan read it. To her, it seemed that Jimmie, ostensibly talking about conflicts in the world, was actually talking about conflicts with his girlfriends. Gerry’s reaction was more instinctive. He had a theory that would last him a lifetime. There are popular writers and there are anti-popular writers. Anti-popular doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means nobody goes to see your plays. Gerry thought Jimmie’s plays were anti-popular. OK, there was a touch of the young lion versus the old lion going on. Jimmie still had power over Joan, particularly when it came to music.

  For his new play, The Other Animals, he wanted to use Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection). In a letter to Joan, he wrote that Mahler was the spirit of Theatre Workshop. It shows, yet again, his interest in all sorts of music, unlike what was to come, his assumption of the high moral ground by means of folksong. Pop, for example, he would dismiss as tainted by commerce.

  When it came to direction, Jimmie was sensible. He deferred to Joan. Only she could make his play work, he knew that. At first, Joan wondered why she should bother. Good or bad, there was no money and nowhere to work. Bit by bit, though, she was drawn in.

  David Scase and Rosalie Wiliams, by then married, went to dinner one night at Sadhur Bahadur’s new place in town. He’d moved there from his old restaurant near the university, where Gerry had eaten as a student. Sadhur loved Theatre Workshop and was happy to offer it his empty house at five pounds and five shillings a week. Given that most of the company were hanging on in dubious dives by the skin of their teeth, it was a relief to have somewhere to go. As its walls were covered with a pattern of green parrots, it became known as the Parrot House and it would bring the company together again. Gerry wished it wouldn’t, and he had signed the contract.

  In Germany, he’d hoped that discontent would shake out the duds. He’d hoped the same thing while the company was disbanded. Rather, it was the opposite. The duds, having nowhere else to go, came back, and there they were at the Parrot House. In a letter to Joan, he singled out Margaret Greenwood, whom he regarded as conscientious at exercise time but no more. This was awkward as Margaret Greenwood was Camel’s new wife, Maggie.

  The Parrot House aside, problems remained to be solved, costumes, for a start. There was no money for them. Gerry, back in the spirit of things, went out with Kristin and returned with parcels of beautiful materials, all of them obtained for nothing. How had they pulled that off? Kristin had told the manufacturers, Marshall Fabrics of Minshull Street, that the play would be touring Sweden and that their name would be in the programme. This was sort of true. One of Sweden’s top impresarios loved Mahler and was looking forward to putting on a play that used his music. Gerry was still twisting and turning by suggesting other plays, but it looked as if the die was cast. Bill Davidson, who agreed with Gerry, wasn’t there and would never come back. Joan was non-commital. David and Rosalie had started learning Jimmie’s verse.

  News came that the Library Theatre in the heart of Manchester had two weeks available in July. Howard had been pestering the Library for years. There was still no rehearsal space, though. Gerry, realising he wasn’t going to win, did the sensible thing. To keep himself away from the play but remain useful, he concentrated on what he was good at. South of the town centre, in the Palatine Road, was a club that Sephardi Jews went to. It was known as ‘The Yackypack’ which is what Yiddishers called Sephardis. The man who ran it knew Manny Raffles which embarrassed Gerry, but then the space it could provide, the music room, was what the company needed.

  With all this effort being made around her, Joan, though not convinced by the play, was swept along to the point where simply doing some work seemed enticing. The Other Animals, if nothing else, offered plenty of challenges. There was the set, for instance. Camel was designing by then but that needs some explaining.

  Joan was fascinated by the idea of scientists working in teams, pooling their mental resources to make a breakthrough. ‘The composite mind,’ she called it. Maybe she didn’t arrive at those exact words until after James Watson’s book about the discovery of DNA, The Double Helix, published in 1968, but she used the idea to explain working with Camel, which is odd.

  Certainly, Camel’s way of working was quite unlike that of other designers and it was integral to what made Theatre Workshop different to other companies. Design was not imposed on the play. It grew around the actors as rehearsals progressed. There were no cute little models – Joan used to say: ‘A little thing is not a big thing’ – but full-size mock-ups, like a sketch in 3D.

  The Other Animals takes place in the hero’s head, so there was no argument about the set being non-naturalistic. That was absolutely how it should be. It had a tilted disc up in the air surrounded by silver rods. Even today, you will see photos of it in books about set design. It was that striking. However, throughout the years, Joan repeatedly said that all the ideas for sets were hers and that Camel merely executed them. That doesn’t exactly sound like the composite mind, unless it means taking her ideas and realising them very well. About that,
there was never an argument.

  Gerry did not speak about Camel in the way Joan did. His admiration for Camel was unconditional.

  As for The Other Animals, a mixture of Mahler, enthusiasm, Joan’s work, and sheer relief that Theatre Workshop was back in business, swept the company through to an exciting first night. Tom Driberg brought Nye Bevan and, together, they went to a celebration at the Parrot House where Nye proved himself quite the flirt. Joan in her diary, generous on this occasion, wrote: ‘Camel’s cage looks very good in Library Theatre,’ and then: ‘Jimmie’s a ham. All you can see on his face is self-pity.’ Of the play, she wrote that it kidded a lot of people but was cliché with good padding. Between the moment when the company had good reason to think its days were over and this Library first night, seven months had elapsed.

  Many years later in the 1990s, Joan went to Australia where she was invited on to the Margaret Throsby Show, the equivalent of Desert Island Discs. One of her choices was Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. Back in Manchester, in 1948, Gerry had disappeared.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  OUT AND ABOUT IN EUROPE

  The loss of the David Lewis Centre winded Gerry but it was from that moment on that his beliefs began to strengthen or, if you were not in his camp, harden. The first thing he did was go off and stay with his father. He’d had to get away from the company. The criticisms during that meeting had been humiliating and Joan’s uncertainty hadn’t helped. For a few days, son and father talked and then Manny gave Gerry money to pay off some of those debts Jimmie had been complaining of, not that Jimmie had offered any solutions.

  Conflicting letters arrived. Nelson Illingworth thought Gerry’s plans had been vague, pretentious and costly. Gerry, he thought, was too inexperienced at business to be doing what he was attempting. Theatre Workshop should be playing safe but that was what the Arts Council had wanted.