Seminars in theatre; British Shakespeare actors, part two

This is seminars in theatre a series of discussions with leading members of the theatrical profession will comment on the problems and pleasures of life in the theatre. Here now is the host of seminars in theatre. Richard Pyatt Good evening this is Dick Pyatt and welcome to another seminars and theatre panel tonight. First as with Richard Pascoe direct descendant of Lieutenant John go we thought it was interesting to say you know some slag on his Earth don't hate him as victory at the Battle of Trafalgar is born in London and served as the actual apprenticeship there and his career was interrupted by four years of army service after which he studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama going on for two seasons at the London all the Americas came to the attention of Stewart and Guthrie. In 1955 he made his first Western appearance as Wharton's in the Paul Scofield Peter Brook Hamlet which subsequently played at the Moscow theater and later tour of the Soviet Union. He was made an honorary member by the society of actors of the US as our first performance and look back in anger in 1956 he joined the

English stage company at the Royal Court Theatre and received critical acclaim for his performances as Jimmy Porter in look back in anger as Franken the entertainer in which he made his American debut with one to live starring and other contemporary plays. These were followed by appearances and its INS lady from the sea with Margaret Leighton and become weird in the privateer in the public eye in 1964 with Glasgow joined the Bristol Old Vic to play the title role of Henry and her own in love Labors Lost in the following year after his memorable performance as Hamlet he was invited by Sir John Gielgud to appear in a revival of Yvonne in London. Returning to Bristol to appear as Angelo in Measure for Measure and contributing a notable pair of Ghent. And because he's in New York playing Hamlet with the old Bristol. Companies presenting a repertory of three plays measure for measure. Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet and our second guest

is Miss Barbara Lee Hunt and it's her third visit to America with an Old Vic company that in her roles on each tour is indicative of her growth as an actress and we're reading that and we trust it's true. Now on the first tour she played a walk on role and served as an understudy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1960 she was playing at the Old Vic as Helena in the same plane as porter in a Merchant of Venice. The next tour of America she was a play a queen and John Nevilles Hamlet on the current tour she plays off in Hammonton Isabella in Measure for Measure. Between the last two tours you played at the knotting in play I was enjoying the Bristol Old Vic in 1963 transferring to London with the original production of a severed head. Miss Leigh Hunt rejoined the Bristol Old Vic for the Shakespeare quarter centenary season to play Rosalind in Love's Labour's Lost which subsequently toured Europe and Israel. She has been seen often on television and heard on radio and her

credits and listings go on and on. And we want to get to Mr. John Franklin Robins and the heart of our discussion Mr. Frankland rather appears as Claudius in Hamlet and the Duke in Measure for Measure. He first appeared in London in the man at Her Majesty's Theatre. He went on to a season at the Old Vic in London and several seasons with the Bristol Old Vic in whose most successful production of war and peace he was transferred to London's Phoenix Theatre. Sounds awfully similar to the AP a Warren piece which was done at the Phoenix Theatre here. He's appeared in the film The Pumpkin Eater on television and in poetry readings and he was born in a car that was in train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Well our introduction in credits having been done. I like to start off first with some distinction between the Bristol Old Vic and London old because it won simply of geography to Pascoe not simply that America.

The English national theatre came into being in 1960 correct me friends 6 2 4 4 3. A few years ago in the very rule the bricks and mortar of the National Theatre are not yet in existence. We hope that it might be completed in about five years time. In the meantime so long as Mary from the National Theatre Company and the obvious theatre for the company to occupy was the Old Vic Theatre at 7 in the Waterloo Road in the East End of London. The name of the company then vanished. That died in Bristol at the €200 Theatre Royal which is our home theatre. Probably the most beautiful theatre in the country and certainly the oldest working here. There was another company the Bristol Old Vic company which had been formed in 1943 towards the end of the war. The theatre was rescued by a local.

And he enthused and corporation businessmen contributed money to save the theater because it could well have been demolished to move to become a warehouse of fallen into disrepair had escaped heavy bombing in the blitz on Bristol in the war. Anyway the theater was rescued a company was formed there and with Dame Sibyl Thorndyke opening the theatre and so on in this. It took the name the Old Vic because of the tradition being handed on from the London company and a great number of the actors and actresses from the London Company appeared there and in its turn and it contributed many designers actors directors for the London company and became sort of mystery over it. Anyway as years went by the Bristol over it became established very much on its own two feet and when the National Theatre was formed and the overall company disappeared the Bristol Old Vic company more or less took over where the old ovate company had left off and we are now the only

company with the name o Vic and I wanted there is no more old there is no more. It was a rush as an adult company had advised so Laurence Olivier hasn't that's not really being equated with the old you not a torn and Susan are a separate entity. There is the National Theatre Company with its own theatre. We hope being built him within five years as the war Shakespeare Company with its headquarters in Stratford upon Avon and leeward set in London they intend having their own theatre built in the Barbican scheme near St. Paul's Cathedral in the city of London and we are one of the third companies in the country. I don't want to go on too much about this but there has been a kind of revolution in English that over the last 10 years or so and the West-End theatre has no longer become the aiming point for all young actors and actresses and I write Absolutely and there's been a lot of

decentralization of the theatre has gone on in England with the result that the Bristol Old Vic John never who is an old member of the old OVER IT company and of the Bristol over company has become director of the nursing and Playhouse which is a very good head an exciting theatre brand new theatre out of the city of Nottingham. There is the Oxford playhouse company run by Frank Corson again doing a similar kind of program to what we are doing. The Glasgow Citizens Theatre the lively theatre in Manchester many many excellent companies decentralize from London. How large a company is a good rule over the company in America at the moment in toto is about 40 here and we leave a company behind in Bristol all of about 30 people so altogether the company comprises something in the region of 70. So moving goods technicians and I are not just actor numbers just set there are only adding members surely there are two members a to cut into two theatres in interest of

course. The little theatre which is a part of us the little theatre originally was a reverie that on its own in its own right. But as the years went by it catered for less and less number of the population and eventually it was taken over by that company and we do very exciting things there. The two companies into change I don't know about the numbers at the moment but does your city include those. I would say I'd say surrender it all together. Yeah it does you very very much according to what the programme of plays happens to 94 in season. It may well be an enormous cost play perhaps at the theatre with perhaps a cost of only four or five people at a little theater. How many players do you have in Russia. Or the program right now at her home in Bristol here where we don't actually work in the same way that for instance the company where here we have a very smooth theatre. Facilities backstage are very limited. Also there's a financial

problem. We cannot afford to run in repertory in the true sense in that we have four plays in repertory and we do one play for two nights and a play for another tonight. We run a play either for three weeks or four weeks and then we drop them and we do another plan and it doesn't come back into the rent. How large of a house is the seven hundred and sixty six I think seven hundred sixty. That's very laudable standards here. Will means that like the API we can never have to take enough money books movies. Well that's what I want to ask you regarding finances. Now the companies here depend upon a fund raiser to go out and raise additional funds to supplement their battles and I talked about that with and this is your God who is a very good fundraiser and he raised something like I think $350000 is one of the tickets. Yeah but you don't have to do that. Well we're not going to have a resident.

And we can't really at the moment because we depend entirely on a grant from the government which comes to us via the Arts Council entirely internally. Plus a small grant from the Bristol corporation and these grants are grateful as we are co problem totally inadequate for the scheme of work but we hope to do and want to do as a company. Then excuse me at the present. How many plays where the season will consist of about six players five or six plays and this is the Internet if they each player that like there really will you know not be an amazing running from September to December I mean that turned me into about six days each year are these evenly divided between the classics and contemporary plays or are they all from the classics met with I maxed out on is there a classical players in three nearby or you know limited as I would have time it serves no other religion currently performing here in New York have a measure for measure and Romeo and Juliet magine are in the repertory

then who know and I know I have been they have been hired to learn. Well not as far as big as a concern. Approximately what is the grant over that you get from the Arts Council Run Theater with here our grant is forty thousand pounds. I can tell you in dollars are not very good. Rick Santorum a lot of £40000 back you see it out where as I said we try to present production on that scale. We are certainly criticized on the level with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the National Academy. They receive the National Theatre Grant is 300000 and the Royal Shakespeare Grant is between two hundred two hundred fifty thousand pounds. So ground is totally inadequate and we don't have to be very good at math to see the contrast in there is a country and you can say well then what do you charge for a ticket to come see the playwright is this

really rich is there just under $2 under $2 and you're performing seven nights a week. So nicely played in a film made a promise we do to Martin and I say so you don't depend very much on box office receipts. We can't depend on national receipts we play I would say in the main the Theatre Royal particularly for the classical players we play almost 97 percent capacity now out of this total figure of forty thousand pounds come the salaries the costumes everything. Every millionaire. I mean at least ours everything. Now administration everything then they but the actors are guaranteed a czar of the whole what ever year round enjoyment they don't have to really worry about where the tracks are going a little differently on a slightly different angle. We contact him the storks What is the difference. Variable I'm very very I want I'm going to have a contract for the season for two or three please all invited down for one play depending on the actor and the range that's

available in plays that season and either the concept the repertory theatre with a nuclear Yes right added to that maybe two or three actors for two or three days. Her sort of job then yes. Or maybe just one actor or and yes depending on the demands of the party whether it can be filled in the nucleus of the company the term the the director will obviously endeavor because of the the team feeling which is a good thing in this sort of them to get actors at the beginning of a season and try to look at car hell you have places in canceling the past where the actors all the time. I think I can come in here and say I have to look ahead a little bit more we're happy. Happen this tour of America. We are all meant to be presented by Mr. here arc because it is a wonderful encouragement for our theater and our company to be presented in this manner. In America and we've been very fortunate our tour so far

touching is very successful and this is going to do a great deal of good for us at home and we also did a very successful tour in 1964 of Europe and Israel into two plays and the Shakespeare chorus and this was highly successful too. So with these two tours our prestige will be enhanced enormously at home. Thereby we hope we should get bigger grants from our government an Arts Council. But this of course depends on the international situation on the credit squeeze problems at home lack of money for the arts and so on. But we hope with the increase in a grant is that a certain number of actors and actresses will be put under a contract such as the National Theatre and Will Shakespeare play and they put actors under contract for three years and that's the whole company that's a whole come from you because you know these years you know and you're not doing that or you're not now not.

I'm going to horn in our director Vera may is extremely loyal to his players. He likes to have a group of artists around him that he's worked with before. And as John has just been saying and we try to keep as many people together but there is no guarantee you're going to see and I think New York is country at large going back to the person thought it was a series of sounds as we have a lot to thanks all you rock for by the way. We're ringing people like you are doing as a child as well as it can happen to get in trouble in England to see what's going on. And he's brought many many attractions from France as you know Germany or world so I think we're this is a fantastic thing. But you say there is too or will enhance your opportunities back home for expansion. Does that mean even if you get bad reviews. What I mean by that is because if we are if we were a total and disastrous failure here

I probably wouldn't be it would be the position would be certainly pessimistic I would like to say that just because we have had bad reviews they would not give us a grant. Morning increased groan. I don't think this necessarily can make shipping years later. We get three productions we are touring here. We have played at home and we have national press reviews for the plays at home and I think with the exception of those three productions we got a very good press and so the players have been seen and heard and the people who hold the reins know I have seen and they know what we're doing here. We are surviving here water and over there is over the last three years the company's press two years has increased and in a great number of young actors and actresses are applying constantly to become members of the company. We have royal patronage now. And we were also just

before we we came away and Lord Goodman was the president of the Arts Council and Jenny Lee was actually a minister of country is it in the theater for the first time and we hope all this is indicative that the winds of glory in her actual reason I'm moving the composition of this direction is that it concerns in. Hard to imagine a revolution that has given place in you know and act in the past 10 years. And part of that revolution has consisted I believe in the different viewpoint toward the training of actors in adopting what is partly a diluted method so-called method acting was done as like a technique here and incorporating them into the training in England I think and I don't think that has always been a person to me. Yes yes. And I'm out of the meeting of actors all over the world and all of them all right but the thing is kind of like the first one who codified this on paper.

You were an actor and I meant it was diluted here because certain parts of this idea which has been labeled the method in quotes here is really a distortion of Stanislaus people in the last part but the main point I'm trying to get out is. Here in this country repertory companies acting companies have difficulty when they want to do Shakespeare or when they want to do when they want to do anything from the classics for the most part which requires overall discipline voice training and body training and acting generally. Now that's the problem here. You and I say you I mean presumably do not want to speech problem and I say presumably and I know that should be qualified. The two you do not have a training problem because you have a tradition of training you believe in training so that an actor coming into Bristol Old Vic company will have at least will know how to walk on stage and we wouldn't be accepted in the camp here right now then since you don't have those

problems. What are your brothers in terms of acting god explain reac experience if you were an investor in the company and money management. It all comes it really does make an account of money all at once but only once there's the matter of your life or if you're young and you already have been trained. In a way is a fairly specious work because what does this mean you know how do you know how to walk to a certain extent but you've got to get on the stage. You've got to do them within the confines of a production with a director. You can we can find a great many young actors and actresses to find good actors and the good actresses will await the wealth of experience behind them. Then you need to have the money to offer them to come to play. Now a lot of actors and actresses happily want to go outside the commercial field in

London to work in theatres in the provinces because this is where the exciting plays are being done. There are certain amount of types of actors who are hard to find. I'm sure your director's mind is here when it comes and you know they're in short supply. Well you've got to have sometimes the money to fly for the thing to be attractive. And this is where we can fill companies with very good young actors and actresses who have very good solid training but have not yet the experience all the way. Well one of the criticisms that has been thrown at British Steel as such I and I are not evaluating its validity I'm simply bringing it up because I want to know what your reaction is that the British theatre is terribly external and by that I mean you are you do speak well you do well but you don't have any heart I mean.

And there's no emotion. Of course this revolution is to bring to the heart and so I just was told I really do and you know there is a little sanity that I know you say please I think I'm speaking swallow Hedley we have the greatest tragic actors in the world. So John do you good. And so I will. The names you know as well as we do. These are the great traditions of our time and they stem from our traditions of training and everything said to make a sweeping statements and we have a lot of work. I just don't believe this is a problem you know this is a prevalent statement among acting schools here and I am not a spokesman here's what I mean I've nursed yours and I've actually argued against it depends where you want to put the hot button if you want to do the plastics and put the heart in the classic this is where we find that American actors come to us and

say but we can't do it. That's another you bring up I want to ask you while you've been here and some of you have been here before you've seen American productions here in New York and I want to ask you which ones you've seen but what I'd like to know is what this is we're not naming the productions what you think of the overall abilities of American productions starting with the actings Franklin Robins let me ask you. Well there's a it's a point that has struck me. I've seen one of the productions since I've been here both of them of all sorts of places. And what struck me was the incredible smoothness of technique which the American actress got I was also a thaw in production a couple weeks ago and you're saying something positive which we don't see much of. I saw production of The Crucible at the Arena Stage in Washington and I was amazed at the at the facility of the

actors quite amazed that it was and they were rehearsing. No more than we were harassed at home I think it was a three week rehearsal period and I thought well could I get up to that sort of slickness in that time that smoothness that absolute. I couldn't spot any flaws anywhere but I thought what I was struck by most definitely as a general criticism I think I can make it out of the whole of that cast and the whole of the feeling of the play was what might be called in this context a lack of heart. But in fact I think it seemed to be a lack of a real involvement. Real speaking to each other there was enormous technique of looking as if they were real. They looked as if they were speaking to each other. Everything was perfect. But what one didn't get was this element of danger which I think

exists very much in English there and that's a key word when you're talking about heart because if you're going to use heart you're going to be risking things because your heart may slip you off the line. You made an awful fool of you. Any minute any second. And when you're really at your best you're on an absolute tightrope of of one side of the other is too much especially in tragedy in a tragic moment. You can go through and you know have an infant. And this is what I didn't get from this production particularly. I thought they're not risking anything. They've got it laid down to a formula a beautiful formula absolutely perfect and it's being turned out. And I'd much prefer to see less good. Movement voice everything else and more open real communication between the actors. That's a surprising and startling criticism and I the only one at

that particular performance among the company know who thought that. Yes it's startling to hear someone say that about an American company that you're attributing to it all of the things were just indicated we lacked but because the Arena Stage is one of the better regional theatres. You're right they haven't been working at a quite some time and they they're serious and they have a beautiful technical existing data. Well you bring something up Mr Robins I should say. I forget the three names. Remember all remember America should remember very first started as a dancer a lot and there was a lot of what I was my little girl. Now I have unfortunately haven't seen Hamlet in Athens in Measure for Measure. I saw Romeo and you one

question I have. What what are you using Boyle's in that production. What what kind of material is that. Lefroy that actual for the actual point. They don't come across as actual full you know the kind of look you know this is something that we three narrative and that none of us are remaining in and I know that the same person have said that we use the same song because they look very like what happens I mean I know this that the the the doing scenes are not very effective because of this is because these things are so paperweight and as a matter of fact it was a lap was a cave and between two people and a really old he's coming down the steps and he's in the hole the boiler's is crumbling in the lab I was wondering what that was with like you know the feeling of watching Romeo in your ear.

This is the we played as though it was a smaller stage and little there and there's these other stages only as you say listen to devices like acting in an aircraft hangar years and I Miss Wallace and I wondered what problems that you or the members of the family had to overcome considerable because I think the all three players I can't speak around where I was I'm not there but I'm in there and the company is the same and I think that we are able to achieve. Possibly the criticism let me go say this that the criticism that has been aimed at us as we were saying just now Dick about the game in the lack of communication and name so possibly stems because we are not used to playing in this size yet and we are having to project our first thoughts are that we must be heard.

We have only been playing in the city center for a week and I think we are possibly losing our contacts with the audience and our emotional involvement with the audience. Because of this great void that we have to film and we have been told we must not be him or the bull in the course that his DeMille is an act of a great crime. So one's concern is to be heard.