thumbnail of World of the Paperback; Tyrone Guthrie's "A Life in the Theatre"
Transcript
Hide -
If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+
The world of the paperback the University of Chicago invites you to join us for this series of 15 minute programs dedicated to the discussion of literary topics and the review of significant paper bound books each weekly program brings to the microphone a different author authority or educator with his particular viewpoint towards the topic for discussion. Our guest for today's discussion is search are own Guthrie associate artistic director of the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and author of a life in the theater. Here is your discussion host from the University of Chicago Robert C. Albrecht. Mr. OTTO prime injury has had something to the effect that the director of the film is virtually the creator of the film. Is this true of the director and theater also know that in that you do it too and I think it's true about films but popular because a great many pins are good on themselves rather than knowledge. I have an idea that if Dickens will tell us a lot even he could be able to write a film script he wouldn't be too pleased if the director started creating it. What about the director of the drama then what is his primary function.
It depends. It's different in different dramas and it led to a good deal of possible controversy about the interpretation of the thing. I suppose his finest job is to be the chairman of the committee of interpreters that's to say of the actors and that is how the people who have something to say and how it's to be done and I think really it's as a kind of chairman a moderator that he's best occupied. You know I noticed in your autobiography you remarked that the director must be careful not to work with all the actors on interpretation of the play but simply the those who were immediately involved in interpreting a scene. Well if you're getting up Hamlet say it's kind of boring for the two grave diggers to have to sit around while the director and Hamlet talk psychology and the director is a bubble responsible for not allowing the rehearsals to be a blog. And he's responsible for that I suppose the movement of the actors. What about the voices of the actors how much does he have to say about this assuming that there are good I think it depends
on who he is and who they are. I wouldn't feel very much like telling Mrs. Lunt how to say her lines but I think she would expect me to say I believe would be more interesting if you went a little faster here and didn't breathe quite so often on a few things like that. I don't think any good actor is ashamed to take criticism if it's not personal. And if they think you know what you're talking about and generally of course I suppose the difference in dealing with an experienced actor is quite different from dealing with inexperienced people as so yes well there are many experienced actors prefer to work inside quite a tight framework of direction that they feel are free if you actually go from here to that chair over there and get there in 4 steps and sit down when you say whatever the word is and so your function to some degree varies with the way he did or tell with the temperament of the person. I think if I'm acting I like to be told exactly what to do in that sort of way and then feel free in imagination if the technical framework is worked out
for me. I find it's quite interesting to fulfil that and it suggests a feeling it is your function and directing people in an opera more narrow than in nonmusical. Yes because so much more is done for the opera singer by the composer the composer shows them exactly how each phrase is to be expressed. The caught hell so very much more about what is to be expressed than the printed word so that there's much less scope for invention by the singer. And in general it all moves at a much slower pace and you've got to make perhaps one gesture holding out an arm or something. Nearly always begin as an opera move at a natural pace. They've used up their gesture in about three measures of the music but it's got to take a page and a half. And really the good experienced old hands at it if they've any talent at all. They float through the thing moving very very slowly and simply and expressively with the utmost economy of
means. What about the producers who have to change the subject a bit. I think many of us who are not in the theater have very little sense of the difference in the function of the producer and the director is the producer in any way involved with the moving of the actors and so forth as his functions are external to the drama. Well it depends again a little. Second this is old cases but mostly the producer is just a man who arranges the organization and finds the money and controls the budget. But he may attend rehearsals. And if he doesn't like what you're doing I guess he's entitled to say so. But I think you know if you've got any kind of mentality at all you can hold your own. Unless he's talking sense only in establishing the theater we still think of it as a new theatre I think in Minneapolis did you then to some degree take on the role of a producer. Well really no my title the titles mean anything is artistic
director and there are three of us in it. There are now four of us because I'm associate artistic director there are two of us who direct the plays and all the important policy decisions are discussed amongst us. But the two directors take the rehearsals and we are responsible for all that side of it. And then the two administrative men look after the promotion and the planning and the budget and the box office and all the business side. Do you think of this rough dry Theatre in Minneapolis as a new type of theatre in the United States. Yes I think it's a new type of theatre it's not the past but it's an emerging type of theatre in the United States. And I think what distinguishes it chiefly is that the object of the operation is not to make money for private investors. It's not so much a business as a service to the community and hopefully an artistic sevice the word artistic is rather much abused. But what I mean is that
that what we do is more important than the money that is made. Nobody is making out of the Minneapolis venture. Nobody is making any profit. The community has invested and a non profit making company has been set up and all of us who work there are simply paid hands we take a salary but we don't take any share of profits. Is this comparable certainty or unsay theatre companies in england. It's comparable yes to what you might call the institutional theatres. Things like the National Theatre and the Stratford company and most of the of the British repertory companies which are not to the repertory told us stock companies but most of them are set up as a service rather than as a profit making institution. They're controlled by boards of citizens and that kind of thing. I noticed in your autobiography that you spoke at one point of being happy to be back with the Old Vic company because it was an institution you were glad to get back into some association with the institution. Can you explain this remark.
I think a lot of us feel this way. If you are not attached to an institution you simply take work as its offered and you work to advance yourself financially. You hope to get a better salary and to advance yourself in reputation you hope to get better and better name the better known more celebrated that kind of thing. And really I find that quite boring and satisfactory I want to work for something that I think more important than my own really Korea. Why does it seem to you that this sort of theatre has not been established in the United States before that is the the institutional theatre. It's quite complex I think in the United States decreasingly rapidly decreasingly but still it is considered very important that any activity of any kind should pay its way. And the view is widely prevalent that if something doesn't pay it can't be any good. But it doesn't occur to people that some quite good things don't pay and that a great many of the best
products are not the ones which have the largest sales. Always off Broadway theater as it's become known and any time I step in this direction I was it merely a variation of the commercial they are on Broadway. I think that the profit motive was less certainly at the beginning or broad with the profit motive was less dominant. But the sums the things cost in New York are so astronomical owing to the pressure of competition and the cost of land and premises and rents rates services all those things sell at such inflated rates that I think this is rather knock the bottom off out of all of Broadway. Unless people are prepared to lose simply astronomical sums they have to operate with the profit motive very firmly under their noses. Well you get out of New York things become a little easier because it isn't quite so expensive. Also the competition is so hot. In a place like Washington
where there's a there's a repertory theater. They're not operating in the tremendously busy turmoil of cultural and entertainment life that prevails in the big cities like Chicago Los Angeles and New York. It's a little karma. The competition isn't quite so hot but yet this I don't think means that second rate standards do because Washington isn't entirely populated by who don't know good from bad. Is this one of the reasons you're established you're in the news Theater in Minneapolis. Yes it is. We felt that Minneapolis was was rather good size. It's a big enough city to have a big city outlook to provide enough people to make an economic basis. But it's a small enough city and a quiet enough city that it wasn't too hard for us to become the biggest frog you know our particular puddle. It is the Stratford Ontario theory quite comparable to the Minneapolis theatre and lost respect in some respects architecturally it's comparable.
And it also aims to be an institution. But it's different in that Minneapolis St Paul is a complex of well over a million people I think nearly 2 million and a center with quite a number of crowded smaller cities around Stratford is 20000 people and very much further from anywhere. The only really big city is Toronto which is almost 100 miles away and Stratford is partly because of its name but that but the idea of the Stratford Festival was that it should be a Shakespearean Festival. They've branched away from that and I think in the future they're likely to branch further and it's becoming just a classical program in general with the emphasis in Shakespeare but the exclusively Shakespeare but as we always set out to do a more flexible program classical but not exclusively Shakespeare. Is the stage which was designed for the Stratford theatre in a similar one for the Minneapolis theatre. Were these designed particularly with the Shakespeare repertoire and in mine at Stratford.
Yes but then Tanya was a bitch was the designer at Minneapolis and with whom I've worked very closely for a number of years. We both felt that the design which had worked for Shakespeare was more flexible than we had first thought. The Stratford thing was based on the principle that to do Shakespeare you must go back to relating the audience to the actors spatially as they were related in Shakespeare's imagination in other words that it must incorporate some of the important features of the Elizabethan Theatre in London. Well and we tried that a number of experiments before even Stratford and we've had very confident that this did justify itself for Shakespeare and the experience at Stratford emboldened us to think that it could be expanded the same formula which has certain very practical advantages brings the actor closer to the majority of the audience makes it easier to see and easier to hear. And it's a more economic way of filling the cubic space of the auditorium into the same too big space you can get far more people if you packed them around an
open stage than if they all face a proscenium stage. What relation is such a design there to the problem of realism and illusion and theater. I think it tends to make illusion a less important factor but I've for many ceased to believe that when people go to the theatre they undergo illusion. I don't think they really think that the little it is carelessly hanging on a wire is Mel Martin. Always Peter Pan they never have a divine it's Mary Martin pretending to be Peter Pan and I. Think the plan is kidding yourself saying I know perfectly well that this isn't happening that we're not on the battlements dance you know. I know perfectly well that that little ladies are painfully suspended. Is Miss Mary Martin but I'll go along and pretend she's beat a path and you think this kind of stage helps to heighten this feeling in the audience or does it not affected. It effects them consciously I think far less than you might expect but
unconsciously I think anybody must realize that they're a member of a number of people participating in a shared work of the imagination and that I like very much because I think it's very important to emphasize the social nature of the theater the joy one of a group of people undergoing the same experience. The guest for today's discussion of his book A Life illustrator was sort of our own Guthrie associate artistic director of the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Your host for the world of the paperback has been Robert C. Obrecht assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago. Today's program concludes the world of the paperback series which has been produced for a national educational radio by the University of Chicago in cooperation with W A I T. This is the national educational radio network.
Series
World of the Paperback
Episode
Tyrone Guthrie's "A Life in the Theatre"
Producing Organization
University of Chicago
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-f7667z0c
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-f7667z0c).
Description
Episode Description
This program features Tyrone Guthrie discussing his book "A Life in the Theatre."
Series Description
This series is dedicated to the discussion of literary topics and of the publication of significant paperbound books.
Broadcast Date
1966-08-23
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Literature
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:14:31
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Guest: Guthrie, Tyrone, 1900-1971
Host: Albrecht, Robert C.
Producing Organization: University of Chicago
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 66-23-13 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:14:26
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “World of the Paperback; Tyrone Guthrie's "A Life in the Theatre",” 1966-08-23, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-f7667z0c.
MLA: “World of the Paperback; Tyrone Guthrie's "A Life in the Theatre".” 1966-08-23. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-f7667z0c>.
APA: World of the Paperback; Tyrone Guthrie's "A Life in the Theatre". Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-f7667z0c