Seminars in theatre; Episode 29 of 31

Well what human reaction to is very understandable in light of the fact that Rob how close is a young German intellectual who rakes his people over look oh no he's quite terribly in this play. If anybody comes in for criticism it's the entire German race infinitely more strongly because he as much as suggests and in fact he goes further than that he does say I think through the mouth of Churchill granted that Hitler could not have a risen in any other country except Germany that the German people allowed him to rise and wanted him to rise. Now these are pretty scathing words coming from a German about his own people and I can quite understand why they would not take to the plains has kindly welcomed the however does not seem to engender any better reaction from England as much as they ban the performance altogether. Did they do that after having read the play or not. I don't think it was an English translation available knowledge or not. Certainly not a complete one because I was working at the time for the low Shakespeare Company of the other major national subsidised company. In England and

I know that there were flotation uses it was to see whether they would accept the plaque and at the time when all the Rouse started. Peter Holt who ran the Royal Shakespeare Company then said Well I'm not prepared to make any statement about this play because it isn't complete. And therefore whether we do it or not more depend on the finished article. The fact is of course that any anything is suggesting as the play does that Churchill had a hand in that. An assassination is on the ship that there was one that was considered by the board of the National Theatre headed by Lord Chandos whose personal friend to be something at the National Theatre because of its name should not put on a very questionable series of theatrical ethics deed if you have a national thing it sets problems yes but you don't really you don't really compass issue when you say why did they bat why was it stopped in England.

After all it was only two or three men who stocked it. It wasn't England. Yes that's true too and I guess England's real attitude has yet to be determined then as much as they haven't really seen the plough and the Lord Chamberlain's Office is about to disappear so I have what to test and I read one of the important reasons why it's going to disappear is the fact that this play was bad. Incidentally Mr. Chairman you have been attacked by John college costs on previous occasions as well. I have attacked Mr.. Well let me let me know where and I mean there is not be so attention getting and that may get a little more accuracy only indirectly being that you are a Broadway producer and this play represents a turning point in the college cost career I would say it would take to take a nap and I wouldnt take any damage and what I am saying Mr. Chairman is that and very true he said because with colic as a serious actor and that is to say that there are not a lot of serious actors about his profession.

Yes but also a very good comedian. Yes and I think an actor should be able to be both. But he was on the verge of leaving. I believe John 4. California or Toronto I guess it was California while in actual fact I did live in the irony of this whole incredible situation is that I left after 10 years of well on and off 10 years of working in New York and different parts of the United States and Canada. I had made my home basically speaking in New York City and finally I was fed up to the teas with Broadway with the Broadway theater with a commercial theater and I didn't feel that any play of any serious content was ever treated properly was ever given the kind of hearing it should have and also was never properly supported by audiences. People talk a great deal all over of in the theatre about how they would love to have his as you mentioned a little earlier. A classical theatre homogeneous theatre a

national theatre. In actual fact very few people really want that kind of theatre as is evident by the kind of plays that succeed so completely on Broadway. I got fed up with this and when the. When I went out to California I was offered some very very lucrative and steady employment. I contemplated doing it because my my wife and my children were not very happy living in New York City because I don't think it's a very good place to raise children anyway. Then along came Clifford Williams with a planned start of a theater called theater Toronto. And this seemed to be the fulfillment of many many years of dreaming. I gave up my New York apartment packed everything move the family to Canada fully intend on spending five years that well I've been up there for five months suddenly Mr. Shovelin came out decided and gave me the lie about a great many Broadway producers by being seriously interested in the play of worthwhile content and bringing it down to Broadway. I

think he deserves the greatest Judas in the world for taking that kind of chance because it is an infinitely bigger chance particularly at this time of the year with all the problems that people have in their personal and political and public lives to put on a play that's going to force them to sit in a theater for three hours and re-examine their points of view about everything and not be just vastly entertained all of the Razer great deal of entertainment in the play in the second act there's a great deal of. Comedy relief as it were but that doesn't obscure the fact that this is a play of very important content not for a commercial Broadway management. To put this play on Broadway is I think a mark of great courage. So what I've said about most Broadway producers I retract in the face of Mr. Sherman and I just hope that the audiences who have been talking about. When is Broadway ever going to do something worthwhile when it's something creditable going to appear on this

godforsaken street. I hope they just stop talking come down to the Billy rose and buy some tickets and see it because we certainly need them there desperately badly. Well you've established the point that the audiences really get what they ask for. And I and what they deserve. On the other hand I wonder how many alternatives Mr. Sherman had and also in terms of mounting this play. And in terms of yourself many actors were offered this part but refuse because they didn't have the courage. Apparently that you have in attempting to do this particular role that I took great courage from Churchill himself I remember speech you may have have heard that he delivered in the House of Commons in Canada. This was during the war when Hitler had said Britain will have its neck wrung like a chicken. And his reply was. Shabu chicken and Shabnam neck and I thought well if I want to stick my neck out I'm going to take it out all far and I'm going to need a very big axe to chop it off

and go into that I should say coincidentally but by this time you've probably come become an expert and an authority on Churchill. I having to go through the exercises you did in order to appear for this role in other words you read. I gathered all that and I read a great deal I wouldn't say that I'm an expert or enough authority but I'm on the way to becoming a very great Churchill buff risque you know Mr Piatt. One thing comes to my mind about the question you were asked about me being a sort of symbol of a and a target of an actor like John come across which I can accept as a symbol but not as a fact. However it's interesting and exactly in terms of my position as a manager and John calicoes position as an actor. I read the play soldiers in its full form while I was very deeply involved in the production of my play

Spofford. I was fascinated with what I read. I did not get to the point of reading it only in its condensed stage version because of my activity. But when I was reading it I thought I thought it was a magnificent piece of work. I was reading a marvelous characterisation written by Cole and I thought Who in the world can play this part. Now this is one of the problems of the so-called commercial theatre which I prefer to call the free enterprise in many aspects I hardly commercial. I know which is very interesting I thought and thought I could not think of anybody now I have seen John play in a number of productions here and once in Canada and admired him. It never occurred to me that he might be the man to play this part. Now how does it happen that he plays this part as an actor in

the continent of North America. Only because he was in a company which had a certain limited group of actors and was planning to do four distinctly different plays and therefore that meant that the director had to was sign parts in each play to members of his company who as far as he knew might are might not be able to do them crack Clifford Williams had no idea by his actual experience beyond his intuition of course that John could do the extraordinary job he does in Churchill but he was a member of the company. The one he thought best suited to it. I'm pointing out that the actor in a company such as theatre Toronto. Or in any established company is not engaged to play a part. He's engaged to play parts the actor therefore meets the challenge and has to meet the challenge. Exploring

his own capacities and not being cast as I would have to cast an actor on Broadway because I had seen him do a certain somewhat similar part before. Yes this is a very this is the tragedy from the theater as it's established in this country. And at the same time the remarkable example of the reward that comes to the theater to the producer and to the individual actor himself who is forced to test is very choose his possibilities. And to the audience because this is a True Repertory Theater which is what the Toronto you're describing the Toronto theater allows the exploration in the potentiality of every actor as well as the growth the we get to a point in the program that I touched upon and I just wanted to elaborate a bit. It's often said here on this program with guests that we do not have the kind of situation in this country that allows for serious theater to

succeed. Part of the reasons being those that you just outlined in the commercial factor in many cases precludes taking that kind of a chance. But we Tony church has. Open up with a bit of your background. The conflict between certain types of acting and the conflict that seems to be inherent in the training of actors for example who believe in an inner development or an outer development or the English we should say which is fast changing in England but the English or the British way of training with developing the techniques which seems to be artificial which seems to be mechanical or without heart so to speak we get both on both sides of the water and around the world are the mechanics of the soldiers there in the

beginning in the first act of the play the direction. If one is going to confront what is happening on stage is less than what it should be. If we assume that the direction is responsible for the very conventional and stiff presentation there that is taking place between the stage manager or the director there at the beginning and then later on in the kind of. Staged mannerisms of the actors later on I don't say this prevails right I can be specific if necessary but what I'm getting at is does this kind of situation make play or do less than justice to what you want to do with a play like soldiers because an audience is being asked to sit there. And they're being asked to be interested and stay interested for a long period of time with very heavy content which

is enough to keep them interested. But where do we arrive at that period. How can we make a play and make overcome the mechanical approach to the acting. Well I can only say that. Go back I think to something that Clifford said in rehearsal. That one of the difficulties about doing this sort of play in a country where this sort of play is not normally done is that the presentation of what is in effect a formal text it is not a realistic naturalistic play at all is not written that is written in a sort of verse for instance for a start the presentation of a formal text. So the text is absolutely clear. At the same time the person saying it appears to be real but the naturalistic details are not what come formost your attention. The text comes violence to tension that is a thing which takes a great deal of training. And a sort of training that as yet I would think this country does not have in England.

It's not just a combination of the training in the drama schools which is assimilating now a great deal of the Exploratorium improvise ational methods that are used a lot which started here. But it is the training of for instance I would be five years with a classical company that can enable you to stand without moving about on the stage and present a text and present an argument without appearing unnatural however. This is something that takes a long time and which new classical training would have to be able I think since I answer some of your criticism but this is a classical approach presupposes an overall discipline which we don't seem to have in society at large doesn't make it on real because it's discipline. No it doesn't not prompt nor it is an improper when an actor takes across for example Colonel Sikorsky and several actors. What I'm suggesting is that if one actor is crossing stage right exiting

and another actor is to balance that crossing down stage left there is a way that it is the actor's responsibility to motivate this movement so that it doesn't look simply like a balancing movement but that it doesn't exactly look like a robot following someone's Instructions And I'm saying that there's a great deal of this in soldiers where the movement comes about I don't know whether it's designed to create a specific. Atmosphere or point of view but it cumulatively destroys the artistic whole because you cannot if you are an intelligent theatre goer or if you are just sensitive or if your sensibilities are alert that evening cannot simply watch this for an inordinate period of time without something falling apart which when when John call a cause comes on and the bishop we are relieved in many ways

because there is a great deal of reality for these. I mean it is all personal and subjective but some of it isn't personal and some of it isn't subjective. What I'm talking about what I'm saying. The British have the training and they when they do have to take a course or when they do have to speak usually it's done very well. What I'm talking about now is how to make it how to get the American actors to do it as well. Of sickly experience of playing this sort of thing is the only downside. I don't quite know what you mean about selecting for your discussion here in your argument. The question of movement to stay you know quite what you were referring to. If you are referring specifically to the movement in soldiers then I must ask you to realise that that the movement. Patterned by the director for the exact moment and for the whole picture of the stage but

in the very terms that Tony church was just describing in the style of acting which is larger than life larger than reality riot larger than the realistic form of theatre. What has been called and where it is to be used discreetly and always with quotation marks in Germany referred to as the epic. In other words a theatre which goes beyond the the description by the actors and by the director of life in an intimate moment. There is nothing intimate about soldiers. It's a play and I very towering scale as Tony tells you it's written in verse for a purpose to come out create that thing which is larger than life. Admittedly there's a conflict between art and nature as to who will tell the truth that exists in our lives that exist in the universe and I think that art is always telling the truth a little bit better than nature perhaps. But what I'm suggesting

here is if this is so then we have to have a consistent style throughout a play I would imagine or if their inconsistency is in they have to be recognized and all moved or converge toward this ultimate larger than life picture that. Is the attempt well for me that the play does that it is a remarkable form. As a director myself it's been a fascinating experience for me to watch the play being organized being developed and watched. Clifford Williams work out and the actors work out and work towards the same goal. It's been a fascinating experience and I think very different background has been you are fortunate that you can watch it and unfortunate at the same time because in the watching of it in the familiarity with it in the emotional connection with it. You're not as impersonal or cold as the audience watching it and they don't have the same considerations for what they see that you do not I mean I'm all I would I would disagree with that.

It is not it's a rare experience in my life to serve purely as a producer. Show me the second time in 40 years. So this experience was an interesting experience for me not to have the full responsibility of staging of directing a play not to have the full responsibility. The actors were doing and just to sit and watch and to sit there in a remarkably objective way because strange as it may seem to you to be a producer for me is a very detached very detached situation but I can understand it however I cannot forget what John Carlos said earlier that he was disgusted with Broadway and he was disgusted with the whole commercial factor. Or if he did not say disgusted he said something some of it which means that there is something wrong with our theater as far as Broadway is concerned serious. You know I thought you were talking about the play soldiers. I'm talking about the play soldiers as well because it has traces of what is wrong technically with which prevents a play like

soldiers from achieving its greatest and maximum potential. I would be delighted if you could explain that more precisely to me. To reiterate. In the area that I'm talking about I'm talking about the small things that prevent a play from moving swiftly to the to where it wants to go. I'm talking about the minor seemingly minor technical faults in the play and I described earlier of the artificial movement crosses. I didn't. You explained that this was a larger than life design. However if it did not come off as a larger than life design then we have to re-evaluate what is a larger than life design and how we can achieve it. But I must say I must interrupt you right now to say that having been a witness at this brick. I know that there is not a single movement on that stage which is not justified by the director and by the actor. Let me clarify this immediately. I'm not

telling you what I want to say that it was actually I. Because the way the play was done there was a remarkable collaboration between the cast and with Williams and and they discussed things always. Any movement was discussed by that and I remember hearing an actor saying but I don't know why I'm moving here. And then it was discussed. And then the actor and I and the director achieved a movement which was for the actor motivated by what he was feeling. So there was no place in the play whether that was where there was a single movement that was not dictated by by the actuality of the emotion or the idea involved and I wrong there. No you're absolutely right I would suggest that perhaps what you were saying was to Pyatt is that. Some of the moves don't seem justified because perhaps some of the members of the company are not fully trained as Tony had earlier suggested that it needs five years training I'm glad you know how many it is I wanted to clarify because I knew no one one would

need to get in a fact about how scarred said there are a Berlin around sambal they have to work together for many years. I would suggest to myself you know all humility that soldiers comes closer to anything I've seen in America to achieving this kind of homogeneity. Well Mr Sherman has given us and given the audience a penetrating insight into what goes on somewhat and what the realities are and what is needed and I what I say about the ostensible criticism is does not diminish one whit the value of the play nor the remarkable performances and this is and I'm and I feel that the play is so strong the performances are strong that I can talk this way to the producer and to other actors and I'm sure Mr Piatt that you also recognize that the setting itself was clearly and definitely designed for the very same purpose. Yes to bring about it came a kind of abstract. And and

oversized rejection of things in life. Well we have run out of our allotted time and I want to thank our guests. The star of soldiers John Callie coaster producer Shumlin and Tony church who plays the bishop for joining us on seminars and theater and allowing us a lot of backstage and front stage and side stage to get all of these viewpoints. This was seminars in theater. A recorded series of discussions with leading members of the theatrical profession join us again for our next program when host Richard Pyatt will lead another conversation about life in the theater seminars in theatre is produced by radio station WNYC in New York City and is distributed by the national educational radio network.