Books on Stage

Hot Towns, Cool Theatres

This is a review from a companion blog (Books In Heat) of a book I mention in my upcoming column...

An American Theatre: The Story of Westport Country Playhouse
by Richard Somerset-Ward
Yale University Press

Cities were hot, the country was cooler. This condition before air-conditioning led to summer theatre in America, beginning early in the twentieth century. Later on there would be other incentives for the tonier summer theatres, especially near enough to New York City: summer reruns meant television stars could headline on the summer stage. It was part Straw Hat Circuit, and part tryout venue for Broadway.

But the Westport Playhouse in the affluent Connecticut town also began with high artistic purpose. Its fascinating founder, Lawrence Langner, had already begun elevating the quality of New York theatre by the example of his Theatre Guild productions. He divided his time between theatre and a very successful patent business, scrupulously keeping them separate, but he did transfer at least one idea from one to the other. "All my [patent] clients have research departments to develop new products," he said. "The summer theatre must serve the same function for new plays and for playwrights, for actors and technicians, for directors and stage designers."

Though this large format book is liberally illustrated and generously sprinkled with celebrity names, the text is substantial. With this informal, almost conversational history of some 75 years of this unique theatre inevitably says a lot about American theatre in general.Readers may absorb insights into the business of theatre, its dependence through changing economics on remarkable individuals (many briefly profiled) and other lovers of theatre, who create shared experiences that include the risk that audiences share with everyone in the production every night.

There are the famous names---early productions and world premieres by Eugene O'Neill, George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward, appearances by theatrical legends from Eva Le Gallienne, Laurette Taylor, Ethel Barrymore and Paul Robeson to film stars like Dorothy Gish, Gene Kelly, Jean Arthur, Henry Fonda and Joan Fontaine, and famous entertainers like Sid Caesar and Groucho Marx. But what may surprise some readers is the importance of theatre to the actors, directors and others they may know only from the movies and television. At the height of his Hollywood stardom Tyrone Power insisted on a three week run in a now forgotten play, which required some high stakes legal bluffing to keep 20th Century Fox from suddenly recalling him to Hollywood. This phenomenon remains true today.

Westport experimented with various formats and seasons, hit its stride in the 30s and 40s, had great years and not so great through the 50s, 60s and 70s (and the author doesn't pretend the misses were hits), nearly closed in 1989 and stumbled through the 90s, until its latest rebirth began in 2000 when Joanne Woodward became Artistic Director. Westport's 2002 production of "Our Town" with Paul Newman was seen by additional millions on television. Newly renovated, Westport continues to nourish theatre in its many forms with a mix of classics and new plays. Even out there in the country it fulfills a basic element of civilization: to bring live productions together with live audiences in as ancient and as human an experience as we have.

April Fool's Day has a long history, associated with the "allowed fool" or jester tradition, and related to our own freedom of speech. (An account of this history is on my Captain Future's Dreaming Up Daily blog today.)

The fool and the clown are also important in the history--and pre-history-- of theatre. These days we're most familiar with the figure of the fool in Shakespeare. The Fool is a character in the comedies of As You Like It and Twelfth Night, and the tragedies of King Lear and Hamlet. But the various aspects of the Fool, and the contrast with the King, or the law, is important in other plays in the Shakespeare canon as well.

In Shakespeare the Thinker, his new (and last) book, the late Shakespearian scholar A. D. Nuttall, writes of the many ways these themes weave through the cycle of histories which includes Henry IV, Part One. Richard II (the monarch of the play of that title which directly precedes the Henry IV plays) is a paradoxical character, sympathetic at times because he is philosophical and poetical, yet as a king he is ineffectual, indecisive (he sees too many ironies to act) and impulsive, given to arbitrary and quixotic decisons. (Nuttall says that the only actor equal to playing all this colors of Richard II was John Gielgud.)

But Bolingbroke who deposes him, is a practical man of action. His despair over the frivolities of his son, Prince Hal, are expressed at times in connection with Richard, who he compares to a Fool rather than a King. He is afraid Hal will be the same kind of monarch, ruled by folly.

The Fool character in the Henry IV plays is Falstaff, of course. (The photo is Ralph Richardson portraying Falstaff). In Shakespeare's time and place, as in our own, clowns were popular on the stage. Shakespeare used this appeal but gave it dramatic and thematic meaning. Falstaff is therefore a complex character. Like the Fool in the court jester tradition, he sees the folly of human vanities--in this case especially, of war. Like the trickster characters of many nations, including the Coyote and Raven in Native cultures, he is also a creature of guile and appetite, undone by his own vanities and vices. But like many fool characters, he represents the joys of life as well. His role in Prince Hal's life partakes of all these, and more.

The Endless Stage

I saw two shows on local stages this weekend, Shakespeare's Henry IV Part I at North Coast Rep, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac performed by the Young Actors Guild of North Coast Preparatory, at Gist Hall Theatre. As it happens, roles in these two plays were notable triumphs for the great English actor, Sir Ralph Richardson (seen here in a 1981 photo by Lord Snowden.)

Richardson played Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1 twice. The first time he was a new member of the Old Vic in 1930, and shared the stage with Laurence Olivier as Hotspur. The next time was in 1945 and 1946, in both parts of Henry IV, with Olivier as Hotspur in Part 1 again. Richardson's interpretation was new: he played Falstaff not as a belching vulgarian, but as a dignified lover of anarchy, a portly Quixote. He won great acclaim in both London and New York when the Old Vic was in repertory there in 1946, and returned the role, fallen into disrepute in modern times, to the ranks of the great parts.

He played Cyrano later that year. When the roles came up for the Old Vic season that fall, he had first choice as senior member. He chose Cyrano, although Olivier coveted the role. Olivier knew that Richardson wanted to play Lear, so he chose that role, assuming that Richardson would want to trade. He didn't. Olivier's only stage Lear was controversial--some thought him too young, but others (including Noel Coward) thought it was a brilliant re-conception and performance. But Richardson's Cyrano was a unanimous triumph. As Cyrano is also a kind of Quixote (which he admits during the play), it seems Richardson found common threads of bedraggled honor and stubborn romance in both parts.

As it happened, Richardson was knighted during the run of Cyrano, so he became Sir Ralph Richardson then. This added its own panache to the role that personifies that quality.