Thank you Joan for coming by. I know you never liked to give interviews.
No, I never did, but for Scene4 I thought I make an exception.
Cheers! Tell me a bit about your life before you went into theatre.
Well, I was born in South East London in 1914, an illegitimate child. I was raised by very loving grandparents. An assumingly smart kid, I won a scholarship to a grammar school where I so delighted my art teacher that I was taken on a trip to Paris.The teacher wanted to adopt me, feeling that she could give me better opportunities in life. But the grandparents loved me dearly and in retrospect I didn't want to leave my working-class roots behind. They would become the fundamentals on which all my future artistic endeavours rest. You see, neither of my parents could read or write, and I was a self-professed "vulgar woman of the people". (laughs)
When did you discover your love for theatre?
It wasn't just love, it was a call, a mission – call it an obsession! At sixteen I won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. I was so poor I did movement classes in a pair of stockings stitched onto knickers. I didn't last at RADA for long however. It was just three months before I would realise it wasn't my cup of working-class brew and I left. But happily in those days, the early '30s, there were many lefties working for the BBC. My vocal talents were recognised and I found incidental work with BBC radio. At one point, lacking the train fare, I walked all the way to Birmingham to do a recording.
When did you meet Gerry Raffles?
It was at this time that I would meet Ewan MacColl (Jimmy Miller) who would briefly be my husband. MacColl had been to Germany, had come into contact with expressionist theatre and Brecht. Together, in Manchester, we set about working with a company of young actors to bring Marxism to the people through theatre. But not Marxism as a dogmatic ideology. This would be entertaining theatre that would expose the mechanisms of class oppression. The war intervened and MacColl, along with most of the other male members of the company, went off to fight. It was during the war that I fell in love with a new company member, the nineteen-year-old Gerry Raffles, several years my junior. He became the mainstay of the company, for the rest of his life, and my partner and soul mate! After the war the company regrouped. MacColl did the writing, Gerry acted, designed, took on the management, found the bookings, arranged accommodation, loaded the lorry, drove the lorry, unloaded the lorry, rigged up the lighting, ran the lighting. He was a veritable renaissance man of poor, working-class theatre. He became the mainstay of the company, for the rest of his life, and my partner. The company had been renamed Theatre Workshop, and, happily, Gerry's considerable efforts have been accorded an apt tribute. The place outside our London base has been renamed Gerry Raffles Square. But that was all to come. In the early '40s, we toured throughout the north, performing in draughty community halls to ecstatic audiences, sleeping in dingy B&Bs, struggling to make ends meet with the bare necessities of equipment and sets, performing classics and new writing. We were invited to tour on the Continent and returned year after year to places where they were renowned: Czechoslovakia, Germany and France, winning awards left and left again. It was all a part of the zeitgeist, an age and a political idealism now defunct.
Would you say that Brecht influenced your work the most?
Yes and no. The fact that this was 'poor' theatre in every sense of the word, and in this I dare say I predate Grotowski by twenty years, it wasn't an impediment to me. A shortage of cash for sets was transformed into a new and visionary use of lighting. And the actor became the central focus of performance. I took ideas from European theatre practitioners, Stanislavski, Brecht, the expressionists, and molded them into my own theories of actor training. I adopted Rudolph Laban's style of movement training, and his assistant in England would become and remain the company's movement coach. I introduced improvisation into the training and the rehearsals. All of these innovations are now commonplace in the theatre establishment. But there is one caveat: My actors continued to train on a daily basis, and even now there is no single company in Britain that requires its performers to engage with permanent training, an ongoing honing of skills. The money just isn't made available.
I guess money was always an issue?
Of course it was! I mean, how can you make theatre or anything without the slightest funds? I was always a thorn in the side of even a liberal establishment. I was too left wing; too provocative; and I didn't meet the criteria laid down by a cultured elite for the personal posturing of the postwar, left wing artist. I cussed like a trouper, and wouldn't take no for an answer. I broke the rules of the game and got things done. I believed and still believe in a theatre for the people, and not the wishy-washy 19th century liberal humanist tradition, in which the working classes are conjoined to appreciate art for their own amelioration, something I found patronising, a denial of genuine working class values, and an obfuscation of the system of oppression. Do you think the Arts Council would give me a single penny? They still haven't changed! Let me tell you something: I worked with a young, talented Greek Cypriote actor back then, George Eugeniou. 50 years ago, he founded "Theatro Technis" in London, and is still in a similar situation I found myself back then. The British Arts Council ignores him, his work, and his contribution…50 years of struggle! What a shame! But I adore George and wish him all the best!
After all these years of touring, when did the change come?
It was in the late '50s, after years on the road, that we finally wanted a permanent base, and Gerry found a dilapidated Victorian theatre in the East End of London: The Theatre Royal Stratford East. We moved in, sleeping, illegally, in the building itself and set about transforming it with our own hands into a functioning venue. The surrounding area was part of an urban development plan and had been reduced to rubble. Of course, the urban planners had their hearts set on demolishing the theatre too. And it was us, the company that stopped the bulldozers literally by standing in front of them. We got the building listed and the theatre was saved. It is still there and still producing good work.
A lot of things started to change then?
We produced a lot of plays, many of them written by then still unknown playwrights. One of them was Shelagh Delanney's A Taste of Honey, the content of which was far too provocative in the early '60s to be touched by any established company, dealing as it did with social issues. Its success led to it's being filmed, and it is one of the '60s classics. I also staged The Quare Fellow and The Hostage.
And then there was of course "Oh! What a Lovely War "!
Oh! What a Lovely War began life in 1963. Based on The Donkeys by historian Alan Clark, with some scenes adapted from The Good Soldier Švejk by Czech humorist Jaroslav Hašek. It was an ensemble production with no stars as such, but Workshop regulars such as Brian Murphy, Victor Spinetti and Glynn Edwards played multiple roles. It was this improvisation that got me into trouble with the authorities. Censorship of British theatre wasn't abolished until 1968. Scripts had to be vetted and stamped with official approval. Inspectors would attend performances to ensure that the script was being followed to the letter. I was taken to court twice and fined for allowing my actors to diverge from the approved script in performance. I always allowed my actors, trained to be flexible and mentally acute, to improvise in performance itself. And of course, while the Theatre Workshop was producing some of the most scintillating theatre in London, we were keeping our heads above water without Arts' Council Funding.
But you continued in spite of all the difficulties and problems?
No doubt about that! These were wonderful years and we did what we wanted to do: theatre! It doesn't take anything but the flame, the passion! I have worked with great people in my time. West End audiences started to flock to the Theatre Royal, shows transferred to major venues for long runs, and actors whom I had trained to a high calibre were being noticed, offered work that paid real money and accepting. This was the point were we started to fall apart! Actors such as Harry H. Corbett, Victor Spinetti, Barbara Windsor, Youtha Joyce and many more would move into television and film, and I saw my company bleeding away. I was still involved with a wide variety of projects, taught summer schools for kids in England and Tunisia, went to Africa to set up a film with Wole Soyinka but eventually I became tired and frustrated by authorities who refused funding, or who dithered interminably. And then Gerry's untimely death in 1975 was a serious blow! I was depressed and worn out from years of combat with the establishment, and without Gerry I could not find the strength to continue. So finally I left for Paris, where I was welcomed as a hero of the theatre, and I never returned, but that is a different story.
Anything else you would like to add?
Would I do it again you mean? Would it make a difference? Did I make a difference? I see small theatres and talented directors still struggling, at least in this country, whereas big theatres that could easily maintain themselves receive huge funding and grants! And the way this society functions now, looking at the current political situation. But yes! Yes, I would! I definitely would!
Thank you, Joan! I assume it is rather tactless to ask if you have any plans for the future…
What do you know? Tonight Gerry, Baron Philippe de Rothschild and I will meet with Brecht. I am more than busy!
Brecht? I envy you a bit
(laughs) You'll get there sooner than you can imagine.
|
