The Theater: London Booming

THE THEATER

Never before has the London stage thrived more lustily than it does today under acute difficulties. Where last year there were 16 shows, last week there were some 30. Audiences may have bus and blackout headaches, may grouse because seats cost from sixpence to four shillings more than they used to. But with petrol rationed, jaunts are few. With the liquor shortage, parties are fizzles. So cinema & theater offer the readiest escape.

Good serious plays are scarce enough, talented new playwrights are scarcer. Whitest hope is 21-year-old, London-born Peter Ustinov, whose The House of Regrets—written when he was 19—has the critics talking of a “new Chekhov” and mumbling about genius.

War plays are mainly unpopular* in London—largely because of their subject, but partly because of their shortcomings. But sheer escape, sheer fluff and frivolity has not completely swamped the theater. Despite the terrific jump in productions, musicals have not multiplied: ten last season, ten this. Of three U.S. clicks in London, one—The Man Who Came to Dinner—is farce, but Claudia is semiserious, and Watch on the Rhine wholly so. Shakespeare was a sellout when John Gielgud revived Macbeth in July. Shaw has been a hit since Vivien Leigh revived The Doctor’s Dilemma in March. (Winston Churchill, a Leigh fan, has seen it twice.) John Gielgud has revived Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, which is a smash, plans to revive Congreve’s Restoration comedy, Love for Love, soon. Emlyn Williams will revive Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, and Fay Compton opens this week in Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes.

High up, too, among revivals, is the 44-year-old flimflam, The Belle of New York, now seeing its third war without change of jokes or costumes. Longest-lived musical is Ivor (Keep the Home Fires Burning) Novello’s The Dancing Years, recently past the 1,000 mark. Other flourishing musicals: Get a Load of This, featuring Winston Churchill’s son-in-law, Vic Oliver; and a revival of Rose-Marie, a Broadway favorite of the ’20s. Americans in Britain damn London’s musicals as miles below U.S. standards, and former N.Y. Herald Tribune Critic Richard Watts Jr., now with the OWI in Eire, comes down just as hard on the London productions of straight plays he saw on Broadway.

Treks. The provinces have been booming ever since the blitz drove actors out of London, and an evacuee audience with them. Towns like Bath, Cheltenham, Exeter, formerly one-night stands, now have A-1 ratings. Wigan, Lancashire (long a music-hall synonym for the end of the earth) recently had a full-fledged drama festival. Transportation for actors is by rail, and the same as for ordinary citizens —cramped, slow, supperless.

Today even top stars have to agree to a six-month tour with a show after its London run. Noel Coward is on a repertory tour with three of his shows, playing lead in them all: Blithe Spirit; This Happy Breed, the tale of a common man from 1919 to 1939; Present Laughter, a sophisticated comedy.

Obstacles. A London production today is an obstacle race. Eight theaters (including the famed Drury Lane and Old Vic) have been either blitzed or declared unsafe. With business booming, managers eye playhouses the way dog-tired straphangers eye seats. Stagehands and electricians are so scarce that sets and lighting have to be simple. Clothes rationing makes modishness difficult, hand-me-down costumes inevitable. Actresses are allowed three pairs of stockings every three months, two pairs of shoes per show. With theatrical warehouses far better stocked than shops, costume plays are easier to produce than ordinary ones.

Finally, there’s the casting hurdle. Top-notchers like Coward, Gielgud, Emlyn Williams, Robert Donat get deferments or long leaves to act in shows*; but young men in minor roles last about as long as butter in the sun. The Gielgud Macbeth had five cast-calls in three months. There is a hopeless shortage of chorus boys, and many chorines are 15 years old.

London’s transportation difficulties get so much worse as winter approaches that many theater people think shows will only give daily matinees. At present they usually open between 5:30 and 6:30. There are lots of British and U.S. uniforms in the audience, but almost no dress clothes. There is no rush for the bar between the acts: not only are the drinks short, but the wares are unpredictable, and the audience is not very festive.

*Chief exceptions: Emlyn Williams’ blitz-inspired The Morning Star (TIME, Sept. 28); Terence Rattigan’s racy Flare Path. A recent poll revealed that 46% of British playgoers avoid war themes entirely, while another 28% say, “It depends on the treatment.” *An exception is Fleet Air Arm’s Laurence Olivier, whose policy is “the war or the theater, but not both.”