Theater Abroad: Opening the Old Kit Bag

S.R.O. is an unfamiliar condition in London’s West End, where theatergoing is a relaxed and casual matter, seats are cozy, there’s tea at the interval, and no fuss or pushing. Last week at Wyndham’s Theater, however, conditions were rougher. The Wyndham contained a crowd rather than an audience. Standees were pressed against all walls. They had come to see Oh What a Lovely War, a play described by the Times as “a savage humanitarian document, with all its teeth gleamingly intact”.

The teeth had been put there by Producer-Director Joan Littlewood in her first theatrical venture since she stormed away from her celebrated theater workshop two years ago in financial frustration. The subject is World War I, and what happens onstage is fractionally reminiscent of a TV documentary—a cumulative and episodic re-creation of the 1914-18 war years, mixing acted vignettes with still pictures flashed on a screen, and spelling out statistical information on a high frieze of light bulbs: 2,500,000 DEAD BY 1916. To say the least, this is unlikely material for live theater. But few walk out feeling that they have had less than a stunning theatrical experience. It is Joan Littlewood’s particular talent to cull any number of miscellaneous disparities and improvise them into a dramatic force, as she proved when she turned 30 pages of brilliantly spattered fragments into Brendan Behan’s The Hostage.

Bleating Sheep. On the stage are some 19 actors in black and white Pierrot costumes. The girls are sexy. They sing let’s-kid-ourselves war songs, from Pack Up Your Troubles to Roses of Picardy. The mood is: come on, Jack, we’ll all have a jolly time. On the screen are cute little Eton boys drilling with wooden rifles. Up in the light bulbs it says: BRUSSELS FALLS.

Word comes of a wonderful new poisonous shrapnel. Britain’s General Douglas Haig is introduced. He orders suicidal advances, losing 1,320,000 men. The general prays to God: “I ask thee for victory before the Americans arrive.” A pretty lady sings Keep the Home Fires Burning.

Across no man’s land comes the sound of Silent Night—”Stille nacht, heilige nacht. . .” The Germans toss over a boot containing a sprig of evergreen tied with red ribbon, a package of cigarettes, a piece of sausage. The Tommies toss back a Christmas pudding. Then, as the Tommies grab for their rifles, German soldiers appear at the back of the stage. They have a bottle of schnapps. The rifles go down. Everybody drinks. Up in the light bulbs it says: ONE HALF OF BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE WIPED OUT.

Costly Purist. As indictments against war go, this one is about as effective as any ever has been, an incidental reminder, too, that considerably more men of Britain died in World War I than in World War II. “It is quite likely,” wrote Critic Kenneth Tynan, “that when the annals of our theatre in the middle years of the 20th century come to be written, one name will lead all—that of Joan Littlewood. Others write plays, direct them, or act in them. Miss Littlewood alone ‘makes theatre.’ ”

Unfortunately, however, Littlewood is not back for keeps. After discovering, producing, and directing A Taste of Honey, The Quare Fellow, The Hostage, etc., at her small Theatre Royal in London’s lower-class East End, she quit because the commercial theaters of the West End kept drawing away her actors and, worse, forcing her to transfer her productions into longrun, big-time houses in order to survive financially. She is a purist who would like to work for a purist audience rather than for people “whose only thought is whether their tiaras are on straight.” She believes in short runs and unending experiment. It takes a lot of money to support a lady like that, and she coulc make millions working for big West End producers like H. M. Tennent. But she would prefer a handout from H.M Government. About $150,000 would do it—per annum.