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4109 Theatres 1 - Liverpool Playhouse & New Shakespeare
For many years my mother went with her group of ‘girls’ to every production at the Playhouse; then Liverpool’s only rep. It had a good reputation, not least for creating stars – my mother was in the audience the night the Redgraves got married.
I, however, can only remember going twice. Once was to see the ‘Silver Curlew’, their Christmas play (but nothing so vulgar as a Panto!), and the other was ‘Hamlet’ – which was almost a bare stage production which was considered leading edge in those days – but put me off the beauty of the lines.
My own introduction to theatre came when Sam Wanamaker reopened a beautiful 19th century theatre as the ‘New Shakespeare’. It was a club, and actually had a restaurant in the Circle as well running its own bridge club, so it could show banned plays; this was when the Lord Chamberlain decided what you could see!
Sam became something of a local hero, but I only spoke to him once when he visited my school. On the other hand, I frequently visited his offices in the basement of the theatre on the pretext of trying to get advertising for the school magazine. In reality the basement there was full of aspiring young actresses, who – as there was no air-conditioning – were usually stripped down to the bare essentials!
Sam put on superb productions, with leading actors. I well remember seeing Tennessee Williams’ ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ starring Kim Stanley, who was then a reasonably well known broadway star, as well as Helen Cherry, one of the UK’s leading actresses in ‘Tea & Sympathy’. The latter was banned, since it ended with her seducing an under-age boy – and actually had him start to undress her – though the main reason was that it covertly dealt with homosexuality! Arthur Miller’s ‘View from the Bridge’, which overtly dealt with homosexuality, was another banned play I saw.
I also saw typical plays of the time, such as Peter Ustinov’s ‘Paris Not So Gay’. These were very witty, but lost out to the revolution pioneered by George Devine, the artistic director at the English Stage Company (Royal Court) when he launched ‘Look Back in Anger’. Paradoxically I saw this play at the Royal Court in Liverpool (where it was the venue for touring companies). On the same day I saw the films ‘High Noon’ and most of ‘High Society’. I was a glutton for culture in those days.
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