Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART ONE WRITING MODERNITY
- PART TWO THE EMERGING AVANT-GARDE
- PART THREE MODERNISM AND ITS AFTERMATH, 1918–1945
- PART FOUR POST-WAR CULTURES, 1945–1970
- 25 Culture, class and education
- 26 Post-war broadcast drama
- 27 Drama and the new theatre companies
- 28 Modernism and anti-Modernism in British poetry
- 29 Nation, region, place: devolving cultures
- 30 The sixties: realism and experiment
- 31 ‘Voyaging in’: colonialism and migration
- PART FIVE TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM, 1970–2000
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
27 - Drama and the new theatre companies
from PART FOUR - POST-WAR CULTURES, 1945–1970
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART ONE WRITING MODERNITY
- PART TWO THE EMERGING AVANT-GARDE
- PART THREE MODERNISM AND ITS AFTERMATH, 1918–1945
- PART FOUR POST-WAR CULTURES, 1945–1970
- 25 Culture, class and education
- 26 Post-war broadcast drama
- 27 Drama and the new theatre companies
- 28 Modernism and anti-Modernism in British poetry
- 29 Nation, region, place: devolving cultures
- 30 The sixties: realism and experiment
- 31 ‘Voyaging in’: colonialism and migration
- PART FIVE TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM, 1970–2000
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
For the most part the British theatre does not take into account the fact that we have had a World War since 1939, and that everything in the world has changed – values, ways of living, ideals, hopes and fears. As I see it, our theatre is far too often pre-war, safe and easy-going in what it offers, and lacking in the stimulation that will attract fresh audiences.
Thus, in 1955, the young Peter Hall voiced a widespread dissatisfaction with the state of British theatre. The post-war period has often been characterised as one of stagnation in British drama, redeemed by high-quality productions, with actors like Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson gracing the stage in revivals designed by Motley and photographed by Cecil Beaton. American musicals such as Oklahoma! and the plays of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller had a raw power and theatricality that was lacking in British theatre writing, while Giraudoux and Anouilh offered a Gallic intellectual stimulation absent from the home-grown product. There is some truth in this aesthetic judgement but it ignores crucial economic factors: new work often fails to attract audiences because of fear of the unknown, lack of bankable stars or critical hostility to experimentation. Revivals, stars and imports all carry with them some guarantee against economic failure: what has succeeded before can be expected to succeed again.
In the immediate post-war period of economic austerity in order to pay for World War II and the implementation of the welfare state, the economic situation fuelled managerial conservatism: theatre capacity was limited due to wartime destruction; production costs had risen and were rising massively; and plays were staying in theatres longer.
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- The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature , pp. 494 - 509Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005