Читать книгу The Marowitz Compendium - Charles Marowitz - Страница 12

Marowitz began writing criticism for the Encore Reader magazine, the theatrical bi-monthly publication, which was originally started by Clive Goodwin in 1954 (Marowitz, Milne, Hale eds. 1965). Also, in 1958 Marowitz persuaded the British Drama League to allow him to convert a rooftop studio at Fitzroy Square in London into his own experimental theatre which he then called ‘In-Stage’ (Miles 2010: 125). At In-Stage Marowitz attempted to define a non-naturalistic style, building on the theories of the early Absurdist and Surrealists. This effort involved essentially a paring down of language as far as possible while establishing an ingrained awareness of what things are essentially, rather than what they seem to be on the surface. Marowitz’s experimental work was intended to run in parallel with classical theatre productions and commercial theatre and was warmly received by the critic Alan Pryce-Jones of the Observer (Marowitz 1990: 19-20).

In-Stage went on to produce a play by J.B. Lynne called The Trigon, with performances by Timothy West and Prunella Scales. The Trigon, transferred to Brighton and then the Arts Theatre Club in London’s West End. At In-Stage Marowitz also mounted the British premiere of Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words II, Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had All the Luck, and William Saroyan's The Cave Dwellers. In-Stage was also the first theatre in Britain to produce works by the playwright Murray Schisgal. This was the period immediately before Marowitz’s affinity for Artaud found expression in his theatre practice.

Before long—one can never date these things but it was around the early Sixties—I realized I had been blinded by Strasberg in precisely the same way he had been conned by Stanislavski, and that in some kind of prophetic way, my attempt to apply Method to classics was really an indication of an entirely different temperament, one which found its realisation in the ideas of Artaud (Hewison 1986: 90-91).

At the In-Stage theatre at Fitzroy Square spectators would line up in a small room below the rooftop studio where they were offered tea and biscuits by Marowitz’s friend and collaborator Gillian Watt. When the show was about to start audience members would move in single file up the narrow staircase that led to the tiny platform stage. Marowitz would often be backstage working the lights and sound tape. After the performance the audience would file out and Gillian Watt would stand at the bottom of the staircase holding a wicker basket into which members of the audience would drop coins and sometimes notes.

At In-Stage the actors received no wages, and the audience paid no admission, which was also a characteristic of many contemporaneous Off Off Broadway theatres in New York (Crespy 2003). The productions were both offbeat and highbrow as were the audiences. Many of the audience members were readers of the New Statesman which, along with the British Drama League magazine, were the only publications In-Stage could afford to advertise in. The audiences at In-Stage formed the beginnings of a new theatre-going public, a public which would eventually patronise places such as the Roundhouse, UFO, Ambiance, Soho Poly, the Oval House, and the Open Space. These were the forerunners of what would eventually become the London Fringe.