A Year of Comedies: Stratford 1978

Summary

Apart from Peter Brook’s production of Antony and Cleopatra (opening too late for review), the 1978 season at Stratford-upon-Avon consisted entirely of comedies, ranging over the entire spectrum: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (revived from 1977, when it was enthusiastically reviewed here), The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and (at the Other Place, the RSC’s Stratford studio) The Merchant of Venice. It presented an interesting mixture of old and new in that two RSC directors of long standing, Clifford Williams and John Barton, had directed The Tempest and Love’s Labour’s Lost before at Stratford, during the Peter Hall regime, whereas Michael Bogdanov and Barry Kyle were in sole charge of plays in the main house for the first time.

The opening of Michael Bogdanov's Taming of the Shrew exploited the current fashion for blurring the distinctions between theatrical 'realism' and 'artifice', presumably to emphasise enduring 'relevance'. After being unexpectedly faced with old-fashioned painted scenery, the audience was suddenly startled by a deceptively genuine squabble between an usherette and a drunk member of the audience without a ticket. 'No bloody woman is going to tell me what to do!' he cried, thus making the play's relevance plain. Leaping on to the stage, he tore apart all the illusory scenery, revealing a respectably contemporary series of rusty metal frames, staircases, and cat-walks.