No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Naturalism, Poetic Realism, Spectacle: Wesker's ‘The Kitchen’ in Performance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Abstract
When Stephen Daldry took over the artistic directorship of the Royal Court in 1994, the first play he chose to direct was a revival of one of the great successes of the theatre's early occupancy by the English Stage Company, Arnold Wesker's The Kitchen. In the following article, Stephen Lacey sees this as in part a defining statement of Daldry's own relationship to the theatre and its traditions, and he offers a detailed comparison between Daldry's production and John Dexter's original in 1959, as revived in 1961. Exploring in particular the directors' – and the designers' – differing perceptions of the elements of naturalism and theatricality which co-exist in the play, he also contrasts Dexter's end-on use of the Court's picture-frame stage with Daidry's reconstruction of the theatre to provide an in-the-round ambience. This, he suggests, is emblematic of a new relationship not only between the play and its audience, but of changed perceptions between the 'fifties and the 'nineties concerning the nature and potential of social realism in the theatre.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996
References
Notes and References
1. All the quotations from reviews of the 1994 production of The Kitchen are from Theatre Record, 12–15 February 1994, p. 210–16.
2. I was fortunate to have seen the 1994 production, and in discussing it here I am drawing on my own notes and recollections as well as the published reviews. I did not, however, see the original production, and my account of it therefore draws on a variety of secondary sources.
3. See especially Williams, Raymond, ‘Lecture on Realism’, Screen, XVIII, No. 1 (Spring 1977)Google Scholar, and Culture (London: Verso, 1981), especially the chapter entitled ‘Forms’.
4. See Innes, Christopher, Modern British Drama 1890–1980 (Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, and Lacey, S., British Realist Theatre: the New Wave in its Context, 1956–65 (London: Routledge, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Williams, op. cit., p. 64.
6. Marowitz, Charles, ‘A Cynic's Glossary’, Encore, 05–06 1961, p. 32Google Scholar
7. Leeming, Glenda, ed., File on Wesker (London: Methuen, 1985), p. 50.Google Scholar
8. Hunt, Albert, ‘Around Us … Things are There’, Encore, 08–09. 1961, p. 25–9.Google Scholar
9. See especially Roberts, Philip, The Royal Court Theatre (London: Routledge, 1986).Google Scholar
10. Quoted in Hill, John, Sex, Class, and Realism: British Cinema 1956–63 (London: British Film Institute, 1986), p. 129.Google Scholar
11. J. Herbert and C. Courtney, jocelyn Herbert: a Theatre Workbook (London: Arts Book International), p. 52.
12. There are some excellent photographs and drawings of Herbert's designs for these plays in Herbert and Courtney, op. cit.
13. Arnold Wesker, The Kitchen, in New English Dramatists 2 (London, Penguin), p. 14.
14. Herbert and Courtney, op. cit., p. 38.
15. Tschudin, M., A Writer's Theatre (Frankfurt: Frankfurt University Press, 1972), p. 174.Google Scholar
16. Ibid., p. 176.
17. Ibid., p. 171.
18. All quotations from reviews of this production are from Theatre Record, op. cit.
19. Wesker, op. cit., p. 43.
20. Taylor, Lib, ‘Politics as Spectacle: Audience, Economics, and the West End’, unpublished paper presented to ‘Performing Politics’, conference at Lough-borough University, 16–1809 1994.Google Scholar
21. Ibid.
22. Quoted by O'Mahony, John, in ‘Forzen in Time: a Portrait of Arnold Wesker’, The Guardian, 19 02. 1994.Google Scholar
23. Wesker, op. cit., p. 61.