The Main Productions: Context and Interpretation

Abstract

Faced with this stage history, Henry Fenwick in his Radio Times introduction to the television production could characterise it as a play which ‘has been particularly subject to directorial whim’ (‘Arguments of State’, 10–16 February 1979). Certainly, when confronted by its complexity, many directors have felt compelled to impose a distinct directorial control on its slippery nature. With our four productions we could suggest a spectrum ranging from Davis and the BBC production, where the play was by and large left to make points for itself, through the two RSC versions, to the Marowitz adaptation for the Open Space Theatre. Superficially a wish to let the play speak for itself seems an attractive idea and, as I pointed out in the Introduction, a dogmatic approach to this most anti-dogmatic of plays can hardly be an appropriate response. The play has to retain its difficulties. But the opposite extreme also presents problems: with no real directorial viewpoint, the play loses any claim to serious attention and an audience is left with what can seem a tiresome mixture of inexplicable behaviour and intrigue. The most effective kind of control would seem to be one which, as Michael Billington observed, ‘works through the text rather than imposes an arbitrary concept on it’ (Guardian, 28 June 1978). The most successful recent productions have taken this approach whilst working out from a crucial, central image of the play.