Abstract
If Scottish theatre has undergone a renaissance since the late 1960s, it is all but unarguable that the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow provided the initial impetus—and, in the following decades, much of the fuel—for change. In 1969 the theatre (which was located, then as now, in the famous working-class community of the Gorbals, on the south bank of the River Clyde) appointed Giles Havergal as its artistic director. His appointment followed a turbulent decade in which the playhouse had parted with a succession of artistic directors. Edinburgh-born and familiar with Glasgow (having lived in the city during his early life), the 31-year-old Havergal arrived at the Citizens following four successful years as artistic director of the Palace Theatre, Watford. It was an appointment which would revolutionise theatre in Glasgow, and Scotland more broadly, over the course of an extraordinary 34-year reign.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This period is sketched in the late theatre critic Cordelia Oliver’s book Magic in the Gorbals: a personal record of the Citizens Theatre (Aberdeen: Famedram, 1999), pp. 25–38.
- 2.
Giles Havergal, from interview with Mark Brown (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, 14/11/2012).
- 3.
Although such productions as 1975’s De Sade Show were inherently controversial.
- 4.
Michael Coveney, The Citz: 21 Years of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre (London: Nick Hern Books, 1990), p. 4.
- 5.
Havergal, from interview (14/11/2012).
- 6.
Donald Smith in Bill Findlay (ed.), A History of Scottish Theatre (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1988), p. 273.
- 7.
Coveney, p. 42.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 39.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 40.
- 10.
Christopher Small, Glasgow Herald (Glasgow: 7/9/1970), p. 3.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
Havergal, from interview.
- 13.
Havergal, from interview.
- 14.
Noted in Mark Blankenship’s feature article about a production of the play at the Ohio Theater, SoHo, New York; ‘It’s Not Just Cruel; It’s Unusual, Too’, New York Times (New York: 10/2/2008): www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/theater/10blank.html?_r=0 (accessed 2/9/2014).
- 15.
Quoted in Blankenship’s article, ibid.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Havergal, from interview.
- 18.
Small, Glasgow Herald (Glasgow: 26/3/1970), p. 6.
- 19.
Allen Wright, The Scotsman (Edinburgh: 26/3/1970), p. 4.
- 20.
Havergal, from interview.
- 21.
The Close was destroyed by fire in May 1973, Coveney, p. 61.
- 22.
Havergal, from interview.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Oliver, pp. 45–46.
- 25.
The division, to the point of riot, of the audience during the premiere performance of Schoenberg’s Modernist Chamber Symphony No. 1 in Vienna in 1913 is a case in point. See BBC Radio 3 website: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03k6ynj (accessed 6/2/2017).
- 26.
As the title of Robert Hughes’ 1980s television series and book about twentieth-century art had it: Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991).
- 27.
Smith in Findlay, p. 273.
- 28.
Coveney, p. 4.
- 29.
Hugh Rorrison, ‘Peter Zadek’, in Martin Banham (ed.), The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 1223.
- 30.
Coveney, pp. 286–288.
- 31.
Havergal, from interview.
- 32.
Coveney, Financial Times (London: 19/1/1976), p. 3.
- 33.
Small, Glasgow Herald (Glasgow: 19/1/1976), p. 5.
- 34.
Coveney, Financial Times (London: 19/1/1976), p. 3.
- 35.
Small, Glasgow Herald (Glasgow: 7/9/1970), p. 3.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Coveney, Financial Times (London: 19/1/1976), p. 3.
- 38.
Havergal, from interview.
- 39.
Coveney, Financial Times (London: 3/3/1980), p. 11.
- 40.
A reference to the continental European, more particularly seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Parisian tradition of salons in which people from “fashionable society” indulged their appetites for culture and intellectual discourse; as explained in Benet Davetian’s essay ‘The History and Meaning of Salons’: www.bdavetian.com/salonhistory.html (accessed 22/7/2013). N. B. Davetian is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
- 41.
Coveney, Financial Times (London: 3/3/1980), p. 11.
- 42.
By which he meant, the lower-case letters on both words suggest, not the National Theatre as an institution, but theatre in the United Kingdom as a whole. Ibid.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
Chaillet, The Times (London: 3/3/1980), p. 13.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Small, Glasgow Herald (Glasgow: 3/3/1980).
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
- 51.
Wright, The Scotsman (Edinburgh: 3/3/1980).
- 52.
It should be noted that, whilst Wright was correct in suggesting that the triumvirate were not inclined to present plays such as McMillan’s under the banner of the Citizens Theatre Company, the maiden production of The Bevellers, by the Royal Lyceum of Edinburgh, was, in fact, staged successfully at the Gorbals playhouse in 1973; as Coveney notes in The Citz, p. 83.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
For more on the Scottish work play see Chap. 2 of this book.
- 55.
David Archibald, ‘History in Contemporary Scottish Theatre’, in Ian Brown (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), p. 87.
- 56.
Website of the National Library of Scotland: digital.nls.uk/scottish-theatre/bondagers/index.html (accessed 23/7/2013).
- 57.
Joyce McMillan, review of Dundee Rep Theatre’s 2012 production of The Mill Lavvies, The Scotsman (Edinburgh: 6/9/2012): http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/theatre-comedy-dance/theatre-review-the-mill-lavvies-dead-famous-1-2508190 (accessed 23/7/2013).
- 58.
Whose many Citizens shows included Thomas Middleton’s The Changeling in 1976.
- 59.
Who appeared in the title role in Prowse’s staging of Brecht’s Mother Courage in 1990, among other Citz productions.
- 60.
Whose Citz productions included Noël Coward’s The Vortex in 1988.
- 61.
Rupert Everett, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins (London: Abacus, 2012), pp. 107–108.
- 62.
Oliver, p. 68.
- 63.
From the 1969–1990 production list in Coveney, pp. 85–295.
- 64.
The Zohar is the foundational text of the spiritual practice, founded in Judaism, of Kabbalah: www.zohar.com (accessed 24/7/2013).
- 65.
Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double (London: Calder, 1999), p. 76.
- 66.
Ibid., p. 76.
- 67.
‘Twenty-one Years On’, Wright’s essay considering his time as theatre critic of The Scotsman, published in a special, double edition (43 and 44) of Chapman magazine (Edinburgh: Spring 1986), p. 5.
- 68.
Australian actor and director who joined the Citizens company in 1966 and served, briefly, as joint artistic director in 1968 and 1969. His 1967 production of Peter Nichols’s play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg was an award-winning success which transferred to London and Broadway. The play was staged by the Citizens again in October 2011, directed by Phillip Breen.
- 69.
English actor and director who, like Blakemore, began his time at the Citz (in 1965) as an actor, but quickly became a director. Meacham was appointed artistic director of the Glasgow theatre in 1966, with Blakemore as his associate director.
- 70.
Wright, Chapman, p. 5.
- 71.
Ibid., p. 5.
- 72.
Ibid., pp. 5–6.
- 73.
See Chap. 1 of this book.
- 74.
Eric Shorter, Daily Telegraph (London 21/1/1985), p. 10.
- 75.
MacDonald’s play about ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, directed by Prowse. Coveney, pp. 92–93 and p. 109.
- 76.
Ibid., p. 109.
- 77.
A large-scale, pan-European co-production of Kraus’s play, featuring the acclaimed, English cabaret group The Tiger Lillies, was presented at Leith Theatre in Edinburgh in November 2018.
- 78.
Ibid., pp. 187–188.
- 79.
Havergal, from interview.
- 80.
Linehan’s theatre offers have included more Scottish productions than the programmes of his predecessors, and have combined pre-existing work with premieres.
- 81.
See comments by Vicky Featherstone, former National Theatre of Scotland, regarding EIF theatre programming in Chap. 6 of this work.
- 82.
Havergal, from interview.
- 83.
Coveney, p. 79.
- 84.
Ibid., pp. 110–111.
- 85.
Ibid., p. 186.
- 86.
Ibid., p. 186.
- 87.
Cheek By Jowl often collaborates with theatre companies outwith the United Kingdom, often in languages other than English. Their staging of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure , for instance, is a co-production with the Pushkin Theatre of Moscow, and is performed in Russian.
- 88.
Mark Brown, feature interview with Donnellan, Sunday Herald (Glasgow, 8/1/2017): www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/stage/15009177.Seasonal_tale_of_a_troubled_soul__preview_of_The_Winter__39_s_Tale/
- 89.
Havergal, from interview.
- 90.
Coveney, p. 61.
- 91.
Havergal, from interview.
- 92.
Website of the Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow: special.lib.gla.ac.uk/sta/search/resultspe.cfm?NID=21934&EID=549&DID=&AID= (accessed 24/7/2013).
- 93.
Website of the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland: www.criticsawards.theatrescotland.com/Winners%20by%20year/02-03.html (accessed 24/7/2013).
- 94.
See my review for The Guardian (London: 17/3/2003): www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2003/mar/18/theatre.artsfeatures (accessed 24/7/2013).
- 95.
Havergal, from interview.
- 96.
All five of whom are interviewed in Chap. 5.
- 97.
Of the five theatremakers named here, only Laing (see Chap. 5) is a “child” of the Citz, having been an apprentice designer to Prowse and, later, chief designer at the Gorbals playhouse.
- 98.
See interview in Chap. 5.
- 99.
Havergal, from interview.
- 100.
Ibid.
- 101.
Ibid.
- 102.
A stage adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin.
- 103.
Mark Brown, ‘Citizen Keen for a Lead Role’, Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh: 14/9/2003), arts section, p. 8.
- 104.
Ibid.
- 105.
As the theatre opted to entitle it, in preference to the original Venice Preserv’d.
- 106.
Like the programming of Venice Preserved, the commissioning of Welsh pre-dated Raison’s arrival.
- 107.
Adapted from the novel by Emile Zola.
- 108.
Surely a more clearly middlebrow choice, even, than anything by Ayckbourn.
- 109.
Which Raison insisted was the voluntary end to a successful directorship; an assertion which is doubted by those who believe that his resignation was sought by the Citizens board.
- 110.
Directed by Gregory Thompson.
- 111.
A co-production with London-based theatre company Headlong and the Lyric Hammersmith, and directed by American director Daniel Kramer.
- 112.
Directed by guest director Phillip Breen.
- 113.
Directed by Leddy himself.
- 114.
The definitions of the Andalusian concept of duende, like those of the related Portuguese notion of saudades, are many and varied. This is because the idea relates to something which is, primarily spiritual, emotional and erotic. It can be heard and seen in the music and dance of flamenco, and also in the theatre and poetry of Lorca. My own definition of duende is that it (like saudades, which can be heard in the music and song of fado in Portugal) is a powerful and irresistible combination of ungovernable human passions (such as love and erotic desire) with an immutable sense of human mortality. A human being might be described as having a compelling charm because she exudes a sense of duende, precisely because the combined elements represented by this concept are so profound and seminal.
- 115.
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman (Edinburgh: 22/2/2006), p. 31.
- 116.
Mark Brown Sunday Herald (Glasgow: 26/2/2006), arts section, p. 22.
- 117.
David Hayman, from interview with Mark Brown (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 10/4/2012). See Mark Brown’s website: scottishstage.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/feature-david-haymancitizens-theatre-interview (accessed 6/2/2017).
- 118.
From 2006 to 2011.
- 119.
From 2003 to 2006.
- 120.
The Herald hailed the appointment as a “coup”, ‘The Citz board has staged a coup with Hill appointment’, unnamed staff writer (Glasgow: 18/3/2011), p. 3. In my own short piece for the Telegraph website, I wrote: “Dominic Hill[…] could not be better suited to the job of taking forward what is, arguably, Scotland’s most important repertory theatre[…] With Hill’s appointment, an appropriately creative, irreverent and highly skilled order has been restored” (London: 18/3/2011): www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/8391086/Dominic-Hill-is-announced-as-Artistic-Director-of-Glasgows-Citizens-Theatre.html (accessed 23/3/2015).
- 121.
Twelfth Night , Dundee Rep, 2003.
- 122.
Scenes from an Execution, Dundee Rep, 2004.
- 123.
Happy Days, Dundee Rep, 2007.
- 124.
Peer Gynt, Dundee Rep/National Theatre of Scotland , 2007 and 2009.
- 125.
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Traverse, Edinburgh, 2010.
- 126.
Verdi’s Falstaff, 2008.
- 127.
Philip Massinger’s The City Madam , 2011.
- 128.
2011–2012.
- 129.
Murphy died of prostate cancer on August 26, 2013.
- 130.
A double bill of Far Away and Seagulls, summer 2013.
- 131.
Crime and Punishment, adapted by Chris Hannan and co-produced with the Liverpool Playhouse and the Royal Lyceum , Edinburgh, autumn 2013.
- 132.
The Libertine, spring 2014.
- 133.
Hamlet , autumn 2014.
- 134.
A Christmas Carol, winter 2014.
- 135.
Far Away, in particular, departs radically from the expectations of naturalism, using a language and evoking a world which one might relate to the “Absurdism”, as Martin Esslin called it, of the theatre of Modernist dramatists such as Eugène Ionesco and Jean Genet. See Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Anchor Books, 1961).
- 136.
Havergal memorably played the title role in Neil Bartlett’s Scrooge at the Citz (his last performance there) in the winter of 2002.
- 137.
Including Sam Shepard’s True West , autumn 2013, staged by guest director, and past Citz collaborator, Phillip Breen.
- 138.
Among other awards, Hill received the Best Director accolade at the annual Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS ) in 2004 (for Scenes from an Execution, Dundee Rep) and 2008 (for Peer Gynt, Dundee Rep/National Theatre of Scotland).
- 139.
Namely, the judging panel of the CATS , which is comprised of the theatre critics of the major Scotland and London-based “quality” newspapers, and other professional* print and/or online publications. *For a definition of “professional” in this context see my essay, ‘Between Journalism and Art: the location of criticism, in the 21st-century’, in Duška Radosavljević (ed.), Theatre Criticism : Changing Landscapes (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), pp. 170–186.
- 140.
From a statement published in the Citizens Theatre autumn/winter 2014 season brochure and quoted in my review of Hamlet for the Sunday Herald (Glasgow: 18/9/2014).
- 141.
Eric Bentley, The Brecht Commentaries (New York: Grove Press, 1987), pp. 59–65. See Chap. 1 of this book for more on “narrative realism”.
- 142.
Adam Best received the Best Male Performance award for his playing of the murderous, failed law student Rodya Raskolnikov, while the cast won the Best Ensemble prize, at the 2014 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS ). Hamlet also received enthusiastic critical plaudits.
- 143.
Mark Fisher, The Guardian (London: 8/9/2013), p. 40.
- 144.
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman (Edinburgh: 11/9/2013), p. 34.
- 145.
Gareth Vile, The Stage website (25/9/2014): www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2014/hamlet-18/ (accessed 23/3/2015).
- 146.
Mark Brown, Sunday Herald (Glasgow: 28/9/2014).
- 147.
As outlined in Chap. 1 of this volume.
- 148.
See Chap. 1 of this work.
- 149.
Dominic Hill, from interview with Mark Brown (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 13/1/2015).
- 150.
The prolific Austrian dramatist, novelist and author of numerous writings about theatre, including the stage piece Offending the Audience (published with Self-Accusation: London: Methuen, 1971).
- 151.
Hill, from interview.
- 152.
Bentley, p. 60.
- 153.
Hill, from interview.
- 154.
The internationally acclaimed German theatre and opera director whose recent works include The Broken Jug and Faust Fantasia.
- 155.
The radically reinterpretive Spanish opera and theatre director who has staged a number of works, including Barbaric Comedies , Hamlet and Platform at the Edinburgh International Festival.
- 156.
The famous Georgian theatre director, currently artistic director of the Rustaveli National Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia, and director of an internationally celebrated production of Brecht’s play The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
- 157.
Hill, from interview.
- 158.
Hill emphasises the importance of his finding like-minded collaborators at various points in his career, including composers Paddy Cuneen (when Hill was at Dundee Rep) and Nikola Kodjabashia (at the Citizens), and writer Chris Hannan (at both the Traverse and the Citizens).
- 159.
The long-established, Paris-based company is famous for its collaborative practice.
- 160.
Cliff Burnett, from interview with Mark Brown, Sunday Herald (Glasgow: 23/11/2014): scottishstage.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/preview-a-christmas-carol-citizens-theatre-glasgow-interview-with-cliff-burnett/ (accessed 9/2/2017).
- 161.
Website of The Guardian (London: 29/9/2014): www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/sep/29/hamlet-review-citizens-theatre-glasgow (accessed 13/4/2015).
- 162.
Cliff Burnett, in Brown , Sunday Herald.
- 163.
Ibid.
- 164.
Hill, from interview.
- 165.
Short for proscenium arch.
- 166.
Although Hill has enjoyed the dilapidation of the theatre, he is, unsurprisingly, keen to see the building preserved. The Citizens began a £20.5 million refurbishment, including the destruction of the existing stalls and circle studios, and the construction of a new studio theatre space, in the summer of 2018. See Thom Dibdin’s report for The Stage (22/3/2016): www.thestage.co.uk/news/2016/glasgows-citizens-theatre-receives-16-5mredevelopment-approval/ (accessed 9/2/2017).
- 167.
Hill, from interview.
- 168.
Mark Brown, Daily Telegraph (London: 9/9/2013): www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10295788/Crime-and-Punishment-Citizens-Theatre-Glasgow-review.html (accessed 23/3/2015).
- 169.
As proclaimed at the top of every page of the theatre’s website: www.traverse.co.uk (accessed 13/4/2015).
- 170.
Fall , a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company, performed at the Traverse during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
- 171.
The Last Witch , performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the 2009 Edinburgh International Festival.
- 172.
Hill, from interview.
- 173.
Interestingly, at the time of writing (mid-April 2015), Hill was less than two weeks away from the opening of Fever Dream: Southside by Douglas Maxwell, the first new work to be directed by him at the Citz. It is, surely, significant that the decision to programme the play came in circumstances diametrically opposite to those which prevail at the Traverse ; that is, at the Citizens, new work is staged as a matter of particular choice, and as an exception, whereas at the Traverse it is an absolute requirement of the company’s self-defined remit.
- 174.
A position he held until 1996.
- 175.
Hill, from interview.
- 176.
Ibid.
- 177.
Ibid.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brown, M. (2019). “My Wife Glimpsed a Testicle!”: The Citizens Theatre Since 1969. In: Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98639-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98639-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98638-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98639-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)