Orson Welles, Vol I Read Free

classical and new writing, with an experimental studio to whose productions ‘none of thetraditional inhibitions or hesitations will apply’. No such integrated theatre had ever existed in America. As so often, Welles and Houseman anticipated the development of theatrical history; or rather, their manifestos did.
    Ever mindful of the need to create an audience, they addressed themselves, a few weeks later, to the readership of the Daily Worker , appropriately modifying their pitch: ‘AGAIN – A PEOPLE’S THEATRE; THE MERCURY TAKES A BOW: 1 When the Mercury Theatre opens its doors early in November, we believe another step will have been taken towards a real People’s Theatre in America.’ The objective of the Mercury, they claimed, was ‘to widen the cultural and social base of the people’s theatre’. Praising the WPA and the new audience that it had found, they make an interestingpoint about their own approach. ‘Aesthetically, this new fresh public, entering the theatre as on a voyage of discovery, succeeded in re-establishing the audience as an organic part of the theatre. And again, as in all the great theatrical periods, the audience is becoming a live, participating force to be taken into account by playwright, actor and director.’ The abolition of the fourth wallwas certainly a crucial element in their aesthetic. They thoroughly rejected the notion of a play as something comfortably ensconced behind the proscenium arch, to be admired and applauded; they expected their audience to be critically engaged participants.
    The repertory they announced was bold. It was bold then; it would be bold now. The list consisted of Julius Caesar, Heartbreak House (withAline MacMahon), The Duchess of Malfi (‘one of the great horror plays of all time’), William Gillette’s nineteenth-century classic of American farce, Too Much Johnson , and Ben Jonson’s The Silent Woman , (which proved, as it turned out, to be too much Jonson; they never did it). The plan was to play in repertory with no more than two plays a week. Top price was $2; there were four hundred goodseats at 50c, 75c and $1 every performance. By comparison, standard Broadway prices were $3.30, $4.40. In the Daily Worker, Julius Caesar was announced by itself ‘in a modern production by Orson Welles. This tragedy (which might well be subtitled Death of a Dictator) is the most contemporary of all Elizabethan plays. In our production the stress will be on the social implications inherent in thehistory of Caesar and on the atmosphere of personal greed, fear and hysteria that surround a dictatorial regime. The modern parallel is obvious.For those who saw his Doctor Faustus and the Negro Macbeth , there should be no question as to the violence and immediacy which Orson Welles will give to the present-day production of Julius Caesar and Marc Blitzstein (author of that storm-centre The CradleWill Rock ) has written the music for it;’ (just in case there were the slightest doubts about their left-wing credentials.) The publicity blitz was well received; Commonweal , comparing the Mercury’s philosophy to that of the Old Vic, declared that ‘it is the duty of all who love the theatre to rally back of them’. 2 Brooks Atkinson in the Times confirmed their continuity with the Federal Theatre,which, he observed, ‘has already given Mr Welles and Mr Houseman an opportunity to revise a good many professional shibboleths about the theatre’. 3
    They had the press on their side from the start. What they didn’t have was any concrete financial basis for their bold announcement. The purpose of the publicity was above all to attract investors; it was a typical ploy of Houseman’s to announcea thing in order to make it happen, a ploy he had last used when he announced Panic without having even secured the rights. For the first time since then, Houseman was faced with raising money by his own efforts; this time he was not blessed with a living author who also happened