History repeats itself: a 100-year-old play about a very modern political crisis
Like a theatrical equivalent of David Dimbleby, Harley Granville-Barker's play Waste has a habit of popping up at times of great political importance. The last major British revival of the 1907 drama - in which a party leader's attempt to form a government is thwarted by factionalism and scandal - took place in 1997, as the collapsing Major adminstration was replaced by Blair. A Broadway production in 2000 coincided with the disputed Bush-Gore election. And now, confirming the work's record as history's running-mate, its latest London staging coincides with another Westminster crisis.
There are sure to be knowing laughs from the audience at the aphorism that, if a leader has to assert his authority, it is already too late; and at the prime minister's complaint that he has been forced to tolerate a particular chancellor, because "I have no one else." "It's extraordinary," agrees Sam West, who directs. "The actors were doing workshops in schools this morning, and they constructed half a dozen mock tabloid headlines about things that happen in the play. And they showed them to the children and said, 'When does this play take place?' and they said, 'Well, now.'"
Until recently, Waste suffered from being judged ahead of its time. The 1907 script was banned - because it showed doctors conniving in illegal abortions - with the result that Waste was not premiered until 1936, in a rewritten version. West has combined these two texts, mainly to clarify some exchanges involving arcane arrangements to disestablish the Church of England. To modern ears, Waste most resembles a lost Edwardian edition of The West Wing, a series that showed that even opaque political detail can be gripping. "Yes. That's what we're finding," West says. "It's fascinating when people use code on stage. There's an exchange in act two where they're talking about 'pre-restoration endowments' and the 'figures being very troubling'. And it doesn't matter whether we know what they're talking about, because they clearly know."
West was once on the far left of theatre, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and he accepts that his younger self would have bridled at Granville-Barker's underlying respect for the parliamentary system. "Oh yeah, I'd have thought Guy Fawkes was right." His politics have softened - with almost BBC balance, he brought in both Tony Benn and Martin Bell to address his cast - though he says that the banking crisis has made him "more of a revolutionary than last week"...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
There are sure to be knowing laughs from the audience at the aphorism that, if a leader has to assert his authority, it is already too late; and at the prime minister's complaint that he has been forced to tolerate a particular chancellor, because "I have no one else." "It's extraordinary," agrees Sam West, who directs. "The actors were doing workshops in schools this morning, and they constructed half a dozen mock tabloid headlines about things that happen in the play. And they showed them to the children and said, 'When does this play take place?' and they said, 'Well, now.'"
Until recently, Waste suffered from being judged ahead of its time. The 1907 script was banned - because it showed doctors conniving in illegal abortions - with the result that Waste was not premiered until 1936, in a rewritten version. West has combined these two texts, mainly to clarify some exchanges involving arcane arrangements to disestablish the Church of England. To modern ears, Waste most resembles a lost Edwardian edition of The West Wing, a series that showed that even opaque political detail can be gripping. "Yes. That's what we're finding," West says. "It's fascinating when people use code on stage. There's an exchange in act two where they're talking about 'pre-restoration endowments' and the 'figures being very troubling'. And it doesn't matter whether we know what they're talking about, because they clearly know."
West was once on the far left of theatre, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and he accepts that his younger self would have bridled at Granville-Barker's underlying respect for the parliamentary system. "Oh yeah, I'd have thought Guy Fawkes was right." His politics have softened - with almost BBC balance, he brought in both Tony Benn and Martin Bell to address his cast - though he says that the banking crisis has made him "more of a revolutionary than last week"...