THEATRE IN LONDON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 11

THEATRE IN LONDON

Sir,-I have seen the friendly comments made by J.C.R. and B.E.G.M. about my talk on plays in London, and should like to thank them both. But I am puzzled by J.C.R.’s remark that my talk was "seemingly independent of vogue, save in the discussion of Brecht." Does he mean that my views were influenced by the fact that Brecht happens to be in vogue? He has not shown in what way. Or does he by any chance mean to imply that there would be no reason for discussing Brecht if he were not in vogue? His reference to "things which last month were dernier cri’ does a little to suggest this. Anyhow, I should like to say that it was John Osborne’s play which I discussed principally because it is in vogue just now; the vogue is worth discussing mainly because it tells us what is going on at the moment; but that I think Brecht worth approximately ten Osbornes, and full of matter which will last when he ceases to be merely in vogue.’ He is a major European figure, which Mr Osborne is not, I should like to add that in thinking and talking about Brecht since my script was recorded, I have come upon a possible reply to my suggestion that his scope is limited: I said that his dramatic technique exhibited man merely in his social relationships, whereas the Western theatre was likely to go on exploring and dramatising the interior life of the individual. But it may be that the hero is dead: that we have reached the point where the individual personality, studied’ for its own sake, collapses and disintegrates (Death of a Salesman, Waiting for Godot), and that we shall be forced to study it either, with and yet against the Marxists, in its social relationships, or,. with the existentialists, in its absurdity. For either of these treatments, the Brechtian technique, which .consists essentially in looking at man from the outside, igs obviously well suited and can be adapted by playwrights whose philosophy is not Brecht’s. In suggesting that the classical Western theatre will go on, I seem to have been merely expressing my faith in the West; and I do not know how much I really have. I hope I have not bored your readers! by this attempt at. clarification.

J. G. A.

POCOCK

(Cambridge)