Opinion: what is regional theatre?
December 9, 2008
Ron Simpson on what traditions of provincial theatre the new WYP programme displays
The question occurred to me as I read through the West Yorkshire Playhouse programme for the first six months of 2009 – and produced several different answers.
Perhaps regional theatre in its purest form can be found at Hull Truck, now reprising former successes in the last round of productions at the intimate Spring Street theatre before moving – after a final triumphant burst of Bouncers – into opulent new premises early next year.
Hull Truck has come up with some fine productions of classics over the years – in fact, I always maintain that the best ever Truck production was a superb Woyzeck directed by John Godber which I and a dozen others saw at Wakefield Theatre Royal – but the typical Spring Street play is new, set (at least in part) in Hull, strong on comedy and sentiment, with good ensemble playing from a small cast.
This breeds a certain formulaic element: laughs are obtained too easily by mentioning Hull districts or gibing at Goole and the dressing up/transformation scene (for wrestling, karaoke or Gay Pride march) recurs too readily. Not all the plays have the freshness of the early Godbers. However, the constant stream of new playwrights working in a regional populist tradition (not to mention a few old ones, like Alan Plater celebrating Hull City on the club’s last but one promotion) is remarkable and, particularly when the comedy illuminates a serious theme like a prison protest or the lifeboat service, the result is impressive.
Of course, that’s not the only way to celebrate the region on stage. Had Woyzeck fallen into the hands of Northern Broadsides, it would doubtless have been transferred to Catterick Garrison. The Broadsides tradition is founded on sturdily northern interpretations of Shakespeare plays, but has spread out to cover Greek satyr plays, Milton’s Samson Agonistes and European comedy from Goldoni to Kleist to Dario Fo, plus the occasional original play (Plater again!). Interestingly, Hull exile Barrie Rutter has set about revitalising theatre in the old West Riding while John Godber has made the reverse journey.
For the new West Yorkshire Playhouse season, Northern Broadsides returns to Shakespeare, with Rutter directing Lenny Henry in Othello. The only change, apart from the prestigious casting, is that now the company tends to work in collaboration with mainstream theatres, rather than relying on the found objects of Dean Clough Mill for props and touring mills and cattle markets.
But that’s only one element in the “regionalism” of the Playhouse programme. The Northern Exposure season in April and May presents two new plays written by Tom Wells and Dom Grace and Boff Whalley and set in Leeds and Hull. In Summer a new community play, Dust, explores the exposure to asbestos of employees in a factory in Armley. And then, not for the first time, there’s When We Are Married, by J.B. Priestley.
Though written in 1938, the play draws on a tradition of what you might call Heavy Woollen drama dating back at least 30 years earlier to Miss Horniman’s repertory theatre in Manchester. For too long When We Are Married was seen as a reliable vehicle for amateur companies, but it’s far more than a stock farce, with its heightened, but rooted, picture of the middle classes of the West Riding, consumed with civic pride, respectability and putting one over on the other chapels – one of the sinful young organist’s major deficiencies is to finish last in the annual race to perform Messiah!
At times I wonder if it ought to be in the contract of theatres on both sides of the Pennines to put on Hobson’s Choice and When We Are Married every five years or so. And what about Hindle Wakes and Love on the Dole? How would they hold up now? For seekers after irrelevant historical significance, 2010 will be the centenary of the first production of Hindle Wakes.
A further thought: what about yesterday’s regional drama? It would be sad if Andrea Dunbar, for instance, were neglected. I don’t recall if the Playhouse has ever tackled The Arbor. It might prove to be little more than the school project it began as or already hopelessly dated (though I doubt both), but it would be worth finding out.
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