Theatre Retrospective
Clurman, Harold
Harold Clurman Theatre Retrospective The dean of America's theatre men reflects on drama The reputation of 42nd Street as a great theatrical thoroughfare is only intersected by that of...
...Or in the classic phrase of one old-time producer, "You must always keep the stofe open...
...Inherent in all this is a certain characteristically American trait...
...Inflation has reduced almost everyone involved in production to the position of dealer, broker, or salesman...
...When these considerations-which relate to the very core of the theatre's nature-are overlooked, then the theatre's true corruption begins...
...The director requires a sound script and the right cast, and none of these and other coordinate factors are completely within his control...
...The reason for this, I have come to believe, is that while the old Puritans have all but become extinct, there remains a considerable, though unconscious, Puritan hangover in our thinking about the theatre...
...They all are made to appear as either shining vessels or wretched imposters...
...We view it as "entertainment," in the frivolous connotation of the term...
...Spoiled by the spectacular success of our civiliza tion, we are still a youthfully impatient people...
...If one contemplates the fate of some of our leading playwrights, one finds a general decline from their dazzling advent, not only in popularity, but also in public and critical esteem...
...But actors' training in schools and studios has recently raised the qualitative level of the teamwork or ensemble playing...
...It is essentially a celebration, and as its chroniclers tell us it has often served as a form of religious rite-akin to worship...
...These companies were, and are today, often semi-subsidized by federal, civic, and corporate agencies...
...Then, too, there developed the drive to establish companies away from New York as the theatre's central "market," a movement that has grown rapidly in more recent years...
...He was * only "redeemed" by the Off-Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh and the posthumous productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night and A Touch of the Poet...
...Though many are accorded star billing (how crucial it seems to them), there are, as a matter of fact, precious few real stars today: those whose mere presence in a play assures a run of ten or twelve weeks...
...The theatre had to sneak in...
...Foreign actors-Kean, Rachel, Salvini, Duse, Bernhardt-had set high standards...
...I have spent many hours telling actors and other collaborators of mine: Dp not give credence either to glowing notices or to "pans.'' Reviews of either kind are almost always mistaken...
...Economics inevitably plays a role in the social arts-architecture and theatre require large collaborative forces...
...The theatre is incorrigible in the sense that it is always subject to corruption...
...The producer and his colleagues follow the proceedings as if they expected an immediate guarantee of fabulous notices...
...The vitiating forces exert noxious influences, not only in the making of theatre, but also in its appreciation...
...Such worse than any of the mischief caused by journalistic criticism (always a convenient target for derision) is the effect that our distorted sense of the theatre has on its personnel-playwrights, actors, directors, and others...
...There was a time when O'Neill was in limbo...
...With us, the theatre is still chiefly a show shop...
...On receiving signal recognition, the actor usually leaves the stage as soon as possible for other areas of the entertainment field, including the production of TV commercials...
...theatre fundamentally is that rots the foundation in the conduct of it...
...The American Puritan prejudice against the theatre went deeper than the conviction that it led to sin...
...Judgment of the theatre consists of an evaluation of what the Play (the stage event as a whole) contributes to our social and moral health...
...Clurman was a founder of the Group Theatre and in the years since has directed outstanding productions of Golden Boy (2937), The Member of the Wedding (2950), A Touch of the Poet {1954), and many other plays...
...The theatre has always been the realm of inner freedom where we may all somehow conceive ourselves as heroes...
...We seek the "best: buys...
...It's more often the playwrights who are the monsters of egotism...
...Bom in 1901, he saw his first play in 1908 and was at the 1920 debut of Eugene O'Neil's Beyond the Horizon, which marked the coming-of age of American theatre...
...Though it periodically lapses into the doldrums, the theatre constantly keeps renewing itself...
...This would not be so bad if he did not feel himself chiefly responsible to his newspaper and to the readers more eager to scan reviews than to see plays...
...It is a state of mind corrosive of sane endeavor...
...By the late nineteenth century, excellent actors abounded oh our stage under a few able directors...
...The theatre is not a bar...
...The theatre is always on the threshold of possibility and the path to a longed-for perfection...
...They are generally treated as if they were obliged to maintain a high box-office rating, rather than to evolve a significant body of work according to the bent of their disposition and thought...
...They are gamblers with other' people's money...
...Great advances were made in the early twentieth century with O'Neill and other similarly motivated writers, along with such new organizations as the Provincetown Players, the Washington Square Players (which in 1919 became the Theatre Guild), and the Neighborhood Playhouse...
...The need to play, to rise above the . humdrum, or, as Graig put it, "to fly," is within us all...
...These are the hits which occasion the greatest clamor and receive the most publicity: success...
...I do not refer to the fact that the theatre-at least since the Elizabethan age-has been widely thought of as a "business...
...Whether or not the state theatres of England, France, Sweden, Norway, Germany-to go no further- achieve excellence, or even prosperity, in every decade of their existence, it is inconceivable that they should ever close...
...They were not always wrong...
...The dullest spectator desires to transport himself for at least a few hours away from the lassitude of the commonplace...
...What counts is the maintenance of a tradition of high aim...
...In the theatre at least, we are all innocents...
...Harold Clurman began his theatre career in 1924 as an extra in a production at the Greenwich Village Theatre...
...it is consumer reporting, usually as exaggerated in blame as in praise...
...This is especially so with producers, who are rarely people with long experience or intimate knowledge of the actual process of creation for the stage...
...We ought to remind ourselves that no period in theatrical history-not the Classic Greek, the Elizabethan, or the French Neo-classic--produced masterpieces only...
...Indestructible because the theatre, even under the worst circumstances-severe censorship or total suppression-has always been present...
...Has it got a chance...
...The reviewer is gradually pressed into writing for the quotations that bedizen the blatant and costly ads announcing 'Vows," "thunderbolts," "knockouts," and "unforgettable experiences," often followed by a summation at the end of the season that declares that the season has been a bust...
...We fear failure like mortality...
...The answer to the perennial and rather boring question, "What is wrong with the theatre...
...The true critic considers himself a part of the total theatre phenomenon-responsible, first of all, to its artists and to the public at large in all its serious concerns...
...Even the crassest commercial manager has within himself that which hankers for something he does not find in his ledger or his bank...
...In this atmosphere, reviewing, especially in the dailies, hardly constitutes criticism...
...Genius is at all times rare...
...This induces the public to read him in the same frame of mind...
...Harold Clurman Theatre Retrospective The dean of America's theatre men reflects on drama The reputation of 42nd Street as a great theatrical thoroughfare is only intersected by that of Broadway-and 42nd Street has the better song...
...We demand immediate accomplishment...
...Using the recent, dedication of the Harold Clurman Theatre as our pretext, we asked Mr...
...It would seem that the purpose of the theatre is to spawn "stars...
...What I have chiefly gathered from my days in the theatre- apart from the excitement of its adventure-is that no matter when I inveigh against it for failing to answer its mission, I speak with tongue in cheek, only half sincere...
...It is obvious that theatre which does not please its audience cannot endure, but it is of the essence to know why and in what manner an audience is pleased, what actually stirs it, what the result is of its having been moved...
...I should add, apropos of actors, that though they are the most vulnerable in the theatrical constellation, they are not as vain as they are held to be...
...as theatre craftsmen, they remain perpetually unfledged...
...Despite all good intentions, the predicament of the theatre today is to some extent due to inflation in costs of production and therefore in prices of admission...
...Clurman what conclusions he would draw from his long experience in the theatre...
...It established "legitimacy" for itself very slowly in the large cities on the Eastern seaboard-and then chiefly among the gentry...
...it is a famous temple...
...For all the years one might have devoted to making these ideas clear, there is still very little practical understanding of what the theatre signifies, what it really is...
...The only exception is Neil Simon...
...We fluctuate from bursts of elation to seasons of despondency-both ephemeral because superficial...
...The increasing dependence on the director's magic may explain why there are fewer towering talents on the stage now than in earlier times...
...Despite this remarkable progress, a lingering dissatisfaction persists throughout the theatrical community...
...They all behave as if their every day in the theatre was their last...
...It is more likely that a general erosion of personality-of pristine daring, fortitude, valor-due to the basic conformism (beneath the superficial non-conformism) of contemporary society, underlies the infrequency of true grandeur in the acting profession...
...The lowliest mummer wants to see himself not as a mere posturer, but as a mythical creature in an imagined world...
...But when I speak of corruption, I do not think of depravity, but of elements antithetical to the theatre's nature...
...All the constituents of the pro duction are interdependent...
...That is why the seer of the modern theatre, Gordon Craig, was moved to exclaim: "Art is not a pick-me-up, it is a communion...
...With the opening of the Harold Clurman Theatre, it also becomes the only street to have a theatre named after America's most distinguished drama critic...
...They are inseparable from their countries' fabric and identity...
...It thus becomes something "on the side," and slightly extraneous to our more important pursuits...
...The theatre is a collective manifestation through which a community-^ a particular people, tribe, class, or nation-realizes itself, transforms the profound stores of its unconscious into its own consciousness...
...We do not seem to build anything solid, a stable theatrical culture-which exists in most of Europe, even in artistically fallow periods...
...A person professionally committed to the stage was an idler and a wastrel...
...What was missing was material which honestly set forth our way of life, and organizations which would encourage and incorporate the writing of sound native plays...
...We give little thought to the time, patience, and steady practice needed for substantial achievement...
...The reviewer thus comes to see himself as engaged in trade...
...What has troubled me most in the later days of my kctivity as a director is the sheer funk that haunts the rehearsal period...
...The director, elevated to an exalted position through his first success, grows cautious in his choice of future scripts, for should he fail to follow up on his run of luck, he would no longer be in demand...
...Careful organizational and financial management are required to sustain all such enterprises...
...Tragedy, comedy, or farce of excellence will always afford humanity the purest pleasure...
...They crave help and are grateful to those who provide it...
...The same is true of the actor...
...It is a group art in which every element is an ingredient of a common vision, a unity, and a consummation of a shared faith...
...I cannot accept the contention that the status of the director in our theatre has risen because of the absence of great actors...
...They have always existed as a necessary evil against which you must fortify yourself...
...It is a corruption which undermines not only its spirit, but also its craft...
...Under the theatre's spell we are never pessimists...
...I return to my initial premise: It is ignorance of what the...
...is not solely to be found in its commercialism...
...The Puritans considered it a hotbed of license and vice...
...It fulfills a need inherent in mankind...
...A could only sum everything up by saying that the theatre is indestructible-and incorrigible...
...In 1931 Mr...
...Everyone is atremble from the word go: "Will we make it...
...Building a new country out of the wilderness demanded workers, not players...
...The director who has had a series of hits is touted as a prodigy, and is sought after as if he were the prime mover in the happy outcome: This is rarely so...
Vol. 12 • April 1979 • No. 4
