‘Did you like it?’ she asked me.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘But why such an outlandish outfit for the chorus of courtiers or citizens at Creon’s court? There was hardly any difference shown between them and Tiresias.’
‘Well, you ask him!’ she introduced me to a gentleman who turned out to be the executive producer of the place.
‘You know it was a barbarous time,’ he said wisely.
‘Not so barbarous that they didn’t live such terrific actions and emotions that nobody can beat them today.’
‘Maybe that’s true.’
‘At least you could have dressed up your chorus a bit more differently. As it is, they looked to me like John the Baptist wild in the wilderness. That role probably coincides well with the blind seer’s. And I’m sure you could have gained something by having women in the chorus.’
The gentleman kept his eyes down and his hands behind his back through all my harangue. Then he said curtly:
‘We haven’t got much money in this Theater and therefore cannot play around too much with costumes.’
Later Mrs McAneny took me by the hand and to a party at backstage. It was a tame dribbling affair and under a pale, running light people and furniture there took on eerie shadows. But we caught one substantial person there all right.
‘This is Mr Stephen Porter, our guest director from New York.’ Mrs McAneny brought us together and left almost at once. The director, a small neat figure of a man with a sombrero hair atop him, expressed real surprise at hearing the dramatic group of which I was a member while in college at home had not only done the Antigone that Princeton’s professional troupe was now just tackling, but that we had also offered a double bill of contrast in times and attitudes by following up Sophocles with the Frenchman Jean Anouilh on the same night.
‘How exciting!’ the director poured out some more cider for us two.
I said yes, it really had been most exciting.
‘But tell me, how did you manage it? Anouilh’s Antigone as you very well know is a full-length play, almost some three hours, like any on Broadway. Now how did you combine it with Sophocles? You must have had an extraordinarily long night of it.’
‘Not really,’ I demurred. ‘Some four hours running from eight till about midnight, but people hardly noticed. We had a tremendous Antigone.’
‘What did you think of our own girl?’
‘Well, I always thought Antigone a firebrand suddenly flaring up and consuming in her flames herself and all those dear around her.’
‘That’s correct,’ he agreed.
‘But your Antigone tonight, although showing the timber necessary for her part, proved a rather wet affair, don’t you think?’
‘Well,’ the director began, then decided to leave the matter at that point. Which was where we also broke up.
The other mirror scene at the McCarter was when the Le Treteau de Paris, under the auspices of the French Government which had then also loaned Mona Lisa to the American people for the temporary upliftment of their minds, stopped for a night at Princeton in their tour of the United States. They performed in their original tongue L’Apollon de Bellac by Jean Giraudoux and Jean Cocteau’s Orphée. All the same, McCarter was filled to over-flowing that night in spite of this language dam. I was there myself, although without one word of French. But that was hardly the point. Hadn’t I seen the fabulous Foo Hsing Theater from Formosa (or the Republic of China as that country must be titled if you are not to stir up quills on the bad-tempered porcupine that is official America)? Yes, I said to myself, hadn’t I seen that youthful troupe perform in Washington although all the Chinese I knew did not go beyond service in a Chinese restaurant? And hadn’t I, like others enjoyed the gorgeous sets, the intricate dance and whirling acrobatics, even though their ging-gong, shrill, piping music had been a trifle upsetting, and hadn’t the story of the loyal girl who offered herself as the beautiful bait that restores her king to his throne unfolded in superb action and mime? In short, I was well mounted on the high hobby horse that rides the theater into a field of innumerable courses of delight, and of these language is regarded as simply one, not the only all-important source of pleasure. Here however occurred my great mistake. At the McCarter Theater that night speech became the be-all and end-all of everything. Every single line, indeed every single word, called forth universal laughter in the hall. So much so that at several points, the players, obviously not used to this new kind of audience response, looked more than just pleasantly surprised and a trifle bemused and interrupted in their act. So bent was everybody there on impressing neighbours that they knew their French as it is spoken in Paris.
‘Well,’ I huffed in my seat, half in pique that I was out of it and half in real anger: ‘Did Cocteau and Giraudoux ever get laughs like this among their own people?’
‘The plays are really very funny.’ My Dahomean colleague who came with me that night tried to calm me down. He was a real lady’s man, and naturally felt great concern that several feminine crowns were at that moment snapping and tossing my way.
‘Nonsense,’ I snorted ‘they are all terribly bourgeois here, and just showing off to one another. The plays, I bet you, mean little to a great many of them here.’
‘Ssh,’ my friend from Dahomey admonished me.
I obeyed, and almost from that instant, the rest was silence between me and the McCarter set-up.
As with my newspaper pilgrimage, after initiation rites at the local level, I made a profitable stop on my way to the central shrine of the performing arts in New York City. In fact, at that point both hosts led at the same time to Washington, DC, where they all but tripped up each other. I was there visiting for the first time as guest of the Washington Post, and Colonel Van de Velde, an old hand at planning out campaigns, had every move of mine arranged in such a way that it was easy for me to switch siege from the bastion of fearless, free writing to that of fearless, free speaking called the Arena Stage.
I had, when a child and at home, taken part in festivals and performances at the town square or market-place. While at school and college I had been taught classes on the theater-in-the-round which they said Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, ‘this round “O”,’ probably was. And of course since coming over to the US, friends and official guides and guardians had spoken of the open Shakespeare and college festivals I had to see in the summer to believe in the concept of the round. But all this, it turned out, was not preparation enough.
The proscenium or picture-frame stage had in fact become the one image of the theater fixed in my mind. So that when I came upon the Arena Stage in the city’s Southwest Development area off the Potomac, I felt like one who had been following the course of a river and, just when he is thinking it is one long journey with no turning, suddenly he is enveloped in a whirlpool drawing over him all the force and flow of the stream. The sheer architectural actuality of the Arena alone was overwhelming. And so was its typical American career of a Cinderella literally rising from rags to riches. Run by the husband and wife team of Thomas and Zelda Fichandler, the theater is really a dream come true. To quote Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times, it opened some thirteen years ago ‘in a decaying movie house that incidentally supported a large population of rats.’ From there, after playing to 247 human beings in bleachers, the Stage, ‘to get off a treadmill that led nowhere,’ moved in 1956 to the ‘hospitality hall’ of a dismantled brewery in the Foggy Bottom area of the capital. By putting on a series of plays that appealed to cultivated people – not forgetting casual theater-goers – Arena Stage made an impression on the life of Washington, which has the second highest percentage of college graduates of any American city, and the largest assembly of psychiatrists – always a sign of cultural eminence in a community. In five years the list of season subscribers grew from 2,300 to 6,400.
For the Old Vat, as the theater was known then, this proved the turning-point in its whirligig career. ‘Having been a lively, cheerful, impromptu band of players and administrators, not very seriously responsible to private stockholders, it had to re-organise itself into a public non-profit institution and solicit funds for a permanent theater.’ And this had to be quick if it was to get out of the jaws of death then wide open in the form of a new bridge over the Potomac. Fortunately, friends and foundations, and even tardy tight-fisted merchants came to the rescue. They bought up bonds, made generous grants, and gave gifts, if rather reluctantly, to meet the grand total ransome of $850,000, the one portion of the entire project that Brooks Atkinson rightly ruled is not admirable. All of that to place a pavilion roof over a fair!
But Charles Laughton, visiting the Arena for the first time had cried ‘Marvellous!’, Sir Lawrence Olivier had exclaimed ‘Fascinating!’ and Warren Caro of New York’s Theater Guild had called it ‘the most theater-like theater’, – all of which lyrical cries are closely recorded in the pages of the Gentlemen’s Quarterly with President Kennedy on the cover. Mr Fichandler took me through the twin structure of the theater, one rectangular, the other octagonal, and I was full of respect for the taste of its hosts and band of distinguished admirers.
The best photo-description of the stage when it opened in 1961 was probably that appearing in the London Times. ‘The theater,’ it read, ‘seats 750 in four steep tiers of eight rows, with an aisle running round the upper level, and overlooking that, a sequence of 11 private boxes. The south tier can be entirely removed for mounting plays in three-sided arena staging rather than in-the-round. The stage itself, built in removable sections over an eight-foot well for special scenic effects (which includes access to electricity and even running water), is 30 by 36 feet, and a major distraction familiar to all in-the-round audiences – that of seeing feet and knees of the first row opposite caught in the stage-lights – is avoided by having the first row raised nine inches above stage-level and slightly set back behind a low, unobstrusive rail. Stage exits lead off at the four corners into a spacious passage, big enough both for the circulation of actors and the storing of scenery, running right round the theater beneath the slope of the auditorium seating.’ Very appropriately, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood was showing at the time of my visit. The Fichandlers kindly asked me over in the evening and from a seat right in the front I saw the Arena company make a brave attempt to recreate Dylan Thomas’s fantasia of a dreaming Welsh fishing port. Only the accent, not quite sorted out, was slightly disturbing to the ears, for which after all that over-luxuriant piece was written.
Washington, DC, which has more than her fair share of flatulence from diplomatic cocktails and entertainments obviously is starved of a full offering of the performing arts when placed beside New York. But if one is a parish with the Arena Stage playing the humble devoted priest for whose services and support members of the community and flock make willing response and contribution, the other is one vast see without a bishop, or rather there are so many adventurers and claimants to the spiritual direction of an area, too large, in any case for its inhabitants to share a genuine feeling of fellowship, that what should be an open praying ground has become a rigged market-place with services as commodity for sale to the sharpest bidder.
On Broadway which of course provides the heart of the mart, now almost all musical comedy, this is highly processed stuff, the better if wholly packaged and made to order, for then immediate, smooth distribution is guaranteed the production through the world-wide network of chain-stores owned by speculators and syndicates lurking behind assumed cassocks and frocks. And off-Broadway naturally is where a few fearless starry-eyed zealots and hermits have pitched their tattered tents and small stalls in a desperate if individualist stand to halt a total fall-off in the number of faithfuls, and to win converts and customers to what each of them considers the original uncorrupted ware. I walked the hustling, suffocating rows of both sectors, gaining admission by various gates and on different credit cards, whether fake or genuine it was difficult to tell.
Now, the common passage for a play on Broadway, if as is only natural it fails to show the sure patent of an Arthur Miller or a Tennessee Williams, goes something like this. First of course it has to be engendered and manufactured by the unknown hack of a playwright who submits it to the literary agent or broker in whose trays the new copy seeking outlet sits patiently with hundreds of others awaiting inspection. This may be for a week, a month, or even a year, depending on whether or not the poor unknown playwright is an importunate hawker of his ware, and will not let the telephone or the receptionist in the anteroom rest and so forget him in his hunger and anger. The script eventually gets read, after which one of three possible fates is spelt out to its author: an outright yes or no (which is more often the case); or the third, which is an offer proposing special points of improvements and alteration the script must undergo if it is to be presented further down the assembly line. This is the critical moment for many a playright: to starve or to sell at the new bargain price.
As the situation really allows for little struggle, the new terms are soon agreed to between the inventor and the broker, who in the name of dressing up the ware better for marketing may jazz it up whichever way he judges fit. The next step is highly professional, between the broker and the merchant who will put the piece out on sale and arrange for fool-proof distribution. ‘Hell!’ the merchant swears aloud should he think he is being taken for a ride. Or he may give the other a hearty slap on the back with a mighty shout of ‘swell!’ if he fancies the goods and wants to buy immediately.
This means money, at least $150,000 down on Broadway to clinch the deal, an inflationary factor affecting even the humblest out of the way production which must now be above $20,000 to have a chance. Naturally, neither is a small sum of money to be had for the asking by any merchant, except of course if he has riches enough to enjoy credit rights with the banks. So what does he do? He founds a liability company, puts out shares for sales to members of the public (which really is not all that public!). Those who buy up shares are not so common and vulgar as to be seen in person on the open stock market. They belong to special circles in and out of the city, and any approach to them must be proper and correct, preferably through the rounds of cocktails and rare treats as among those of the smart and jet sets. Once these are won over to backing the project, they become angels, that nebulous band of promoters that literally supply all the force behind every scene on Broadway.
Sometimes there may even be oversubscribing so that you get that amazing and unforgivable phenomenon observed with the musical Mr President. For that show so many millions of tickets had been sold well in advance that the bill-boards proudly declared this was two years’ straight delight guaranteed for all happy New Yorkers. But the piece, when it eventually opened after so much fan-fare and official promptings, was anything but the treat promised. And way out on the great West Coast, Ray Duncan reporting in Playbill Magazine, had this to say:
‘Before the first curtain rose the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera had about $3,200,000 in advance season tickets sales in its possession, underwriting the longest and most ambitious season in its history … No other theatrical production group in the world,’ he added a trifle superfluously, ‘enjoys an advance sale of that magnitude.’
Thus even by that stage of the negotiations the programmes may just as well be written, for in the matter of actors and directors, who admittedly are the very life and blood of a production, any merchant-producer worth his salt will know just who and just when to hire and to fire. Usually, the stunt is first to interest some star who will play the lead, and there are not many artists living today who can resist the offer of a heavy purse, more so if the prospects for a steady income zoom in and out of sight like the firefly at night. And once it is well-known what bright name tops the bill, the other members of the cast are there for the asking- which is natural in a market already overcrowded, and where human stock runs so low that actors eke out a living by serving as waiters, ushers and cashiers in restaurants.
With all resources, financial and human, at last combined in their right proportion and mixture, the show moves out from the dark, labyrinthine reaches of the warehouse and factory into the shop, or playhouse, to use the technical term.
The respectable investors now retire completely out of sight to speculate on the outcome, recounting and crowing over past successes. The merchant-producer, since he is already on another deal, having satisfied himself that the bill-boards clearly stipulate that he is part or sole owner of the shop, also takes a discreet retreat and leaves the stage to the manager and staff that must now fashion out how best to offer the general public the ware they have sold themselves to sell.
One other tricky part of the business is that the shop usually is owned by persons other than those stocking it with goods. And because such persons have no preference for one type of goods to another, they let their shops solely for profit, and therefore quality with them holds no premium. As long as they draw forty per cent of the gross takings, the ware and its sellers and managers may as well go hang indefinitely. And how is the balance distributed? After running costs and staff salaries and taxes have been met, the playwright, lucky fellow, gets his ten or so per cent out of which the broker or agent takes his own ten or so per cent and the net sum becomes the preserve of the producer- merchant who will then make proper settlement with those angels fluttering all along on the wings of dividends.
I did more than just simply window-shop on and off Broadway, the world’s largest shouting, I mean shopping centre for any kind of live or ghost entertainment. In the process I all but got sold myself into the bargain. Fortunately, there were about me always friends and officials who were most true and fit. Even before my arrival in the US, my friend Dick of Madison Avenue had written to say that he had on his own initiative sent copies of my play Song of a Goat to Mr Langston Hughes, the idea being that the old man who had contacts on Broadway would arrange a production with me on the spot. As it happened, I ran into Langston Hughes himself in East Africa in the course of a writers’ conference called by Nigerians’ art centre, Mbari, at Kampala in June 1962. He told me that it was a real shame he had up till then not seen a single copy of that play. Perhaps his secretary had. I reported this to Dick in my reply to his letter and there it might have all ended, since communications sort of broke down between us two, had I not at the last minute, so to speak, jumped the last plane for New York. And naturally in our reunion the issue re-opened itself. But it soon became clear to me that all my friend expected of my play was a ‘black’ production.
‘Why, Africa is right in the fore-front now,’ he said in his sincere winning way, ‘and right here in the US the Negro is in the consciousness of everybody. An African play by a Negro group should therefore make an instant hit.’
‘That appears to me pure politics,’ I said.
‘Perhaps that’s so, but the show will sure be a success.’
‘And the impression would be that a play written by an African cannot be performed by white people,’ I insisted. ‘We act Shakespeare at home.’
‘Oh, not that,’ Dick objected, and I said petulantly, ‘Oh, yes of course,’ after which we agreed to drop the matter for the time being. It was never again opened with anything like enthusiasm by any of us, and now that I look back I regret that I rejected Dick’s offer of help. I still do not subscribe to the unabashed politics and publicity gimmick he proposed for my play. But after seeing the lot of the Negro, which in the so-called emancipated world of the arts is even less a happy one and about which I shall have more to reveal later, I regard it now a great loss of opportunity for work and fun to many. Incidentally, Dick and I never quite hit it off together again after this. Of course a couple of telephone calls and letters passed between us, and one day Dick even took me to lunch at the Waldorf Astoria. But there were never more any serious talks or thoughts of a production, nor of the meeting he spoke of arranging for me with friends and colleagues of his on The New York Times and other top places.
Through Langston, with whom I became fast friends, more characters enter the story. Quite early in Nigeria and Uganda he had advised strongly against my accepting princeton’s offer of a fellowship for one whole academic year. Far better for an artist from Africa would be a few weeks’ visit to the US, possibly on a State Department ticket such as I said was then in the offing for me. All the same, I had taken the Princeton offer and on my arrival there, dropped the old man a note since it was impossible to reach him by telephone. He had been away on some tour to the Mid-West or somewhere but wrote immediately he returned home to Harlem, although funnily not before the AMSAC people had fallen quite out of the blue to say the Poet Laureate of the Negro had told them of my arrival in the US from Africa, and could I please come over to New York sometime about Christmas and speak to the American people on the state of writing in Africa.
