Joan Littlewood (1914-2002), the ‘Mother of Modern Theatre’, was a cultural phenomenon.[1] Born in London, Littlewood trained at RADA, but soon left, moving to Manchester in 1934 and meeting Ewan MacColl, folksinger and activist, and leader of the Theatre of Action acting troupe.[2] They married, and, in 1936, created the Theatre Union. With support from the Peace Pledge Union, they were provided with their rehearsal rooms, and a list of actors, technicians, and helpers who wanted to take part in their productions. They created a manifesto, which ran as follows:
We live in times of great social upheaval; faced with an ever-increasing danger of war and fascism, the democratic people of the world have been forced into action. Their struggle for peace and progress manifests itself in many forms and not the least important of these is the drama.
Theatre Union is Manchester’s contribution to the forces of democracy. […] All that is most vital in the repertoire of the world’s theatre will find expression on the stage of Theatre Union.
It has been said that every society has the theatre it deserves; if that is so, then Manchester, one of the greatest industrial and commercial centres in the world deserves only the best. It is for the people of Manchester to see that Theatre Union’s goal is attained. […]
The actors would be given a study syllabus, with reading lists of every aspect of the theatre – each member would take one specialty, ranging from classical Athenian theatre to Chinese theatre, and would then report back to the group, providing each other a well-rounded and collaborative theatrical education. The group produced a number of plays from different cultures and ages, promoting peace throughout the Second World War, and a particularly notable one of these was Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, which later turned into their adapted version, Operation Olive Branch, in 1947.[3] The Theatre Union, and Littlewood and MacColl in particular, were using this ancient text to advocate pacifism, to apply its political sermonising to the modern day.
In 1941, Littlewood was banned from the BBC until 1943 and was under MI5 surveillance until the 1950s.[4]
In 1945, Littlewood and MacColl formed Theatre Workshop, made up of many members from Theatre Union, but MacColl soon left. With her long-term partner Gerry Raffles (1928-1975) as manager, Theatre Workshop presented plays imbued with leftist political ideals. In their Manifesto, written in 1945, they emphasised their belief in classical drama’s role in the struggle for The People:
The great theatres of all times have been popular theatres which reflected the dreams and struggles of the people. The theatre of Aeschylus and Sophocles, of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, of the Commedia dell’Arte and Molière derived their inspiration, their language, their art from the people. We want a theatre with a living language, a theatre which is not afraid of the sound of its own voice and which will comment as fearlessly on Society as did Ben Jonson and Aristophanes.
Their most famous productions were Ben Jonson’s Volpone and the anonymous Arden of Faversham in May 1955, Littlewood’s own Oh, What A Lovely War! in 1963 (for which they won the Grande Prix du Festival), and Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.
Operation Olive Branch opened in 1947. The play challenged the motives behind World War 2 and hinted at government collusion with arms traders.[5] The play was later translated into German and performed in East Berlin. It was restaged there in 1961 with Littlewood and Horst Schöneman (1927-2002) directing. Littlewood made changes to the text for this production, adding a scene for the soldiers who ‘shuffled away from the Front, their feet swathed in sacking, as at Stalingrad’, and making Lampito an East German Communist Party representative. This consistent calling to the present reveals the essence of Theatre Workshop, and Littlewood’s theatre: ‘there was at the heart of Theatre Workshop a fearless, urgent and irreverent responsiveness to the present’.[6]
Littlewood worked with Theatre Workshop until 1979, when, after the death of Gerry Raffles in 1975, she moved to France. Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan described her contribution to British theatre as ‘the pursuit of a dream of theatre as a place of communal celebration, a Left-wing shrine of Dionysus dedicated to whipping the Puritan frown from off the popular image of Socialist art’, and this is precisely what we see here: a theatrical professional utilising classical comedy as an Agit-Prop tool to promote socialist ideology throughout Britain and Europe.
This profile was written by Anna Coopey
[1] ‘Obituary: Theatre’s Defiant Genius’ from BBC News (21st September 2002) – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1628351.stm
[2] For more on Ewan MacColl, see Ben Harker (2007) Class Act and, e.g., The Working Class Movement Library’s Ewan MacColl website – https://www.wcml.org.uk/maccoll/maccoll/
[3] Both Littlewood and MacColl found Greek drama very similar to Agit-Prop theatre, of the sort that they had been producing – Hall & Stead (2020): A People’s History of Classics (Routledge), p. 517.
[4] Hall & Stead (2020), pp. 518-520.
[5] Hall & Stead (2020) p. 524.
[6] Hall & Stead (2020) p. 526.
