John Breck (John Doyle) (24 December 1953 - 8 January 1984) was a Scottish actor, of Irish-Italian parentage, born in Glasgow on 24 December 1953. His parents were Clara Zanotti Doyle and Alexander Doyle.
Glasgow is the most populous city in Scotland, and the third most populous city in the United Kingdom, as of the 2017 estimated city population of 621,020. Historically part of Lanarkshire, the city now forms the Glasgow City council area, one of the 32 council areas of Scotland; the local authority is Glasgow City Council. Glasgow is situated on the River Clyde in the country's West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as "Glaswegians" or "Weegies". It is the fourth most visited city in the UK. Glasgow is also known for the Glasgow patter, a distinct dialect of the Scots language that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city.
John attended school in Glasgow at St Peter's Primary, St Mungo's Academy and St Thomas Aquinas prior to undertaking a number of jobs including working as a bus conductor for Glasgow Corporation. Having taken a post as a temporary stage-hand at the Citizens Theatre, he was asked by co-Artistic Director Philip Prowse to appear as a non-speaking extra onstage in a number of productions. John's non-professional performances led to his gaining ever-bigger roles until he was granted his Equity card and became a professional actor. Equity already had a member registered as John Doyle and so he adopted the Equity name John Breck.
The Citizens Theatre, in what was the Royal Princess's Theatre, is the creation of James Bridie and is based in Glasgow, Scotland as a principal producing theatre. The theatre includes a 500-seat Main Auditorium, and two studio theatres, the Circle Studio and the Stalls Studio.
Philip Prowse is a stage director and designer, and an actor and was one of the triumvirate of directors at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow from 1970 until 2004.
As John Breck, he appeared at the Citizens Theatre, and on tour with the Citizens Company worldwide, in many productions including Carlo Goldoni's Country Life, The Good Humoured Ladies, The Impresario From Smyrna and The Battlefield, Karl Kraus' The Last Days of Mankind, Robert David MacDonald's A Waste of Time (based on Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu), Chinchilla, Summit Conference, Don Juan and Webster, James Hadley Chase's No Orchids for Miss Blandish, Noël Coward's Semi-Monde and Sirocco, William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, Philip Massinger's The Roman Actor, Shaun Lawton's Desperado Corner, Vernon Sylvaine's Madame Louise, John Ford and John Webster's Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Hofmannsthal's Rosenkavalier, Genet's The Balcony, The Screens and The Blacks, Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Mother, Sean O'Casey's Red Roses For Me, The Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir, Chekhov's The Seagull, Brecht/Weill's The Threepenny Opera, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's The Custom of The Country, Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris, and many of the Citizens' annual Christmas shows.
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title "Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade," which he claimed in his memoirs the "Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him.
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He directed his satire at the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics. The Austrian author Stefan Zweig once called Kraus "the master of venomous ridicule". He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.
Robert David MacDonald was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.
John originated the role, in 1979, of Phil McCann in the second part of John Byrne's The Slab Boys Trilogy, then called The Loveliest Night of the Year/Threads (now entitled Cuttin' A Rug). The production, directed by David Hayman, premiered at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre in August 1979 and went on to appear in London.
The Slab Boys Trilogy is a set of three plays by the Scottish playwright John Byrne. The trilogy was originally known as Paisley Patterns. The three plays which make up the trilogy are: The Slab Boys, Cuttin' a Rug, and Still Life. The trilogy tells the story of a group of young, urban, working-class Scots during the period 1957–1972. The Slab Boys Trilogy was revived in 2003 by the Traverse Theatre starring Paul Thomas Hickey and Iain Robertson in the lead roles. This is the first time that the Traverse Theatre have ever done a revival and it was received to great critical success. In April 2008, the Traverse Theatre premièred Nova Scotia, the fourth part of The Slab Boys story which follows the characters of Phil, Spanky and Lucille into the 21st century.
David Hayman is a Scottish film, television and stage actor and director, known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial & Retribution, as Jonas Franks in BBC period drama The Paradise and as Brace in the drama Taboo.
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco seeking to extend the spirit of the Festival throughout the year.
John Breck enjoyed a successful acting career until he died very suddenly, aged 30, on 8 January 1984, of Haemophilus B influenza.
John is buried in Glasgow next to his parents.
