Presence (play)

Last updated

Presence
Written by David Harrower
Characters
Date premiered19 April 2001 (2001-04-19)
Place premiered Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London
Original language English
Subject The Beatles in Hamburg
Setting Hamburg, Germany, 1960 [1]

Presence is the third full-length play by Scottish playwright David Harrower. It portrays a fictionalised account of the Beatles' first residency in Hamburg.

Contents

Plot

Pete Best, George Harrison and Paul McCartney share a room as they play the Indra Club (John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe are off-stage characters). Pete, newly joined to the group, is shown as an outsider, the diffident George, the youngest of the group, contrasts to the domineering Paul. The play ends as George is arrested for being out after the curfew imposed on minors in Hamburg (in real life he had lied to the German authorities about his age in order to be allowed to stay in Hamburg). The group play to dwindling audiences until Paul, angry at the band's lack of success and at being told that club owner Bruno Koschmider was in the Panzer division, begins sending up Nazism – wearing jackboots and crying “Sieg Heil” – which attracts a young audience to the club. That the Beatles are reported actually to have done this, coupled with Harrower's desire to write about the dynamics of a band were the origins of the play. [2] The play alludes to events that followed this – Pete and Paul raised a small fire in their room – by having an older German woman, whose knowledge of the Nazi past counterpoints the young men's ignorance, set fire to a jacket hanging on the wall.

Stage history

The play's première was at London's Royal Court, at the smaller 60-seat Theatre Upstairs, on 19 April 2001. The director was James Kerr, [3] the designer was Rae Smith, the assistant director was Nina Raine, company voice work was by Patsy Rodenburg.

The cast was:

George – Ralf Little
Paul – William Ash
Pete – Michael Legge
Marian – Sarah Woodward
Elke – Christine Tremarco

The production received mixed to good reviews. [4] [5] [6]

Presence
Author David Harrower
Country United Kingdom
SeriesFF Plays
Published2001 (Faber and Faber)
Media typePrint
Pages76
ISBN 9780571210596
822.914
LC Class PR6058.A69455 P74

Play text

The play text was published by Faber and Faber and has been translated into Czech. [7]

Notes

Related Research Articles

Pete Best British musician, former member of the Beatles

Randolph Peter Best is an English musician known as the drummer of the English rock band the Beatles immediately before the band achieved worldwide fame. Fired from the group in 1962 after playing drums as a Beatle for the previous two years in Germany and England, he started his own band, the Pete Best Four. He later joined and started many other bands over the years. He is one of several people who have been referred to as the Fifth Beatle.

Fifth Beatle Informal title for associates of the Beatles

The fifth Beatle is an informal title that has been applied to people who were at one point a member of the Beatles or who had a strong association with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The "fifth Beatle" claims first appeared in the press immediately upon the band's rise to global fame in 1963–64. The members have offered their own beliefs of the "fifth Beatle":

4.48 Psychosis is the final play by British playwright Sarah Kane. It was her last work, first staged at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on 23 June 2000, directed by James Macdonald, nearly one and a half years after Kane's death on 20 February 1999. The play has no explicit characters or stage directions; this continues the style of her previous production entitled Crave. Stage productions of the play vary greatly, therefore, with between one and several actors in performance; the original production featured three actors. According to Kane's friend and fellow-playwright David Greig, the title of the play derives from the time, 4:48 a.m., when Kane, in her depressed state, often woke.

Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool

The Royal Court Theatre is a theatre located at 1 Roe Street in Liverpool, England. The current Royal Court Theatre was opened on 17 October 1938, after fire destroyed its predecessor. It was rebuilt in Art Deco style and soon became Liverpool's premier theatre. The interior of the building has a nautical theme, in line with Liverpool's seafaring traditions. The design of the basement lounge is based on the Cunard liner Queen Mary. There are three viewing levels within the main auditorium: the Stalls, the Grand Circle and the Balcony.

In-yer-face theatre is a term used to describe a confrontational style and sensibility of drama that emerged in Great Britain in the 1990s. This term was borrowed by British theatre critic Aleks Sierz as the title of his book, In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today, first published by Faber and Faber in March 2001.

Edward Bond

Edward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved (1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. Other well-received works include Narrow Road to the Deep North (1968), Lear (1971), The Sea (1973), The Fool (1975), Restoration (1981), and the War trilogy (1985). Bond is broadly considered one among the major living dramatists but he has always been and remains highly controversial because of the violence shown in his plays, the radicalism of his statements about modern theatre and society, and his theories on drama.

P.S. I Love You (Beatles song) 1962 single by The Beatles

"P.S. I Love You" is a song recorded by English rock band the Beatles in 1962. It was composed principally by Paul McCartney, and produced by Ron Richards. The song was released in the UK on 5 October 1962 as the B-side of their debut single "Love Me Do" and is also included on their debut album Please Please Me (1963). It was later included on the American release Introducing... The Beatles (1964), its reissue The Early Beatles (1965), and the Beatles compilation album Love Songs (1977).

<i>Backbeat</i> (film) 1994 film by Iain Softley

Backbeat is a 1994 Anglo-German independent drama film directed by Iain Softley. It chronicles the early days of the Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon, and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr. It has subsequently been made into a stage production.

David Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow. Harrorwer has published over 10 original works, as well as numerous translations and adaptations.

<i>Birth of the Beatles</i> 1979 biopic film directed by Richard Marquand

Birth of the Beatles is a 1979 biographical film, produced by Dick Clark Productions and directed by Richard Marquand. The film was released into cinemas worldwide, except in the United States, where it was shown as a TV film on ABC. The film focuses on the early history of the Beatles. It was released nine years after the announced break-up of the Beatles themselves, and is the only Beatles biopic to be made while John Lennon was still alive. Pete Best, the Beatles' original drummer, served as a technical advisor for the production.

Allan Williams Musical artist

Allan Richard Williams was a British businessman and promoter who was the original booking agent and first manager of the Beatles. He personally drove the van to take the young band to Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, where they gained the vital show business experience that led to their emergence on the world stage.

Saved is a play by Edward Bond which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in November 1965.

Stephen Lowe is an English playwright and director.

Martin Crimp British playwright

Martin Andrew Crimp is a British playwright.

In the Jungle of Cities is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title Im Dickicht at the Residenztheater in Munich, opening on 9 May 1923. This production was directed by Erich Engel, with set design by Caspar Neher. The cast included Otto Wernicke as Shlink the lumber dealer, Erwin Faber as George Garga, and Maria Koppenhöfer as his sister Mary. Im Dickicht was produced at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where Brecht had been employed as a dramaturg. The production opened on 29 October 1924, with the same director and scenographer, but in a cut version with a new prologue and the title Dickicht: Untergang einer Familie. Fritz Kortner played Shlink and Walter Frank played George, with Franziska Kinz, Paul Bildt, Mathias Wieman, and Gerda Müller also in the cast. Willett and Manheim report that this production "was not a success".

<i>Blackbird</i> (play) 2005 one-act drama play by David Harrower

Blackbird is a play written in 2005 by Scottish playwright David Harrower. It was inspired in part by the crimes of sex offender Toby Studebaker, and depicts a young woman meeting a middle-aged man fifteen years after being sexually abused by him when she was twelve.

Luis Alfaro American performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist

Luis Alfaro is a Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist.

The original lineup of the Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best regularly performed at different clubs in Hamburg, West Germany, during the period from August 1960 to December 1962; a chapter in the group's history which honed their performance skills, widened their reputation, and led to their first recording, which brought them to the attention of Brian Epstein.

Nick Grosso is a British playwright, born in London in 1968 to Argentine parents of Italian and Russian extraction. His style has been described as that of a "latter-day Oscar Wilde on speed" by Sheridan Morley.

Teeth 'n' Smiles is a musical play written by David Hare.

References