1870: New Chelsea Theatre | |
Address | Sloane Square London, SW1 United Kingdom |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°29′33″N0°09′24″W / 51.492583°N 0.156583°W |
Public transit | Sloane Square |
Owner | English Stage Company |
Designation | Grade II listed |
Type | Non-commercial theatre |
Capacity | Theatre Downstairs: 380 Theatre Upstairs: 85 |
Construction | |
Opened | 1870 |
Rebuilt | 1888 (Walter Emden & Bertie Crewe) 2000 (Haworth Tompkins) |
Website | |
royalcourttheatre |
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999.
The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. [lower-alpha 1]
Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays were staged here, including Randall's Thumb , Creatures of Impulse (with music by Alberto Randegger), Great Expectations (adapted from the Dickens novel), and On Guard (all in 1871); The Happy Land (1873, with Gilbert Abbott à Beckett; Gilbert's most controversial play); The Wedding March, translated from Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie by Eugène Marin Labiche (1873); The Blue-Legged Lady, translated from La Dame aux Jambes d'Azur by Labiche and Marc-Michel (1874); and Broken Hearts (1875). By 1878, management of the theatre was shared by John Hare and W. H. Kendal. [1]
Further alterations were made in 1882 by Alexander Peebles, after which its capacity was 728 (including stalls and boxes, dress circle and balcony, amphitheatre, and gallery). [2] After that, Arthur Cecil (who had joined the theatre's company in 1881) was co-manager of the theatre with John Clayton. [3] Among other works, they produced a series of Arthur Wing Pinero's farces, including The Rector, The Magistrate (1885), The Schoolmistress (1886), and Dandy Dick (1887), among others. [4] The theatre closed on 22 July 1887 and was demolished. [5]
The present building was built on the east side of Sloane Square, replacing the earlier building, and opened on 24 September 1888 as the New Court Theatre. Designed by Walter Emden and Bertie Crewe, it is constructed of fine red brick, moulded brick, and a stone facade in free Italianate style. Originally the theatre had a capacity of 841 in the stalls, dress circle, amphitheatre, and a gallery.
Cecil and Clayton yielded management of the theatre to Mrs. John Wood and Arthur Chudleigh in 1887, although Cecil continued acting in their company (and others) until 1895. [3] The first production in the new building was a play by Sydney Grundy titled Mamma, starring Mrs. John Wood and John Hare, with Arthur Cecil and Eric Lewis. [6] By the end of the century, the theatre was again called the "Royal Court Theatre". [7]
Harley Granville-Barker managed the theatre for the first few years of the 20th century, and George Bernard Shaw's plays were produced at the New Court for a period. It ceased to be used as a theatre in 1932, but was used as a cinema from 1935 to 1940, until World War II bomb damage closed it. [2]
After the war, the interior was reconstructed as a stage theatre by Robert Cromie, and the number of seats was reduced to under 500. The theatre re-opened in 1952, [8] with Oscar Lewenstein as the general manager. In 1954, Lewenstein, together with George Devine, Ronald Duncan and Greville Poke, founded the English Stage Company (ESC) with a mission to present plays by young and experimental dramatists and "the best contemporary plays from abroad". [9] Devine served as the first artistic director of the ESC, while Poke was its Honorary Secretary. [10] The ESC purchased the Royal Court in 1956 and began to produce adventurous new and foreign works, together with some classical revivals. [11]
The new company's third production in 1956, John Osborne's Look Back in Anger , was a play by one of the Angry Young Men. The director was Tony Richardson. Osborne followed Look Back in Anger with The Entertainer , starring Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice, a play the actor effectively commissioned from the playwright. The artistic board of the ESC initially rejected the play, although they soon reversed that decision. Two members of the board opposed The Entertainer: Duncan disliked Osborne's work, according to the biographer John Heilpern, [12] [lower-alpha 2] while Lewenstein, a former Communist, [14] did not want one of the theatre's new plays to be overwhelmed by its star and did not think much of the play. [12]
In the mid-1960s, the ESC became involved in issues of censorship. Their premiere productions of Osborne's A Patriot for Me and Saved by Edward Bond (both 1965) necessitated the theatre turning itself into a "private members club" to circumvent the Lord Chamberlain, formally responsible for the licensing of plays until the Theatres Act 1968. The succès de scandale of the two plays helped to bring about the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK.[ citation needed ] During the period of Devine's directorship, besides Osborne and Bond, the Royal Court premiered works by Arnold Wesker, John Arden, Ann Jellicoe and N.F. Simpson. Subsequent Artistic Directors of the Royal Court premiered work by Christopher Hampton, Athol Fugard, Howard Brenton, Caryl Churchill, Hanif Kureishi, Sarah Daniels, Errol John, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Sylvia Wynter, Mark Ravenhill, Martin McDonagh, Simon Stephens, Leo Butler, Polly Stenham and Nick Payne. Early seasons included new international plays by Bertolt Brecht, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Marguerite Duras. In addition to the 400-seat proscenium arch Theatre Downstairs, the much smaller studio Theatre Upstairs was opened in 1969, at the time a 63-seat facility. [2] [15] The Rocky Horror Show premiered there in 1973. The theatre was Grade II listed in June 1972. [16]
Though the main auditorium and the façade were attractive, the remainder of the building provided poor facilities for both audience and performers, and throughout the 20th century the stalls and understage often flooded. By the early 1990s the building had deteriorated dangerously, and the theatre was threatened with closure in 1995. The Royal Court received a grant of £16.2 million from the National Lottery and the Arts Council for redevelopment, and beginning in 1996, under the artistic directorship of Stephen Daldry, it was completely rebuilt, except for the façade and the intimate auditorium. The architects for this were Haworth Tompkins. The theatre reopened in February 2000, with the 380-seat Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, and the 85-seat studio theatre, now the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Since 1994, a new generation of playwrights debuting at the theatre has included Joe Penhall, Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, and Roy Williams, among others.[ citation needed ]
Since the 1990s the Royal Court has placed an emphasis on the development and production of international plays. By 1993, the British Council had begun its support of the International Residency programme (which started in 1989 as the Royal Court International Summer School), and more recently the Genesis Foundation has also supported the production of international plays. The theatre received a 1999 International Theatre Institute award. [17] In May 2008, the English Stage Company presented The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg at the "Contact International Theatre Festival" in Poland. [18]
Artistic Directors have included George Devine (1956–1965), William Gaskill (1965–1972), Lindsay Anderson and Anthony Page (1969–1972), Oscar Lewenstein (1972–1975), Nicholas Wright and Robert Kidd (1975–1977), Stuart Burge (1977–1979), Max Stafford-Clark (1979–1992), Stephen Daldry (1992–1998), Ian Rickson (1998–2006) [19] and Dominic Cooke (2007 to 2012). [20] Vicky Featherstone was the first female artistic director (2013–2024). [21] [22] David Byrne took over the role in early 2024. [23]
In 1987, Ken Loach's production of Perdition at the Royal Court Theatre was abandoned after protests and commissioned reviews from two historians, Martin Gilbert and David Cesarani. [24] [25] Oxford historian Gilbert said the play was "a travesty of the facts" and "deeply antisemitic". [25] [26] Loach and the play's author, Jim Allen, denied the accusations and accused the "Zionist lobby" and "the Zionist machine" of stirring up controversy unfairly. [25] [27]
Caryl Churchill's play Seven Jewish Children played at the theatre in 2009. Many Jewish leaders and journalists criticised the play as antisemitic. [28] [29] [30] [31] One called it "a libellous and despicable demonisation of Israeli parents and grandparents" and a modern blood libel drawing on old antisemitic myths. [28] Michael Billington in The Guardian described the play as "a heartfelt lamentation for the future generations" [32] and contended that the play, though controversial, is not antisemitic. [33] Another Guardian writer viewed Seven Jewish Children as historically inaccurate and harshly critical of Jews. [34] The Royal Court denied the accusations, saying: "In keeping with its philosophy, the Royal Court Theatre presents a multiplicity of viewpoints." [35]
In November 2021, the theatre renamed the lead character of the play Rare Earth Mettle by Al Smith from "Hershel Fink" to "Henry Finn" following criticism of perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes. [36] [37] [38] The Royal Court Theatre also made an apology. [39] [40]
In 1999, the theatre was awarded the "Europe Prize Theatrical Realities". [41] The prize organization stated:
[T]he Royal Court Theatre ... has done more than any other institution to promote new writing. Since 1956 it has premiered the work of many of the best-known British dramatists: Osborne, Wesker, Pinter, Bond, Barker, Brenton, Hare and Churchill. But this Award is given not so much for the Court's distinguished history as for its championship ... of [a] new generation of challenging, often profoundly disturbing, writers ... like Sarah Kane ( Blasted and Cleansed ), Mark Ravenhill ( Shopping and Fucking ) and Jez Butterworth ( Mojo ) ... [and] presented outstanding plays by young Irish writers such as Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh. It ... has given voice to a new generation of young writers whose moral anger, urban despair and political disillusion have sent shockwaves throughout the whole of Europe. [42]
Sarah Kane was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.
Top Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It centres on Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business. The play examines the roles available to women in old society, and what it means or takes for a woman to succeed. It also dwells heavily on the cost of ambition and the influence of Thatcherite politics on feminism.
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.
Mark Ravenhill is an English playwright, actor and journalist.
Jeremy "Jez" Butterworth is an English playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He has gained recognition for his unique voice in contemporary theater, often blending themes of myth, folklore, and realism. He has received a Tony Award and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
George Alexander Cassady Devine was an English theatrical manager, director, teacher, and actor based in London from the early 1930s until his death. He also worked in TV and film.
Far Away is a 2000 play by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It has four characters, Harper, Young Joan, Joan, and Todd, and is based on the premise of a world in which everything in nature is at war. It is published by Nick Hern Books. While some critics have expressed reservations about the play's ending, many regard Far Away as one of Churchill's finest plays.
Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specializes in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions.
Dominic Cooke is an English director and writer.
Seven Other Children is a 2009 play by Richard Stirling.
Ian David Rickson is a British theatre director. He was the artistic director at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 1998 to 2006.
Gregory Motton is a British playwright and author. Motton is best known for the originality of his formally demanding, largely a-political theatre plays at the Royal Court in the 1980s and 1990s, state of the nation satires in the 1990s, and later for his polemics about working class politics, A Working Class Alternative To Labour and Helping Themselves – The Left Wing Middle Classes In Theatre And The Arts.
Silvion Oscar Lewenstein was a British theatre and film producer, who helped create some of the leading British theatre and film productions of the 1950s and 1960s.
Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza is a six-page, 10-minute play by British playwright Caryl Churchill, written in response to the 2008-2009 Israel military strike on Gaza, and first performed at London's Royal Court Theatre on 6 February 2009. Churchill, a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has said that anyone wishing to produce it may do so gratis, so long as they hold a collection for the people of Gaza at the end.
Caryl Lesley Churchill is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Celebrated for works such as Cloud 9 (1979), Top Girls (1982), Serious Money (1987), Blue Heart (1997), Far Away (2000), and A Number (2002), she has been described as "one of Britain's greatest poets and innovators for the contemporary stage". In a 2011 dramatists' poll by The Village Voice, six out of the 20 polled writers listed Churchill as the greatest living playwright.
Love and Information is a play written by the British playwright Caryl Churchill. It first opened at the Royal Court Theatre in September 2012. It received many positive reviews from critics.
James Macdonald is a British theatre and film director who is best known for his work with contemporary writers such as Caryl Churchill. He was associate and deputy director of the Royal Court Theatre from 1992 to 2006. There he staged the premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted (1995), her highly controversial debut which sparked a Newsnight debate on BBC Television. He also directed the premiere of Kane's Cleansed (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis which opened after her suicide.
Owners is a 1972 play by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre's Theatre Upstairs in a production directed by Nicholas Wright. The play is a satire of property rights about real estate and of the people who own real estate and those who live in rented accommodation.
Greville John Poke was an arts administrator and a founding member of the English Stage Company. He served as the Honorary Secretary of the English Stage Company from 1954 to 1973 and chairman from 1973 to 1978.
...the same standards must apply to all faiths