Tony Harrison and Jocelyn Herbert: A Theatrical Love Affair (original) (raw)

Abstract

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This paper explores the unique collaborative relationship between playwright Tony Harrison and designer Jocelyn Herbert, focusing on their work together from 1981 until Herbert's death in 2003. It examines how their partnership represented not only a profound artistic synergy but also a shared vision of theater as a means of social and political engagement. The text highlights Herbert's influential background in British theater and the underlying principles that shaped their collaborative efforts.

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References (25)

  1. From "Toasting Jocelyn" in Tony Harrison, Laureate's Block and Other Poems (London 2000), 57-61. The Penguin text has no breathing or diacritic marks on the Greek.
  2. John Dexter, The Honourable Beast: A Posthumous Autobiography (New York 1993), 38.
  3. Peter Hall in Cathy Courtney, ed., Jocelyn Herbert: A Theatre Work- book (London 1993), 224.
  4. Harrison's translation of Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse (The Prince's Play), staged at the National in 1996, was directed by Richard Eyre and de- signed by Bob Crowley.
  5. Jocelyn was the daughter of A. P. Herbert, who served as a member of Parliament for Oxford from 1935 until 1950. He was also a humorist, nov- elist, poet, and playwright.
  6. Lindsay Anderson in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 216-17. Richard Eyre spells out the Royal Court approach in his diaries when commenting on the National Theatre's 1989 production of David Storey's The March on Rus- sia, writing: "Lindsay [Anderson] and Jocelyn [Herbert, designer] have done it in what now is a wildly unfashionable style: old Royal Court-un- mannered acting, devotion to the text, unostentatious directing, simple and expressive design." Richard Eyre, National Service: Diary of a Decade at the National Theatre (London 2003), 68.
  7. Jocelyn Herbert in Richard Findlater, ed., At the Royal Court: 25 Years of the English Stage Company (New York 1981), 84.
  8. David Storey in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 217.
  9. Devine went on to report: "Then Blond said to me, 'What sort of state is the place in?' I said, 'It's perfect, Neville, let's take it.'" Irving War- dle, The Theatres of George Devine (London 1978), 166.
  10. Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright, Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century (London 2000), 242.
  11. Dexter and Herbert first worked together on Wesker's The Kitchen for a Sunday night production without décor in 1959, but it was the 1961 production in the main theater for which the set was produced. 15. Jocelyn Herbert in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 37.
  12. Jim Hiley, Theatre at Work: The Story of the National Theatre's Pro- duction of Brecht's Galileo (London 1981), 14.
  13. John Dexter in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 38.
  14. John Dexter in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 107.
  15. In a letter to Keith Jeffrey in April 1978, Dexter fantasized about his ideal company. Jocelyn Herbert and Tony Harrison are the first two names mentioned. John Dexter (note 2), 202.
  16. Arnold Wesker in Richard Findlater (note 7), 82.
  17. Tony Harrison, Plays 5 (London 2004), 18.
  18. In Peter Lennon, "The Monday Profile" in The Guardian, March 19, 1990. 27. Jocelyn Herbert in Cathy Courtney (note 3), 15.
  19. Tony Harrison, Plays 5 (note 21) 19.
  20. Originally the play had been entitled Maxims and had been intended as the third play in the unperformed trilogy, The Common Chorus.
  21. The Phrynichos Theatre officially opened a decade later in 2005. Its first production was the final performance of Harrison's translation of Hecuba for the Royal Shakespeare Company, which starred Vanessa Red- grave.
  22. Tony Harrison, Plays 3 (London 1996), 145.
  23. Fittingly, they took a bit of Delphi with them on their journey through Europe as they made the film: the inspiration for their Hermes cos- tume in that film came from an image in the Sikelianos museum in Delphi of the silver face of Hermes as he had appeared in the 1927 Delphi produc- tion of the Aeschylean Prometheus Bound.
  24. Tony Harrison in The Guardian, 8 May 2003.
  25. Tony Harrison, "Toasting Jocelyn," in Laureate's Block and Other Poems (note 1), 57-61.