Stephen Joseph: A Trip To Scarborough
By Simon MurgatroydThis article was published in the SJT Circular during 2021 to mark the centennial of Stephen Joseph's birth in 1921.
Stephen Joseph had never visited Scarborough prior to 1955. Yet he became inextricably connected with the town through this theatre and his protégé, Alan Ayckbourn. So why and how did Stephen Joseph end up setting up a revolutionary new theatre in a seaside resort on the Yorkshire Coast?
When Stephen Joseph returned from North America in 1952 intent on setting up a theatre-in-the-round company, one imagines Scarborough did not feature high in his preferred locations.
Indeed, his eyes were set firmly on London as he sought somewhere he believed would support and have an audience for a new company expounding new ideas and new plays. There was one significant issue: Stephen had no money to invest nor many prospective investors. Despite apparently looking at several hundred London venues, Stephen found them all either unaffordable or inadequate.
Depressed, he put his plans on the back burner and returned to teaching. This led to a fortuitous encounter in Yorkshire with an education officer, John Wood, and a possible solution.
“It was on a weekend course in acting at Wrea Head that he challenged me to put theatre-in-the-round to the test of professional performance to the public, I told him of the difficulties in finding a suitable hall, in London. So he took me to the concert room in the Central Library at Scarborough.”
This led to Stephen writing to the Chief Librarian, William Smettem, on 17 February 1955 with a proposal.
“I now feel that the theatre is badly in need of an organisation concerned with putting on new plays... I hope shortly to form a company to carry out this project. It is our particular wish to present the plays arena style - a stage is not required: this is a particularly exciting production technique suited to the plays and likely to be of interest to people used to the powerful intimacy of the cinema. The company will be a non-profit distributing one, and it is being formed in consultation with the Arts Council who may give their support - moral or financial! In particular, the sort of place required for the enterprise would be the Harrison Room; if this were available from mid July to early September, a festival of new plays might be a good holiday attraction besides a real service to the theatre.”
Mr Smettem replied to Stephen four days later, tentatively welcoming the proposal for the use of the Concert Room (formerly the Harrison Room) and providing a detailed description of the venue, noting:
“The Concert Room has certainly got an intimate atmosphere which no doubt suit your purpose, how strongly such a festival would attract the holiday crowds is a matter which it is difficult to say, but given a good send off and properly publicised I think it would be successful.”
The cost of hiring the room was given as £9 per day and £1 per day for an adjoining smaller room. Stephen quickly replied offering a fuller explanation of his plans alongside an illustration of how it would be “no big task” to convert the room - the first image we have of the proposed theatre-in-the-round.
Stephen’s main concern was cost - optimistically he could not afford more than £20 a week for an eight week season. At this point, Stephen’s financial assets were £500 his father had given him in lieu of receiving anything in his will and a share scheme for investors - largely friends and family - at £50 a share.
On 12 March, Stephen met Mr Smettem for the first time and visited the Concert Room to discuss costs and issues relating to setting up the theatre - notably the raising of the seats and the fact the Library only had a license for singing and dancing!
Fortunately, these were quickly resolved and on 16 April, the pair met again to finalise season dates, the possibility of refreshments as well as organising booking and publicity. Having formed a company - Studio Theatre Ltd - earlier in the year, Stephen pulled together an acting company largely drawn from Central School where he still taught: Ralph Nossek, Helen Towers, Morris Perry, Karen Aldridge, Joan Cibber, John Sherlock and Shirley Jacobs. He also picked four new plays by writers he had worked with on his evening playwriting courses: David Campton, Ruth Dixon, Eleanor D Glaser and Joan Winch.
The new endeavour was publicly announced on 28 April 1955 in the Scarborough Evening News.
“A kind of play production new to the town is coming to Scarborough this summer - ‘theatre in the round’. During an eight-week season the Studio Theatre Company will present four plays on a stage in the centre of the audience.... The centre stage is a practical innovation and not a stunt, he [Stephen Joseph] said... ‘What about seeing the front row of the audience behind the stage?’ ‘You shouldn’t notice them,’ said Mr. Joseph. ‘Just like a football match, all your attention should be concentrated on the players. If we cannot manage that, we shall know we have failed.’
This story was carried in most major Yorkshire newspapers, The Stage and Plays And Players with Stephen promoting not just the theatre but also explaining the concept of theatre-in-the-round to the public, frequently making comparisons to boxing rings.
On 30 April, Stephen confirmed the company would arrive in Scarborough for technical rehearsals on 11 July with daily rehearsals from 10am to 5pm for the rest of the season’s productions. The season would begin on Thursday 14 July and end on Saturday 10 September with daily performances - except Sundays - at 8pm with Wednesday matinees at 2.30pm. This also marked the first time Stephen referred to it as the Library Theatre. Stephen also appointed Ken Boden as manager, who brought with him a retinue of enthusiastic volunteers drawn from the Scarborough amateur dramatic scene; something Stephen was keen to promote.
“Front of house help was recruited from volunteers, and prop-hunting, costume-finding and the distribution of publicity material were all aided by voluntary help.”
Everything was managed on a shoestring budget but Stephen saw this as a positive. With theatre-in-the-round, there was no need for expensive props - give the right actor the right material and the right direction and nothing more was needed.
A stage license was granted on 11 June and with seating in place, the theatre was completed, as Stephen describes.
“The concert room was reasonably suitable for conversion into a theatre in the round; in plan nearly square, 40 ft X 50 ft approximately. Perhaps a bit on the small side... The room was on the first floor and its main disadvantage was that of its three doors one was an emergency exit leading directly to an outside fire escape, and the other two were both in the same wall, 12 ft apart. Thus all the entrances would have to be made from one side of the acting area. Two adjacent rooms were to be made available to us; one for a dressing room (big enough to be simply partitioned off as two rooms) and the other for an exhibition and refreshment room. On the whole, a very good place in which to make experimental first steps.”
The rent had been negotiated down to £10 a week and the only major expense was the actors. While Stephen was frugal elsewhere, he did not skimp on the actors. During the season, the acting company was paid £10 a week despite the Equity minimum rate being £7.
Advertising followed soon after announcing ‘a new form of entertainment’ consisting of a season of four new plays with all seats priced at 5/- (under 18s 2/6). The programme changed every Thursday, allowing holidaymakers staying for a week to see two different productions.
The first play of the season was Circle Of Love, “a romantic tale” by Eleanor D Glaser. The press made much of the fact she was a housewife writing plays, conveniently overlooking she was a qualified teacher who worked with boys with special needs, an experience which the play drew on.
The opening night was attended by an invited audience and newspaper critics. There was also a famous guest present in the actress Hermione Gingold - Stephen’s mother. She was reported as saying Scarborough was ‘just like the Mediterranean.... It’s perfectly wonderful. I think I shall stay a day or two.’
The reviews were largely complementary, despite most critics still struggling with the conventions of the theatre form and treating it as little more than a fad.
The season also featured a number of innovations for British venues, which Stephen brought back from America. All tickets were the same price and were unnumbered, programmes were free and refreshments were served at close to cost price. Post-show discussions were also common with Stephen and the actors discussing the evening’s production with the audience.
One short-lived element was the use of a prompt for the actors which the actors wanted, but which Stephen felt ‘killed some of the magic.’
And so, in the most unlikely of places, this was how a revolutionary new theatre project was launched which would achieve a place in British theatre and history unimagined by Stephen Joseph.
Article by and copyright of Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce this article without permission of the copyright holder.