FESTIVAL
The Cambridge Playroom, November 2002

A week long festival in association with in association with The Edge Festival, State of Design, Junction CDC Theatre Plan and the Marlowe Society, reviving the spirit of The Festival Theatre (1926-1935), presented a series of rehearsed readings from avant-garde plays that were performed there, acted by students after being workshopped with professionals, accompanied by discussions led by visiting guest and an exhibition of The Festival Theatre’s history.

Programme notes:
The Cambridge Festival Theatre 1926 -1935 was an unprecedented creation of a theatre - both in terms of space and ideology - which brought avant-garde European and American practice to the British public. It recorded its work in a magazine called the Festival Theatre Review, which doubled as a programme and a forum for the presentation of the theatres’ ideological beliefs. I became fascinated by the theatre when casting around for a subject from that era for my final year dissertation for my English Literature degree at the university. Since then I’ve been searching for a way to remember the theatre, which has all but disappeared from living memory and the proliferation of books on 20th century British drama. Sidelined by a culture which valued theatre as entertainment, but was largely disinterested in theatre as experimentation and art, the Festival theatre, although well attended, and influential on a number of important figures, was ultimately unable to change the face of the theatrical landscape. Fringe theatre today may not directly owe its practice to the Festival, but what was hailed as innovation in the second half of the twentieth century had already been attempted at the Festival. This series of readings aims to tease out, through performance and discussion, some of the central elements to the Festival ideology, and ask how does it apply to theatrical practice today.
- Zoe Svendsen, Director, Context Theatre

PROGRAMME:
Tuesday 12th November CENSORSHIP
Hoppla! By Ernst Toller, directed by Zoe Svendsen (Context Theatre)
Karl Thomas goes in search of his former revolutionary comrades after eight years in a lunatic asylum – and finds the world a very different place. Hoppla! explores the quest for political truth in a fractured world - realised in a series of expressionist episodes.
With the kind permission of PEN, Katherine Weber.
Dramatised reading of censorship letters. A comedic montage of communications between Terence Gray and the Lord Chamberlain using documentary materials.

Talk by Steve Nicholson (University of Huddersfield and author of The Censorship of British Drama 1900 - 1968)

Wednesday 13th November IRISH AND VERSE DRAMA
On Baile’s Strand by W.B. Yeats, directed by Tim Cribb (Cambridge University)
A tragedy that retells in verse the Gaelic legend of Conchulain and the high King Conchubar.
With the kind permission of Samuel French Ltd.

Nishikigi by Ezra Pound, directed by Claire Pamment (Context Theatre) A Japanese Noh drama of two lovers, lost to each other in life, and in death, condemned to walk the earth, tormented by the impossibility of love.
From the classic Noh Theater of Japan, copyright @ 1959 by New Directions Publishing Corp. With the kind permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Discussion with directors and cast.

Thursday 14th November AMERICAN EXPRESSIONISM
The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice, directed by Simon Godwin (Associate Director, Northampton Theatre)
Mr Zero loses his job to an adding machine. An expressionistic satire on man versus the machine.
With the kind permission of Samuel French Ltd.

Talk by Iain Mackintosh (Theatre Projects Consultants and author of Architecture, Actor, Audience)

Friday 15th November DRAMA BY WOMEN
A Woman’s Honour by Susan Glaspell, directed by Rebecca Manson-Jones (ATC)
A man awaits trial without an alibi for he is supposedly defending a woman's honour. A satirical farce which asks whether morality can be defined in purely sexual terms.
With the kind permission of Ariadne Cook.

Panel discussion with Jean Chothia (Cambridge University) and Rebecca Manson-Jones.

Saturday 16th November THE RISE OF THE AVANT-GARDE
Maya by Simon Gantillon, directed by Erica Whyman (The Gate Theatre)
'A woman' is visited by travellers, each projecting onto her their individual desires. She becomes the possession of others and a provider of dreams. Played out through delicate symbolism with a realistic edge.
Rights holders unknown. Should anyone know who holds the rights, please contact info@contextheatre.co.uk.

Panel discussion with Erica Whyman, Claire Pamment and Zoe Svendsen on the cultural context of translation – looking at the experience of the Festival Theatre alongside the Gate Theatre in the twenties, to inform discussion on contemporary theatre practice. Artistic direction and dramaturgy: Zoe Svendsen and Claire Pamment
Set design: Sabin Anca (State of Design)
Exhibition Curation: Zoe Gray
Technical support: Rob Loxley
Actors:
Khalid Abdullah, Sue Ahmet, Liz Appell, Alex Barclay, Ian Bartram, Jackie Bolton, Matt Brown, James Burton, Katy Burke, Jot Davies, Dolya Dragasevic, Sophie Elmhirst, Susana Hislop, Kelda Holmes, Caroline Horton, Anna Jones, Del Jones, Dean Julian, Paul Malcolm, Leo Mellor, Dan Stevens, Charlotte Thompson, Cressida Trew, Mark Wainwright, Jay Worthy.

State of Design specialises in high quality theatrical, interior web and product design. More information at www.stateofdesign.com.

'You have provided the undergraduate with a haven of refreshment from the banalities of the conventional stage, you have supplied the thinking man with endless food for thought, the critic with endless material for criticism and the disputant with much weighty matter for discussion. The artist, you have supplied with inspiration, the journalist with copy; to the babbler you have given a subject for decent conversation and the philistine a target at which to scoff.' - Open letter to Terence Gray on his departure from the Festival in 1933.

See also Revelations