A SILK PURSE: THE EVERYMAN THEATRE, LIVERPOOL
Before it was the Everyman Theatre
it was Hope Hall Cinema – and bar –
frequented by Dooley, Henri, McGough,
the Liverpool Scene. I saw Jean Renoir’s
1939 black and white ‘La Règle
du Jeu’ – Chekhovian, dystopian
entre deux guerres – in what was an untouched
dissenters’ chapel four-square between
the two cathedrals on Hope Street.
It became a theatre known for new writing,
new music – all with a political edge
and with humour, thumbing the collective nose
to one rule, one game – and genuinely
original staging of classics: the Bard’s,
Brecht’s, Brighouse’s examination texts.
Coach loads of young people from Liverpool,
Lancashire, Wirral and Cheshire would watch
the likes of Julie Walters, Jonathan Pryce,
Antony Sher, Alison Steadman
perform at rapt matinees, their teachers
relaxed that all was as it should be,
that they would never forget that afternoon.
That group of boys had seen ‘Hobson’s Choice’
the year before and we prepared for
‘Julius Caesar’ even more thoroughly,
listening to the Argo recording –
with Richard Johnson as Mark Antony –
while following the text. At what point
the parallel plan began to take shape –
with such diligence and application,
such textual scholarship and retail research –
or what inspired it or whom, I never
had the humility or joy then to learn,
and now too many threads have been unravelled.
As Act Three began – ‘The ides of March are come’,
‘Ay Caesar but not gone’ – some of the boys
began to be restless. ‘You gentle Romans -‘
Alan Dossor, the Artistic Director,
as Mark Antony, began. ‘Friends, Romans,
countrymen, lend me your ears.’ I can still see
the pig’s ear arcing towards the stage,
hear the audience’s gasp. Dossor paused,
picked up the ear by its tip and tossed it
stage left to much applause.
Note: the poem was inspired by current developments at the theatre: https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/the-company-2017
By David Selzer
John Huddart
February 7, 2017Alan Dossor died last August aged 74, of cancer. As a stage hand for a couple of shows in 1971 I barely warranted a grunt but his little theatre was awesome. Slowly it grew to the theatrical Pompidou Centre it has become. Apparently, the columns holding everything up and the old seats were auctioned off before the architects moved in with the new world. I should be excited by a new theatre but a remember the old Hope Hall and as your poem says – that was extraordinary.
Alan Horne
March 20, 2017I didn’t witness the incident with the pig’s ear – we didn’t do Julius Caesar – but I remember it being talked about. Great to be reminded of it.
Alex Cox
March 24, 2017I remember the pig’s ear incident too! And, reading your poem, almost convinced myself that I had been there and revelled in it. But, as Alan said, we didn’t “do” Caesar.
We saw those plays in the afternoons, on trips from Wirral Grammar School, and, if you looked up, you could see the holes in the ceiling, like stars in the Planetarium…