Letters to the Editors: Socialist theatre criticism (1997)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Michael Gill is too kind by half to David Hare's latest commodity, Amy's View (August Socialist Standard). Far from moving any audience to the contemplation of important question as he claims, this piece of West End sentimentality, like much or most of the commercial literature we are subjected to. is very careful to keep any real questions out of the way—to restrict the kind of questions that might be asked. The question Michael Gill finds so powerful— why does the current generation of pop culture producers go for so much violence—is nowhere exposed to anything like a candid answer—for example, that violence is eminently marketable and that commercial culture is driven by the market. The play nowhere suggest that the penchant for violence is anything but a puzzling personal oddity. Like all his kind, Hare wants to place social conflicts purely in the realm of personal relations or the conflict of personal types. This is bourgeois culture's prime strategy for keeping publication discussion within safe limits.

Michael Gill’s approach here seems to be to give a bit of summary of the story, then a little bit of evaluation, followed by some musing on the socialist ideas the work seems to bring to mind for him. What’s needed in the case of the Hare play is some attention to how the work defines the arena of discourse, what it is designed to imply about social reality. I am not calling for either propaganda art or propaganda criticism: but we need commentary, and art. that gets behind or beneath the evasive "fundamental" propositions of facile commercial art like Hare’s, criticism that can break open the misleading framework too often accepted by the bourgeois artist, and allow audiences to propose, or to witness, genuinely meaningful questions—and answers that are not misleading. Work like Ronald Berry's, or, better. Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy are [works] superior to and more honest than market items like Amy’s View. I am asserting that a work of art can lie by the intellectual framework it situates itself in, and I am claiming that the socialist critic's job should include at least a glance at the conception of reality any given work seems to posit, and by example, promote. The artist need not be bound by socialist ideals, but neither should he or she be allowed to get away with bamboozling audiences with shallow “moral" dilemmas that are not even dilemmas.

Tom Jackson, 

Merion Station, 

PA, USA

The end of the State

Dear Editors,

Thank you for your reply (Socialist Standard, September) to my letter about the SPGB’s 1984 Conference resolution on the abolition of the State.

Since writing it. I’ve come across the following passage from the Socialist Standard of October 1937: "The SPGB agrees with Marx and Engels that, ‘with the disappearance of classes, there also disappears the necessity of armed repression or state power’ (Letter to Von Patten, on April l883).The state will, therefore, in due course ‘wither away”.’

Also, the following paragraph appeared in a 1978 SPGB statement on violence: "In the period of changeover, control of the armed forces would be continued for as long as necessary, in the light of conditions then existing. It has never been the Party’s case that simultaneously with gaining control, the armed forces would at once be wholly dismantled. (In Engels’s words, ‘The State is not ‘abolished’. It dies out’)". These statements are at odds with your reply that the traditional socialist view is that "The state will not ‘gradually decline’ after socialism is established, but the end of the state and the beginning of socialism will be simultaneous".

David Rolfe, 

London SWI5

Reply: 

We don't disagree with either of the two statements you quote.

It is a pity, though, that you didn’t make it clear that the first was given to refute a claim that the SPGB held that "the political state" would continue to exist in socialism.

When classes disappear so also disappears the need for the state as a public power of coercion resting ultimately on the ability to use armed force to impose the will of those who control it. As we put it in our reply, “socialism will be a stateless society, which follows from the fact that the state is an instrument of class rule while socialism will be a classless society and so have no place for such an instrument".There is no place in socialism for a state even a declining one.

We never said that "simultaneously with gaining control, the armed forces would at once be wholly dismantled". That would be an imprudent move on the part of a socialist majority which had just won control of the state through democratic means. It might not be evident straightaway that some pro-capitalist recalcitrant minority or some isolated groups of individuals might not to decide to take up arms to resist the democratically-expressed will of the majority to convert the means of production into common ownership under democratic control.

Hopefully this won’t occur, but how can we possibly know at this stage? Only when it was clear that this danger didn’t exist (or had been dealt with) would it be safe for the socialist majority to completely dismantle the state machine. In any event, once socialism had been established (once the means of production had been brought into common ownership) then the state, or what was left of public repressive powers, would be immediately abolished. This is what we meant by saying that "the end of the state and the beginning of socialism are simultaneous"; on the establishment of socialism the state is immediately abolished and does not continue into socialism and then "gradually decline". In fact, it can be said that as long as the state exists then socialism has not yet been established.

It is true that we would not now be so inclined to use the words "wither away" which is one translation of what Engels wrote in German. This suggests some quasi-natural and not necessarily rapid process. It does lend itself to interpretation as meaning “gradual decline”. This was probably Engels's own view but it is a decline he envisaged as taking place in the period between the winning of political power by a socialist majority and the establishment of socialism and not in socialism after it had been established. Engels, just as much as us. repudiated the idea that the state should continue into socialism and only then decline.

Engels and Marx did envisage a more or less lengthy period of transition between capitalism and socialism.This was understandable in the 1870s when the means of production were much less developed than they are now. Our view is that the "period of changeover” between capitalism and socialism can now be very short. All that is required today to bring the means of production into common ownership under democratic control is, on the one hand, a declaration that all property titles over means of production (stocks and shares, etc) are no longer valid and will no longer be enforced by the state and, on the other, the implementation of the precise arrangements for them to be democratically controlled. Such arrangements will have been worked out before the actual winning of political power by a socialist majority and would be able to be put into practice fairly rapidly after it.

This is why we prefer to use. in connection with the end of the state and its repressive organs, terms such as "dismantle”, “abolish” or "dissolve" which suggest an active intervention rather than "wither away”, “die out" and "decline” which can suggest a passive, gradual process.

Editors.

Love Doesn't Conquer All (1997)

Theatre Review from the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amy's View by David Hare

In the early 1980s David Hare wrote a play called A Map of the World. A bleak, realistic piece its centre was a United Nations conference on poverty, which was taking place in a sumptuous hotel in India. The poor were literally dying of starvation on the doorstep, whilst inside the great and the good discussed food shortages with full stomachs in five-star luxury.

Hare's plays are consistently located in the here and now. And whilst other playwrights might focus on particular, and perhaps trivial, matters. Hare is concerned with the broad sweep of ideas and behaviours which mark out life at the present time. His characters are both true to themselves and also revealing of the spirit of the times. They are unique individuals who nevertheless have a symbolic function. What they say and do, and how they think and feel, tell us something both about themselves and also about people generally. Perhaps more than any other contemporary playwright Hare's plays offer us a map of the world; or at least a map of the so-called developed world. Amy's View (National Theatre. Lyttleton) is no exception.

It is 1979 and Amy brings her new boyfriend. Dominic, to visit her mother. Esme, a well-known actress. Amy's view of the world is simple; "You have to love people.You just have to love them." But Amy singularly fails to persuade mother and boyfriend of the virtues of this imperative, with almost predictable consequences. Over the years mother and boyfriend find reasons to fight, especially about television, films and the theatre. Others become enmeshed in their squabbles: by 1997 mother has become a victim of "the market", and boyfriend/ partner a beneficiary.

Hare is too knowing and complex a dramatist for easy analysis. Amy's View may be said to be about a strong mother and a loving daughter, about growing old. about the uncertainties of life, and so on. and to an extent this is the case. But more than this it is about living in the 1980s and 90s, and being exposed to particular features of life in capitalist Great Britain. And it is clearly a paean to the theatre and an attack on the dumb, gratuitous violence which is such a feature of modern filmmaking. Dominic has become a success by making some Tarantino-like blockbuster, and this prompts Esme's final outburst:

"I did see the film. I’m appalled by the violence. I know it's important to people like you. All that shooting and bloodshed. But I don't understand it . . .  It isn't as life is. Perhaps I’m just getting old. I'm tired of it. Dominic. This need you all have to get out the guns. and bam! And wham! And 'kill the little fucker' and 'shoot off his stupid bloody head'. What is it? What is this need you have now? What happened? Are you just bored? Or is it that you don’t dare deal with real experience . . .  with the things that really go on in real life? . . .  Like grief . . .  and betrayal . . .  and . . . "

The question hangs in the air. Hare, like all good dramatists is leaving work for the audience to do. Is cinema unredeemably lost—the Hollywood dream factory incapable of anything other than alienating violence, absurd fantasy, and empty whimsy? And if so, why is this? Socialists would have tentative "answers" to such questions based on their analysis of the capitalism and the function of "cultural products" in a capitalist society.

And socialists would also have answers to the other question which Hare leaves hanging in the air. Why is Amy’s view apparently flawed? Why isn't love enough? Socialists would argue that loving actions need to be informed by knowledge and insight. Young adults becoming parents for the first time recognise very quickly that if they are to love their offspring they need to know what best to do to keep their child healthy and happy. Loving a baby carries with it implications about adults making knowing decisions about what is good for children: decisions which are based on knowledge of what babies need in order to develop. More generally, if we care about people and their well-being, we will do what we can to meet their needs. This means being familiar with what is in their interests: what economic and social conditions are likely best to ensure their development as healthy and happy human beings. One way we can care about other people is by trying to help them understand the world in which they live, and how we might collectively change it so that it provides a more caring environment for us all. And one merit of Amy's View is that it faces the audience with such questions. Another is that it does so in ways which are always involving and entertaining, and which take the audience and its capacity for thought and reflection seriously.

Note: Hare's earlier play Skylight, which I discussed in last May’s Socialist Standard, has returned to the Vaudeville Theatre in London. Here is something very special: a play which resonates in the memory. One critic called it "the play of the decade". It's a plausible description.

Michael Gill

Three Plays Revisited (1998)

Theatre Review from the May 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Seeing a film or a play after an interval of several years is an interesting, and sometimes a very surprising, experience. We often seek out films and plays which we have enjoyed, only to find, occasionally, the second viewing very disappointing. A film which, first time round, made for a marvellous evening, now seems very ordinary; another which appeared exciting and unusual, has become bland and boring. Of course it isn't the film which has changed--unless that is we are now seeing it in miniaturised form on television, rather than in its full glory on a cinema screen. Most usually what has changed is that we have changed. We have "moved on", our perceptions. And what is true of films is frequently even more true of plays. Last night's revival appears slight and insubstantial, whereas an earlier production had us on the edge of our seats. What then of three new productions of well-loved pieces of theatre?

Joan Littlewood's production of "Oh What A Lovely War" at the Theatre Royal in Stratford East was, by any standards, an extraordinary theatrical event. Those of us lucky enough to see it are unlikely ever to forget its wit, pathos and savage irony. The experimental company at Stratford, which Ms Littlewood always saw as at the forefront of "people's theatre", wanted to do something about the First World War; especially the trench warfare that had extended from the English Channel to the Swiss border. But there was a problem: events on the Western Front were so horrendous as to defy being presented in a straightforward way. By basing the show around the songs of the period, and performing it as a typical end-of-pier show so popular both before and after the war, the Stratford company came up with an inspired solution.

I wish I could report that the National Theatre's touring production (due in Brecon, Telford, Dewsbury and Chester in May, and Richmond, Salisbury and Nottingham in June), was a worthy successor of the great original, but it isn't. The irony has been largely lost, and pathos and genuine sentiment has become mawkish sentimentality. Fortunately, some moments are so intrinsically powerful as to survive the flaws. But what in the original was a celebration of the bravery and the stupidity, the humour and comradeliness of the working class in the face of cupidity and the arrogance, the conceit and the chilling indifference of their "masters and betters", is now largely lost.

Much more successful is the revival of David Hare's Skylight, at the Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. Perhaps the actors don't quite make the impact of the original London team (see Socialist Standard, May 1996), but this serves only to mark up the quality of the writing and it's contemporary relevance. Great as distinct from only good plays, are so rich in nuggets as to reveal themselves fully only over several sittings. In this my third visit I noted subtleties that had previously escaped me: perhaps especially on this occasion Hare's contention that the entrepreneur is also a victim of capitalism. Marx argued that society's values and standards reflect its economic nature, and here is Tom forever striving for more, impelled by the inevitable imperatives of the market; wanting more and more happiness as well as more and more wealth, and destroying his relationship with his partner in the seeking.

Finally, the Oxford Stage Company is touring widely with Wesker's Roots. (Guildford, Cheltenham, Oxford and Worthing in May.) This is a play for all seasons, a definitive and unambiguous classic. Beatie and her struggle to find her own voice is both an intensely moving personal story, and also a metaphor for the enlightenment of empowerment of the whole of the working class of which she is a member. Abandoned by her boyfriend and deserted by her family, Beatie thrillingly finds her own voice in the play's final moments. It seems the most exhilarating ending of any play in the English language. If I had enough money I would want to engage a theatre company and take Tressell's Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and Wesker's Roots on tour. Just imagine their impact!

Michael Gill

Capitalist values rejected (1996)

Theatre Review from the May 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Skylight by David Hare

Some moments in the theatre last forever. I remember in 1959 being overwhelmed by Beattie Bryant's dramatic and revelatory act of self-discovery at the end of Wesker's Roots -  a play which will always carry its inspiring message for socialists that people can change; that they can learn, individually and collectively, to take charge of their own lives and transform the world in which they live. Skylight by David Hare, now transferred from the National Theatre to Wyndham's Theatre, has much the same power to remain resolutely part of the memory.

I first saw Skylight soon after it opened last May. Months later when its impact continued to resonate I bought a copy of the script, the better to understand the nature of its claims on my memory. And now I am clear that here is a minor classic; a play of its time, full of insights about the mean-minded, miserable nineties, yet also full of optimism about the possibilites of desirable change.

A chamber play for three players — Skylight follows the meeting of two ex-lovers — Tom a successful entrepeneurial restaurateur in his early fifties, and Kyra a struggling teacher in her early thirties. Hare writes captivating dialogue of great weight — witty, honest and revealing. He is much helped by two amazing performances from Michael Gambon and Lea Williams, and by Richard Eyre's impeccable direction. Tom and Kyra stand as emblems of their respective classes: he is a thrustful money-maker; she a put-upon employee. But Hare doesn't make the mistake of making Tom a pantomime villain and Kyra only the course of goodness and light. Tom is insensitive, dogmatic and macho, but he is also lyrical, amusing and compassionate. Kyra is principled, steadfast and courageous; but she is also acerbic, self-righteous and stubborn.

What remains for me are memories of an enthralling evening and the almost epic quality of Kyra's daily struggle to teach deprived, poverty-stricken children. "You care for them. You offer them an environment where they feel they can grow. But also you make bloody sure you challenge them." Kyra has a first class honours degree in maths and Tom cannot understand her motivation. He accuses her of throwing her talents away "teaching kids at the bottom of the heap", and of doing "anything rather than achieve".

The last page of script begins with Kyra offering this ringing defence: "I have to eat quickly. There's a boy I'm late for. I'm teaching him off my own bat. Extra lessons. Early, so early! I sometimes think I must be going insane. I wake at five-fifteen, five-thirty. The alarm goes off. I think what am I doing? What is this all about? But then I think no, this boy has the spark. It's when you see the spark in someone  . . . This boy is fourteen, fifteen. His parents are split. He lives in this place I cannot describe to you. It's so appalling he has to the bloody common to work . . .  And that is it, that's being a teacher. One really good pupil. That's enough."

To those who would have us believe, mistakenly, that human nature is intrinsically fixed and selfish, Kyra's behaviour is inexplicable. Yet there are many thousands of teachers whose benevolent behaviour mirrors precisely that of Kyra. Even in this rotten catch-as-catch-can world such people reject the egocentric selfishness of capitalism. They seek satisfactions in ways which help others. Imagine the explosion of concerned, caring behaviour when strife and competition are replaced by sympathy and co-operation. The struggle to create such a world is given substance by Skylight.

Michael Gill