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The End of an Era?
Dateline: 29th September, 2002
The death of Joan Littlewood, coming, as it does, so soon after that
of John McGrath, would seem to signal the end of an era, of political
theatre. For around forty years, from 1934 to the mid-seventies, Littlewood
was, as it were, the torch-bearer for British political theatre, a torch
which was quickly picked up by McGrath when she moved to France after
the death of Gerry Raffles.
Who will carry the torch now? There is no obvious successor, for political
theatre is all but dead. There's still a bit of it around, of course:
companies with a political agenda are still working around the fringes
of British theatre, but there's no Theatre Workshop, no 7:84 providing
a high-profile, high-impact, intellectually and artistically challenging
alternative to the mainstream.
Why not?
There are those who would say that there is no need for them, that
the battles which Littlewood and McGrath fought have been won, that
the people of this country are better off than they have ever been.
Others would argue that all theatre is, by its nature, political, and
that people are making a political choice by choosing what they will
pay to see, and that the real political theatre today is essentially
an affirmation of the status quo, not in opposition to it.
But they aren't right. There are still battles to be fought - globalisation,
the North-South divide, the poverty gap, centralisation, the erosion
of local democracy - but what is lacking is passion, the passion and
the idealism which informed the best work of Littlewood and McGrath.
In their place there is apathy and distrust of politicians and the political
process.
We see the same thing in television: Cathy Come Home has turned
into EastEnders, Boys from the Blackstuff has become Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet (Mark II) and instead of Edna the Inebriate
Woman, we have yet another costume drama.
Our response to problems is no longer a commitment to radicalism but
a flight into escapism: we don't confront our problems - we watch Coronation
Street.
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