Martin Esslin reviews The
Recruiting Officer/National Theatre
Plays and Players, 1964
How it would have amused Brecht! That
he who had tried in vain to storm the bastions of the English-speaking stage in
fifteen years of bitter and hungry exile should now, seven years after his
death, have become the tutelary deity of the first English National Theatre!
And all that under the auspices of Sir Laurence Olivier!
What did Brecht think of Sir Laurence?
The other day, quite by chance, I came across what is probably the only
reference to him in Brecht’s published works.
In discussing the erroneous idea that there is such a thing as progress
in acting, that past actors were more primitive and more naïve than present-day
ones, Brecht writes:
‘When the English actor Olivier filmed Shakespeare’s Henry
V he started the film with the first performance at Shakespeare’s own
Globe Theatre. The style of acting
there was made to appear as full of pathos, rigid, primitive, almost silly. Then the style of acting changed into a ‘modern’ one.
Now the old rough times had been transcended:
the acting becomes differentiated, elegant, superior.
Hardly ever has a film made me so angry. What an idea that Shakespeare’s own direction could have
been so much more stupid, so much coarser than Mr. Olivier’s!’
(Brecht, Stuecke, vol. XII, p. 192.)
All the more ironical is it, that Brecht himself fell into a very similar
mistake. The mistake, that is, that
one could bring old plays politically up to date by refurbishing them with
social and anti-militaristic points because the authors, primitive, coarse and
naïve as they were, particularly if they lived before Karl Marx, had been
unable to grasp the true social significance of what they had written.
Brecht’s adaptation of Farquhar’s The
Recruiting Officer is a prime example of his fallacy:
Brecht transferred the play from the times of Queen Anne to those of the
American War of Independence, merely to make the war for which soldiers were
being recruited more obviously odious and reactionary; he made Worthy, Captain
Plume’s friend in Shrewsbury into a shoe manufacturer, merely to point to his
status as an exploiter and social drone, he even changed the name of the heroine
Silvia into Victoria, perhaps because it has more odious imperialist
associations
.
. . and yet had Brecht not adapted The
Recruiting Officer it would almost certainly not have been chosen as the
first Restoration Comedy to enter the repertoire of our National Theater.
The producer, William Gaskill, opens his explanatory notes in the
excellently produced program (clearly following the excellent pattern set by the
programs of Brecht’s own Schiffbauerdamm theatre, and all the better for it!)
with a rather defensive apologia for choosing the original play rather than a
retranslation of Brecht’s adaptation into English.
Let me assure Mr. Gaskill that he has done the right thing.
Farquhar’s play is greatly superior to Brecht’s adaptation. If Brecht was right that it is nonsense to think there is
progress in acting, it is equal nonsense to believe in progress in playwriting.
Each style is best undoctored!
Whatever may have brought about the choice of the play, it was an
excellent choice of a most suitable play. Fast-moving,
witty, free and easy, and far more modern than any modernized version could make
it. The
Recruiting Officer is a pure joy, just the kind of play that the commercial
theatre is bound to neglect, just the kind of play we have a National Theatre
for.
The sets and costumes are by René Allio, who comes from Planchon’s
company, which in turn is the main fortress of Brechtianism in France.
They are enchanting: the
surprise-laden unfolding décor is both entirely in the 18th century
style and entirely modern. The
costumes are colorful and at the same time look as though they had been worn
before being put on by the actors. Glory
be to Brecht: Captain Plume’s
topcoat when he first enters after having ridden to Shrewsbury from London is
actually mud-bespattered, exactly as the master prescribes it.
As regards the acting, the men are excellent throughout:
Max Adrian is, as always nowadays, wellnigh perfect; for sheer mastery of
phrasing and relaxation he has no equal on the English stage.
Robert Stephen’s Plume has just the right mixture of caddishness and
charm. Olivier is delightful as a
kind of Queen Anne version of Colonel Chinstrap.
And Colin Blakely’s Sergeant Kite, the best acting part in the play, is
a truly three-dimensional portrait, a model of imaginative acting.
And all the smaller parts are fully realized, just as they should be in a
National Theatre. On the distaff
side, however, the situation is not quite as favorable:
Silvia, who dons men’s clothes to be near her lover even if it means
joining the army, should be a strapping girl of overpowering sensuality.
Maggie Smith is a first-rate actress, but when transformed into a boy she
is anything but strapping, a pigeon-chested little runt of a fellow.
And as to sensuality: an iceberg must seem hot in comparison.
Nor can Mary Miller’s Melinda generate more heat.
Lynn Redgrave as the country wench seduced by Plume, on the other hand
succeeded triumphantly in suggesting real sensuality. That alone promises her a great future: there are few actresses in this country of whom as much can
be said. Jeanne Hepple, as
Melinda’s maid, also gave an intelligent performance.