Sue Glanville and lan Milton are an actress and actor you won't have heard of. They're not TV stars and they ve never performed in Drury Lane. They are two of the 23,000 in Equity who barely make a living wage and who are lucky to be in work for six months of the year.
Tney are also two or une growing number of performers who are turning to 'fringe' theatre to gain some political and artistic satisfaction from the use of their skills. Ian and Sue were taken on by the 7:84 theatre company (7 per population own 84 per cent wealth), which was founded by successful playwright and screenwriter John McGrath and is now probably the "fringe' theatre company.
SOCIALIST That an overtly socialist theatre company like 7:84 can get a substantial government subsidy (in the region of £40,000 per year) and play to wide-ranging audiences throughout Britain is, of course, to be welcomed. Not to be welcomed, however, is the news that Sue and lan have been arbitrarily sacked from 7:84 — not by the actual performers and technicians of Our Land, Our Lives, the current production, but by the "collective', a body of eleven individuals made up of McGrath and others who have worked for 7:84 in the past.
The spurious grounds for tne sackings were spelled out to the present company by McGrath as a conflict of acting 'styles' between lan and Sue and the "traditional 7:84 inethod". overwhelmingly disagreed but could do little about it. The 'collective" also unilaterally decided to cut short the run of Our Land, Our Lives, acknowledged by everyone as a poor play.
7:84's system of a two-tier structure — the governing "collective and the 'company' of the workers at any one point in time — is not uncommon among socialist the "collective manner to ordinary management in the "straight' theatre decisions, it maintains the sole right for hiring and firing, and so on.
There are a few notable exceptions. Red Ladder, Monstrous Regiment, Sidewalk, and the Women's Theatre Group are amongst those who operate a single-tier system. The basic principle of the latter is that the actual members of a company have the sole right to make policy decisions and carry out the 'expulsion of in. aividuais snouid it be necessary.
The systems have their own refinements of probationary periods before membership' is voted on, members can 7:84 take 'sabbaticals but still have a sav in the company's discussions, and more, but the principle is the same: that if a theatre His other works translated in English include The Market in a Socialist Economy and On the Economics and Politics or socialism. aso Dubiisned oy Hour ledge & Kegan Paul. Professor Brus will The present company perform it and how.
Zlem -class?
DEMOCRATIC operates in a similar - it makes policy theatre company to adopt ceived notions of harm its integrity" or 'objectivity". truth, leadership *full tions in the working class itself.
While Red Ladder CODE from among the consider Work Any such May Memorial WarWICK MILIBAND company is to provide a useful function on behalf of the class struggle then it is the workers themselves, in daily contact with their audiences, who are best equipped to decide what is performed, who is going to Such a degree of independence is a precondition for a theatre company even to begin to tackle the much thornier probwhat relationship should it have with the organisations of the working That is the problem now facing Red Ladder et al. A genuine desire to rid itself of 'outside interference' and create a democratic internal structure can lead a misconpolitical independence, of believing that ten or twelve theatre workers alone can evolve a political line on racism or the war in Ireland and that too close an association with any one political current or organisation will until class way to being reved, there will be as many socialist theatre groups with as many different points of view as there are organisations, parties and political tradiBut too many theatre companies, 7:84 among them, have not even posed the questions, let alone found a solution.
and others make serious attempts to elaborate a revolutionary perspective (with suitable internal organisation), actor militants like Sue and Ian can be treated like the workers from Courtaulds by supposedly fellow socialists. Clearly the class struggle does not stop at the stage door of the Palladium.
many against stalin.
Unless "fringe" theatre workers are successful in getting a 'code of conduct' through suitable contracts accepted by all 'fringe' companies, events like those in 7:84 will recur to the detriment of all socialist companies, and to the benefit of the Equity bureaucrats and the West End theatre managements who can gloat at the 'lefties' squabbling among themselves. 7:84 perform Our Land, Our Lives,the play which led to the sacking of Sue and lan.