The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 6

6 THE GUARDIAN THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5 1959 the arts Moment of high drama with Western overtones Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" Sartre completes full circle a.o. 3000. whom he sees as a race of supcrhiimanly intelligent crabs creatures, I incidentally, that seem always to have had for Sartre a horrid fascination', as in La Nausee." He, the hero, cannot even see out of the window, for it is boarded up IS 'Ww What You Say, How You Say Ii, Can Make You More Popular and Successful A WELL-KNOWN publisher reports there is a simple technique of everyday conversation which can pay you real dividends in both social and professional advancement and works like magic to give you added poise, self-confidence and greater popularity. The details of this method are described in a fascinating booklet, Adventures in Conversation," sent free on request. According to this publisher, many people do not realise how much they could influence others simply by what they say and how they say it.

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stamp for postage. The month in the theatre NE of the outstanding events of Hammersmith. on November Outside London on the same night his sister does everything to maintain his illusions and he supposes Ger- many still to be- the heap of ruins, the wilderness I of misery, that It was in 1946. He has, significantly, an ambivalent! attitude towards this presumed state of affairs, and while he rails at the Allies for preventing the resurrection of his country he yet gloats over the universal chaos and destruction', i Eventually his sister-in-law, who forces her way into his room, reveals to Ihim the true prosperity of Adenauer's; Germany he pretends to be overjoyed, but unconvincingly. We sensfe his dismay.

This booming, vulgar progress makes his long ordeal seelm, in retrospect, senseless. He kills himself. There of course, a great deal else in the play, which is indeed stuffed with thought to the point of congestion but the points mentioned seem tne most important. It is to be noted that the theme of the claustrophobic, cell-like room, hall-loathed as a prison, half-loved as a retreat from the great world, is recurrent in Sartre's work: we have il ihl uniy in me ceieoraieo xiuis- clos hut also in that remarkable short story "La Chambre," in which the wife of a man locked away in his own private, horrible fantasyrworld tiit noin inp zi nn sister-in-law in the new play. Is not this prison-room, in essence, the old Ivory Tower in a new, self- torturing, painstakingly unaesthetic guise? Aad is not Sartre himself a lat-hnrn vrmnont ho pnm9nip Aironv wha smimxi bv liic ennini conscience threw himsolf intr.

ran-v iorward-loolcmg, public-spirited, Left- usehis own threw himself his natural, inborn nttitiifln flnht against as he might? "Les Sequestres d'Altona "-though con- taming few. if any, overt references to communism is, one imagines, a play that' would be violently dis- approved of beyond the Iron Curtain it is, indeed, anarchistic and individual st. ant -eneatred. to the last degree. The wheel has come full circle, back to "La Nausee "and tvnuiu omiif tan gu Hum mere is question h'e alone can answer.

voifces from By Eric Shorter debating platform for the provincial theatr especiaily the repertories. We are that in 1957-8 the flve arger repertories-Birmingham! Bristol, Nottingham, Coventry, and Oxford shared '0 000 from the Arts Council, td thffTveiS 'smalle companies, shared 14,500. Should this be distributed otherwise? In a foreword Sir Ralph Wchardson 5s lad lo see closer between the universities and the professional stage; Mr Glenvil Hall tells ot Labour's plans for the arts and does not blame lack of interest for the decline in audiences Mr Htmh Willatt Qecune auQlences alT nuSn vviuatt itr KiiseiBc iu ianmn mnrrt nc Rvrnn into the war of Greek Jiim jr inuiu i wmi oegin a II IS me ibm vie inwiutuuii these lonff-mitrhert hattlnc TKi ni season of "rvmnA iur-w" TJioHnr TT in whir ineseiongnpitcnea Dames, lite lust of. fuU-length ballet in eight by John Justin plays the title role; anaat' WHAT attitude should a prophet of rinnm Hflnnt whpn nnt rmlv doom fails to materialise but all around him prosperity luxuriates, ever more insolently Should he proclaim that doom is not cancelled, but merely postponed should he recant. and in his turn sing paeans to prosperity should he, more subtly, insinuate that material prosperity is itself a snare, a doom of the soul Such questions must surely have exercised Jean-Paul Sartre as he wrote his latest play, Les Sequestres d'Altona," one of the principal events of the current theatrical season in Paris.

It is not so much the merits of the piece as such that are here in question they are. be it said, debatable but rather its significance as a new step In the mental processes of a man who, rightly or wrongly, has come to be regarded as one of the chief philosophical pundits high priests, almost of his epoch. The very fact that the epithet existentialist has been applied, or misapplied, to things so disparate and so tenuously connected with the domain of philosophy is in itself indicative; "platonic" is perhaps the one comparable instance of a term from that domain thus bandied about Like Socrates, Sartre in his lifetime By Angus Heriot -and lo-day he is still not much over 50 has become a symbol, almost a legend. But legends, it is notorious, have a tendency to lose touch with every-day reality. Simone de Beauvoir, who knew Sartre in his early-twenties, writes of him: "He was then much more an anarcnisi xnan a revoiuuonary.

detestable, but he was not averse to detesting it what he called his aesthetic ot opposition copect quite comfortably with the existence of fools and knaves, indeed calli i rl j-l Vi iY urn nothine to destroy, to ficht aeainst. literature would not have been of much The crisis and consummation of this attitude was that brilliant and disturbing novel "La Nausee." rightly chosen by Colin Wilson as one of his prize exhibits in "The Outsider." Life was unreal, hence not earnest: but it had to be got through somehow, and it was easier to get through it if one had, or iui uiicscli, an dun, a purpose. ijuuic peisacu iiit-'Yiiduit: Mages to the embracing of an outwardly imposed purpose Christianity being out of the question, it had to be communism. The war, the occupation. Nazi brutality all these things were grist to his mill, encouraging him to see me panacea, tne millennium of a 11 the Tutile wisils of tauremU fx" frg21 5 the renunciation of al trappings and hypocrisies Crimp Pnss i th 13 Crime Fassione! was the idiotic feveloomenf en tlf Tun deTo'S of thP immSitl nnJ world hJ and hlVSf JnthSSSrfS he Cafl de Florer elsewhe? tt claimed the miilitv of ilerrthine areuM them ThP Fourth Rpnnh fr to lv bo I St infanf hv a lirt hprrirtv deitineri to an earlv death thTold' destined to an early death the old, rotten values would soon collapse into oust, revealing tne bare bones of a new, tragically significant life.

Only, somehow, the catastrophe never came. France, in spite of political instaoniiy and incompetence, in spite of the break-up of her colonial empire, and in spite of every kind of tribulation, has in the last ten years (for better or for worse. A producer lied for had jiiucpcuueuve, ur iwaurice oarres imo m. rem, oasea on rrmona Kostand's George iJaunoroKe waiter fhi msToaoii Tioli, rapturous nationalism only to full play. Music is by Marius Constant.

HuddT the Duke of York and Maggie SfS? ii back, at long last, into that disdain decor bv Basa.rte. auri miiniwc to Rmiti, the rfesiens are bv are cieanv n.i -V TCIIQerea. '1' 0 t.hp mh win h. Hi. of Stravinsky at the Royal Festival Hail on November 9 to conduct the B.B.C.

Symphony Orchestra and Men's Chorus in a performance of his opera-oratorio "Oedipus Rex" with Ann Jellicoe, whose play The Sport of My Mad Grandmother" caused some controversy when it was produced at the Royal Court on a Sunday night, is the. latest translator of fbspn's mm tn t.h ctnivrt iq with AnWft wt un tne same evening at the Adelphi At tha Rraia tn.in-v, 4v, Opera Company are presenting "The Cenci," a new opera based on Shelley's play, with both music and libretto by Roger Sacheverell Coke. The London Symphony Orchestra wiM be conducted by Eugene Goossens and the cast will include Patricia Bartlett as Beatrice Cenci, and Frank Sale as the CardtoaL Two one-act nlavs bv Willis HalL aumor oi rtie Long and the Short and the TaJl." open at the Lyric, the provinces fof the Arts Council) tells the story theatre-the third English theatre to ne built for professionals since the war: and there is an impressive account of what AmerJcari universities are doing for their theatre-struck younir neoDle May now hear from-Salisbury and Leatherhead, Oxford and Uver- pool, Sheffield and Manchester Then Perhaps someone will drum up a little serious support for the Arts Council's offer to subsidise a-grid system among the repertories. It is expensive, complicated, and full of imponder- able. But it is beginning to look like the only wav out me omy way out.

Sword slinging mthout the heroics By Anthony Hartley HEN I first read the criticisms Hidden Fortress" (which has jisst-been shown at the London Film' Festival) the phrase which struck mi, and which occurred fairly widely was A Japanese Western." This made me feel that it was a film for I iike Westerns, and I have liked Kurosawa's, films those I have seen. Still, it would be wrong to pretend that The Hidden Fortress is entirely a Japanese Western. This story of the "rescue of a princess by her, faithful vassal shares to some, extent an ethos which is common to all who are bound together by violence. A chivalric code appears in the" Western as well as in this, story of feudal Japan, but. apart from the rough military ethic (defeat is shamer Xt ZiT.

'l If. s-t" 'Sfilm TheVe. 3X1 Dla.pri on th Amorifan frontier Rankarp "psants in the fib? are reprel as cowardly-' and IMS nnlv trt Ka Un.ra i -J i a awvrvc nidi 1 lT De HSr mai fi.i.: eXer as belnS; What thi Tnri q. ea" t5f fl cPmwp il feaiiy resemDie is a nimed version of or the Lhanson de Roland maae oy someone who believes in them. ror anyone wno nas read some 6x11 "is' th resTem: jv fns flU snirins sffll snffidentfv ar tn ISrtl rhJ nb-, a.

director to Imd some echo of it in ittlereafnL of Kuros uJlJr awa that- he does not shirk the conflicts and- complications implicit in his In his modern film "Living" we are nlaced before a mat? who is eoinir to die and knows it. and his reactions' are far from heroic, even appallingly banal. At. jl u. xi Seven Samurai raises the whole-problem of the military ethos, it is truth itself which-is put in question, Kurosawa bring the resources of swiit and an unfailing sense of pictorial Finally, what is most memorable in his" films is a 'Sense of space, of- the-realisation -of human" potentialities' whether for life or death.

The scene in' The Hidden Fortress where the escaping captives ride down a hill into the valley "exulting their has a force which is hard" td ielsewhere'I PfiThaps in this the film-dO(resenfljle'-the best-of the But' "East is' East. Qantas Boeing 707 Jets now fly regular aid frequent services round the world. Wl (Mayfalr 9200) or an 7 office of BOAO- JTSSSSSS interest. At airrningnam tepertory Theatre Poor Man's Miracle," the Polish playwright Marjan Hemar J.Lt by Bernard Hepton while at r--i 3vnnusi i jivhitm ii iihw uiav uii the MayetMng story "Swan Song," bv Rachel Grieve will have its premiere. After years of musical shows and variety, the Prince of Wales will have nio.

otr, rhn "Tho WvrM nf c-; Wnn nmn thro on 17 a hofl including a' great success in the United States, Bmlyn WiWams returns to London with his Dickens and Dylan Thomas recitafc at the Royal Festival Hail on November 26 and 27. Among' Covent Garden Highlights of the month are Inge Borkh as Salome, on T.n, Parmon. on November 23 and Joan Hammond as Amneris on November 24. theatre diary First nights durinz the week To-night The Cenci ooera (Scala). November 8: 'The Little Door" (Strand).

November 9 Oedipus opera-oratorio (Roual Hall). Georgian State Rex Festiuol Dancers (Royal Albert Hall). November 10: Willis Hall one-act plays (Lyric, Haittmersmith), Tne Silent Woman Old Vic), "Swan (Play-" house, Xiuefbool). "Poor Man's Biniiinu--, ham). A un iiuvtauucr By Michael Wall FLY YOU ROUND THE VORK LONDoa, Jean-Paul Sartre Frit? Eschen according to taste) made astonishing economic progress.

She has grown a startling crop of semi-skyscrapers, chromium-plated snack-bars. and other transatlantic importations, and fawnc7 uuin ucoaiu cum i'menfoutisme to optimism, keeping up with the Joneses, and refrigerators for all. (So, of course, have most W-mvrin SKf" countries, Ger- eMn'fS'ft evident while the Communists on their side have acted, in Hungary and "uj vwvutnc Liivtcaaivciv icaa elsewhere, disenchant in such a way as to all but the bUndest due course broke with them yet for all-that, one senses, he could not help resentimr the nros- iremj, uie general sense oi relative cheated him of his Day of Judgment. What sort of a figure would Jeremiah Sequestres d'Altona." The hero, as readers will no doubt have, learned elsewhere is a former Nazi officer w.for thirteen year has remained barricaded an upstairs room in his family house his only link with the outs'dQec s.ster with whom he has a disma incestuous affair, interminably harping on his own oast guilt in Rtissia he had massacred and tortured) and that of Germany, "6 "'in" before the inhabitants of the earth in Platform for rpHERE was once a London dramatic A critic who was asked to visit a I toll hl-f thit i submit tI3 ama nUc fM not. sla Minor." Ten years a equivalent oi Asia Minor was Kensington or Kewr Brir'V? x-fd' ST vS2t'y- tw that ih loW" Jam TsinR 'Lfi Ertf the repertone? Tf and television If they are, their death rattles will be noisy to judge from the first issue of New Theatre Magazine." published by the Green Room Society, Drama Department, Bristol University.

Produced by a Brouo of under graduates at the only British university with a drama department, this is a promising and commendable attempt to form a mouthpiece and goes to town Richard II opens at the Old Vic. May's invitation to London comes as a result of the quality of his work in Nottingham where, in the last year, he has presented seven plays seen for the first time in this country. It was he who first put on Willis Hall's "The Lena and The Short and The Tall." May is no stranger to the Old Vic. He spent and 1949 on a production course at the Old Vic School, working under Michel Saint Denis, Glen Byam Shaw, and George Devine, and saw his first production on the stage there. It was a revue written by a fellow student, Sandy Wilson, put on for the amusement of the course.

After a short spell at the Watergate which he found "very arty." 'Slay went into repertory, being associate producer at and Salisbury before becoming director of productions at Ipswich. After four years there he moved to Nottingham two years ago. A tall, pale, bearded man. May looks older than his age. He admits to feeling a sense of the occasion as he rehearses the Old Vic company, but if he is to make a mark in London by this production it will not be thrmiRii a startling or gimmick laden production.

Too many producers don't trust Shakespeare enough," he asserts. He is sure that the theatre, has something unique to offer which neither the cinema nor television can give. The theatre must stop trying lo be an illusion. Other mediums of entertainment can do this -better." The theatre, he feels, should be able to create a sense of reality. Actors, scenery, lighting, and music should be used in such a way to suggest a theatrical experience in which the audience has a part.

He admires Joan Littlewood's productions' at Theatre Workshop, but believes that the business of drawing the audience into the experience must begin with the playwright. Sluck-on tricks are dangerous. Bringing a sense of immediacy to a Shakespearean history, which tends to be remote and wordy, may not be easy, and May is reluctant to talk about his ideas for this particular production until it has been judged. But it is fair to assume he will attempt to make the story clear and, through the scenery, lighting, and costumes, introduce an atmosphere, at least, of reality. Richard Negri and Richard Pilbrow, who were responsible tor the sets and liehts in the outstanding production of Brandt at the Lyric, Hammersmith, are working together again on Richard II.

The music has been written by Peter Maxwell Davies, who May believes has a beautiful feeling for the medieval yet can express it in modern terms." Whatever happens on November 17, May has no wish to leave Nottingham. Within three years he hopes he will be working there in one of the most modern theatres in the couptry which is to be built by the city council. The auditorium will be drum shaped and the stage will be adaptable to either proscenium or arena productions. It is. May says, immensely exciting and he hoDes he will still be there to see it started.

Babylonians had remained obstinately peaceable and harmless All nf thie Ironmlroc GALLUP POLL SOCIAL SURVEYS (CAUUP POLLS) LTD ttl-lrustltttrti, Uigaetle Core, Computer for analysing co-relating tha statistic arising from their Public Opinion Poll and Market Surveys N-C-R ELECTRONICS MUli Kotd. London. NWI. In No. 45 Issue ales A MONTHLY MACAZINE Editors KEIDRYCH RHYS CATHAYS PARK, CARDIFF Prospect and Retrospect, 1939 5 Dr.

T. Alwyn Lloyd, F.RJ.B.A. 6 36 TICKETS TO WESTMINSTER (FIRST CLASS) AFTER THE ELECTION WHAT NOW Tudor David ITT. SCENE THE NEVER-NEVER LAND Alun Richards 5 ORANGES (SHORT STORY) 9 Denys Val Baker SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SAPPHO Mimi Joseph son i TIGER BAY EXCURSION Chartes Jones 5 A FISHERMAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY J. David Rees Little mnlholojty oi poems, photoi, 'telteri from Americe, on T.V..

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There's an enormous selection at the larger branches of. THE CHEMISTS i Complete Box Banding Equipment in dtn Vt tin-, fi- end tin. tnppHeJ. mtUKH Ltt ill UNCEFIELBST.L0N03Nir.ta 'theme i UDbroke UH end HIS. have ordered a IS BANDING SYSTEM 9mMMh spCedy iy SIMPLE THE Old Vic is repeating the experiment of inviting a repertory theatre director to produce a Shakespearean play.

After the Birmingham Repertory Company had brought the- Henry. VI trilogy to the Old Vic stage in 1953 the director, Douglas Seale, came back to produce the Old Vic Company in Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor with such success that he was appointed associated director- to Michael Benthall for last season. Now it is the turn of Val May, the director of the Nottingham Playhouse. On November 17 his production of EPSTEIN PORTRAITS By Kenneth Garlick A small and choice selection of Epstein portrait busts and drawings, mainly from the collection of Mr Arnold F. Thompson, is on view at the Nottingham Castle Museum.

Some of them, in particular "Pandit Nehru" and "Tiyi," show an extraordinary sensitive response to mood. From every angle and which ever way the light falls the play of the features is alive, and a moment is preserved. But one cannot help wondering whether Epstein with his immense physical energy and his ambition to work in various media on the largest scale did not sacrifice his real gift. Even here where most of the bronzes are slightly less than life-size there is an evident difference between those which do not go beyond the seizing of a momentary expression and those in which he attempts to assess the whole character and the whole man. Field-Marshal Lord Wavell is in comparison with Pandit Nehru a ponderous statement, and even the celebrated Vaughan Williams seems to loose in vitality what it attempts to gain in complete characterisation.

These are the kind of questions which Epstein's work has always provoked. This exhibition, which shows one aspect of him at his best, insistently a regret that he so rarely carried through on a larger scale the quality of perception most of the work here reveals. How gladly would one sacrifice "Lucifer" and "Smuts" and much else of the kind, for one more rjiere of the spirit of the Tate "Visitation." Ep'itotn Tiy i S'GAPORE BGVL from here to Australia, and everywhere in between westwards or eastwards, in almost half the time! wrv' nrr- MMM AUSTRALIA'S ROUND-THE-WORLD AIRLINE B.O.A.C, T.E.A.L AND S.A.A Tickets and helpful advice from all appointed travel agents or Qantas, corner of Piccadilly and Old Bond Street, London,.