The most controversial theatre company of the 1900s
Stage Society members Clifford Bax, Harley Granville Barker and George Bernard Shaw
When Harley Granville Barker’s Waste was famously banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1907, it found itself in illustrious company. Unable to be performed in public, it was perfect fodder for the Stage Society. The theatre company, which, in its opening year, caused a police raid by staging Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell, was no stranger to controversy.
The Incorporated Stage Society, better known as just the Stage Society, was founded in 1899 to ‘regenerate the Drama’. With members including Harley Granville Barker, Bernard Shaw, J.E. Vedrenne, Flora Robson and Laurence Olivier, it continued in one form or another until the outbreak of the Second World War – during its 40-odd year history, it achieved its initial goals and then some.
Charles Edwards and Olivia Williams in Harley Granville Barker’s Waste, first performed by the Stage Society. Photo by Johan Persson.
Primarily, the society’s business was putting on plays. It got around the Lord Chamberlain’s restrictions by hosting private evenings in London Theatres, most commonly the Royal Court, and provided platforms for such writers as Shaw, Granville Barker and St. John Hankin, as well as overseas playwrights including Chekhov and Ibsen. Plays debuted by the society include Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which shocked audiences with its portrayal of an unrepentant sex worker, the premiere of Granville Barker’s Waste and R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End, starring a young Laurence Olivier.
As is clear from its body of work, the society had a purpose beyond the plays themselves. It was the discussion of important themes and subversive attitudes that spurred it on – from Waste’s discussion of realpolitik and abortion to Toussaint Louverture by C.L.R. James, which, in 1936, became the first production to cast black actors on the British stage in a play by a black playwright. The society’s constant pushing of boundaries and dislike of authority are illustrated in a 1910 letter from Shaw to Barker:
I learn with disgust and horror that you played the National Anthem and made the audience stand up on Monday… Have you any notion of the extent to which your sworn supporters are republicans or aristocratic souls with a loathing for public demonstrations?
The NT’s 1985 production of Mrs Warren’s Profession. Photo by John Haynes.
Despite such disagreements between its members and its ‘rebel’ status within theatre, the society managed to contribute hugely to the development of the art. By 1930, it had created so many copycats that a motion was put forward for its dissolution; however, it was defeated, and the society continued until the outbreak of World War II.
We can see its influence not only through the body of work discussed above, but in the very fact that we currently have a National Theatre. Through work at the Royal Court and his and William Archer’s publication A National Theatre: A Scheme and Estimates, Harley Granville Barker became one of the greatest advocates of such an institution. It is only right, then, that his work currently graces the Lyttelton stage. Through its work, its attitudes and its legacy, the Stage Society has developed from the 1900s most controversial theatre company to a key group in the history of British theatre.
Harley Granville Barker’s Waste is playing in the Lyttelton Theatre until March. Click here to buy tickets.
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