Painting Theatre

Yesterday took the train to Chichester to go (again) to the Pallant House Gallery. I was surprised (in a good way).

On my last two visits, to see work by Australian artist Sidney Nolan and Borough man David Bomberg, the permanent collection was the same. Yesterday everything had changed. Their headline show was of Pop Art, supplemented by work by Walter Sickert and Post-War Portraiture and more. Our destination was four rooms showing Leonard Rosoman’s pictures: Painting Theatre.

Quite a small show and very focused on an aspect of Rosoman’s work of which I was unaware. I went with Leonard Rosoman’s godson and a friend who lives near Chichester. I was at first perplexed by his strange depictions of the theatre, in particular John Osborne’s banned play, A Patriot for Me. A good reason for this was that we inadvertently went round the rooms in the wrong order so that everything only became clear at the last room. Another reason was that his style was more off-the-wall than his tamer murals at the Royal Academy and Goodenough College. I think that I “got it” eventually.

The story behind A Patriot for Me is of interest and I will not paraphrase Wiki:

A Patriot For Me is a 1965 play by the English playwright John Osborne, based on the true story of Alfred Redl. It was notable for being denied a licence for performance by the censor of the time.

The play depicts Redl, a homosexual in the Austro-Hungarian intelligence service in the 1890s, as he is blackmailed by the Russians into a series of treasonous betrayals. Its dramatic climax, and the scene that most excited the censor, is the Drag Ball, in which members of the upper echelons of Viennese society appear in drag. Mary McCarthy, the American novelist, wrote in The Observer that the play’s “chief merit is to provide work for a number of homosexual actors, or normal actors who can pass as homosexual”. A Patriot for Me remains rarely performed because of the large cast required.

When the Royal Court Theatre produced A Patriot For Me in 1965, it was forced to change from a public theatre to a private members’ club. The play was deemed too sexually transgressive by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, and denied a licence for performance. The Royal Court suffered a considerable financial loss because of this denial.

George Devine, founder of the English Stage Company, was performing in this play when he died of a heart attack.

Was the play simply outrageous or does it have some staying power and merit? Is it never revived because of its cast of thirty-seven? It would surely make a good film and, indeed, it was made into quite a successful movie in 1985: Colonel Redl. It just cries out to be directed by Joseph Losey, screenplay Harold Pinter and Dirk Bogarde playing the compromised Colonel.

My guess is that as a play it’s not much good and played to full houses for its run at the Royal Court because it was controversial. Osborne, in the 1960s, trumped Rattigan and Coward but they have staying power. LAMDA put on Flare Path last year and Hay Fever is on tonight. Rosoman’s unsettling pictures have brought a permanence to Osborne’s play that I suggest is not deserved.