The Director Intervenes: Christopher Hampton’s Savages

Abstract

The Director Intervenes: Christopher Hampton’s Savages Peter Holland It is obvious that the director can and often does change the balance of emphases within a play. The play’s presentation of its meaning in performance can be as dependent on the director’s approach as on the playwright’s own. Nonetheless, although the effect of directorial intervention on the meaning of a play has been studied in relation to the classic theatre, particularly Shake­ speare, it is rare that that process is examined for modem plays, presenting as they often do a seamless link between director and author. Of course there are extreme cases when the seams rip apart; John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy, dissatisfied with what they saw as a gross distortion of their political position, picketed the Aldwych Theatre during the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Island of the Mighty. But we can rarely test what has happened when the production is agreed to be a success by both director and playwright. Christopher Hamp­ ton’s Savages provides such an example. Savages, Hampton’s fourth play, was first performed by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court in April 1973. After a successful run and with the guarantee that Paul Scofield would continue to play the leading role, the play transferred into the West End, to die Comedy Theatre. The production was di­ rected by Robert Kidd. Kidd had directed the first productions of all of Hampton’s previous work and the partnership had been extraordinarily successful. Hampton’s first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, transferred to the West End after two Sunday night performances at the Royal Court in 1966. Hamp­ ton became the first Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court in 1968 and, during his year of office, Total Eclipse was per­ formed. The Philanthropist, first produced at the Royal Court 142 Peter Holland 143 in 1970, was still running at the Mayfair Theatre at the time Savages opened three years later. As far as anyone deserves the label, Hampton is a “Royal Court dramatist.” It has become conventional to refer to the Royal Court as a “writers’ theatre,” a theatre with respect for the text and the writer’s intentions. Certainly Robert Kidd views his own approach to directing in that light: “I’m very ‘Royal Court’—what is on the page is what we do. So I don’t make a big Royal Shakespearian kind of speech about it being done in pink wigs and Wellington boots. In the same way, I don’t tolerate an actor saying, ‘I see the character this way.’ If the play’s well written, it’s on the page—there’s only one interpretation, and that’s as writ.”l Hampton knew that the case of Savages was not like his other plays. “More than any of my other plays, Savages is a director’s play.”2 Yet even Hampton, agreeing with almost every­ thing that Kidd did to the play, failed to realize how far the meaning of the play had changed. The play as performed, Kidd’s version, no longer meant the same as Hampton’s script, the play as published. Kidd’s changes were not in any sense malicious, but his concern with a conventional concept of what constitutes theatricality and his demand that the play should provide “an entertaining evening in the theatre” (TQ 74) are not com­ patible with the play Hampton had written. The first source for Savages was an article in the Sunday Times on the history of genocide. Hampton makes clear that the play centres on the plight of the Brazilian Indians who are being systematically exterminated by Brazilian industry and the Brazilian government. The initial design of the play, to attack the murderers alone, altered as Hampton learnt more about the Indians: “The more I researched the more I thought it was all really caused by the system—of which the Indians are just a symptom. The Indian problem is a result of the economic policies of capitalism—a simple statement but true. The more I went into it the more I realized it would be absolutely neces­ sary to put...