THEATRE / On theatre
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.John Dove is a director with a reputation for nurturing and encouraging young playwrights - his last production at the Hampstead Theatre was Rona Munro's bitterly revealing tale of Belfast women, Bold Girls. He also recently directed John Murrell's Democracy at the Bush. Now Dove's championing of unsung theatrical voices extends to the previous century, and the well-kept secret of DH Lawrence's early plays.
A Collier's Friday Night (with Kate Ashfield as Maggie Pearson, right), previewing from tonight, was written in 1909 when Lawrence was a callow 24, and an avid theatre-goer. The would-be playwright followed the rule of writing about what you know, setting the play in the kitchen of a Nottinghamshire mining family where a son and a mother are just beginning to distance themselves from each other. Sound familiar?
'Nobody ever encouraged him in his playwriting, so he stopped,' explains Dove with a tinge of regret. 'He moved to novels, and once he'd found his form, he stayed there.'
A Collier's Friday Night was the first of a trilogy with The Daughter-in-Law and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, but this latter was the only one he saw staged, in 1926. 'He wrote them for publication really,' says Dove, who directed The Daughter-in-Law at the Hampstead in 1985, and Mrs Holroyd at Leicester Haymarket in 1990. But did the future novelist really have a sense of the dramatic? 'Oh yes, they're tremendously dramatic,' he confirms. 'They're very brave, very vivid, and actors love them. If we'd read this now as a first play by a young man, we'd have jumped on it.'
A Collier's Friday Night, Hampstead Theatre (071-722 9301)
(Photograph omitted)
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments