You said that you went to Manchester University?
I did and it was an extraordinary time. Stephen was there as Fellow in Drama and he gave the most stimulating lectures, particularly on the development of theatre, and often without notes. One of my optional subjects was history of art and the lecturer was a specialist on Mediaeval and Renaissance Art – I’ve been in awe of Giotto ever since.
In the first year, the Drama Department arranged a Theatre Week on the theme, ‘Actor and Architect’. A series of plays in different forms were presented, directed by Hugh Hunt and Stephen Joseph, and others. A series of lectures were delivered by prominent theatre practitioners and architects including Sir Tyrone Guthrie – the prominent Irish Director who, with Tanya Moseivitch, designed the Theatre at Minneapolis, where they both worked.
Sean Kenny, another Irishman, and designer of Oliver and Blitz amongst other major musicals, gave a talk which has had a lasting influence on me about the importance of the ‘story’ and then determining how you want to tell it in the theatre. In fact all the lectures that week, meeting these luminaries from the profession and the supporting exhibition that I helped Stephen mount, have had a major influence on my life. Stephen Joseph transcribed the lectures and that was published by the University as, “Actor and Architect”. Much of the material in that book is as relevant today as it was in 1961.
Shortly after he had helped found the ‘Association of British Theatre Technicians’ (ABTT), he collated papers given at the first seminar hosted by ABTT, for the, ‘Association internationale des techniciens de théâtre’ (AITT).
At the same time, he was working on the designs for the ‘Vic’, Stoke-on-Trent – the first permanent professional Theatre in the Round In the U.K.
While I was at Manchester, we took a performance of John Whiting’s ‘The Devils’, to the International Student Festival at the Teatro Regio in Parma, Italy. We used the costumes from the Royal Shakespeare production and my friend, Andrew Sanders, who subsequently became a very prominent film Production Designer, designed the sets. There were all sorts of problems with the sets, which were supposed to be built by the theatre. Stephen, who was directing the production, decided to use the whole depth of the opera house stage without scenery, in pools of light and breaking what were considered at the time to be directing ‘rules’, with the gleefulness of a naughty boy.
Did you get a degree in drama?
No, I didn’t actually end up finishing the degree because I left after two years. I was more interested in messing about in dirty theatres and Stephen suggested that I might be better off doing something more technical than academic – maybe as a Stage Manager or Production Manager. I do have to say that I did do some wonderful things while I was there, including a project designing a set, but I did feel a bit like a fish out of water, because the course despite the practical work was very academic. As an example, John Prudhoe, the senior lecturer, was a French Scholar and immersed in Goethe, Moliere and Racine, and I suppose I just wasn’t ready for that at that time. But something must have rubbed off because much later I designed productions of ‘Playing Moliere’ and Racine’s ‘Phedre’.
You leave university. What happens then?
My father had died a few months before I went to Manchester and at the end of the academic year I went home and helped to wind up his estate. A year later I decided to follow Stephen’s advice and wrote to Professor Hunt saying that I was not going to return to the Drama Department. That Christmas I became a stage manager for the Rank Organisation, which at that time was not only a film-making organisation but owned cinemas with large stages and they toured pantomimes and pop shows.
I toured pantomimes with Lonnie Donegan and Gerry and the Pacemakers, going from one town to another, overnight, setting up and running the show, which in those days was pretty simplistic as lighting was fairly rudimentary. But that is not to say that sometimes the most simplistic effect in the theatre can be more telling than all the high-tech lights and flying systems that are available now.
Picture this: – First half of the show coming to an end – dry ice pumped in from the wings on either side of the stage – full up with the blue overhead battens and the footlights, curtain up on Gerry Marsden in a single follow spotlight with his guitar walking slowly from the back of the stage: “You’ll never walk alone……”. Unforgettable theatre magic. Just thinking about it makes the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
The following summer I was an ice-cream man with my own van – The Rocket – and my own run. One day I saw an advertisement in The Stage newspaper for a course at the Birmingham College of Art in Stage Design. I phoned the number in the advertisement to be met by a Scottish voice – Finlay James. He said he was just going on holiday but if I went the next day he would see me.
You said that you decided not to return to return to Manchester University? Did you go to Birmingham?
“Jimmy” as he was known by everyone, had recently retired as Head of Design at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He was now the Head of Theatre Design Course at Birmingham College of Art. I went the next day, and he saw me in his office above Peggy Goss’s hat shop in Broad Street. I showed him drawings which he wasn’t overly impressed with, “Well I can see you can’t draw – but I think I can do something with you……”. I got into the preliminary design course and then I spent three immensely happy years in the Theatre Design Department. ‘Jimmy’ still designed for the rep and elsewhere and I often helped make models and worked in the workshops – he and all the other tutors were working designers and believed in students learning their craft through practical experience.
What else happens during this period of studying?
One of the design tutors was Terry Emery, a well-known designer, who came up from London every week and stayed in my flat. He had links to the ballet world and suggested I apply to The Slade School of Fine Art for a place on the postgraduate course in Theatre Design. I really didn’t believe I was good enough, as people from all over the world applied, and only a very few were accepted each year. Terry pushed endlessly me to apply and amazingly I was offered a place.
The tutors were Peter Snow, who had designed the first UK production of Waiting for Godot and Nicholas Georgiadis together with visiting opera and theatre directors. At that time, Georgiadis was one of the most renowned ballet and opera designers in the world. He worked with Kenneth MacMillan at the Royal Ballet and Rudolph Nureyev internationally. He came to the Slade two or three mornings a week and initially was quite dismissive of my work. Nevertheless, I worked really hard at my drawings and models and eventually he was happy to discuss my work.
You were then offered a job by Nicholas Georgiadis? What was working with him like?
Yes. Some months later he asked me to make models for him. I went to Kensington, to his studios just off the High Street, totally terrified of this cultured Greek. There were other assistants there but Mr Georgiadis asked me to copy a 1:24 scale model of a pillar. With some trepidation, and an hour or so later, I showed him what I had done and fortunately, he liked it – “it is not bad – could you make another two hundred ……….!!”.
It turned out to be for an Italianate terrace and staircase for Act I of Swan Lake for the Deutsch Opera. So that was my introduction to working with Nico. Although other assistants, including Peter Doherty and Stefan Lazaridis, came and left, I ended up making most of the models for Kenneth McMillan’s production of Swan Lake.
I went to Berlin with Nico as his assistant and it was there that I met Lynn Seymour for the first time. She had recently given birth to twin boys but was due to dance Odette/Odile in MacMillan’s psychologically driven production. Lynn, who was Kenneth’s muse and now generally considered to be the greatest dramatic ballerina of our age became one of my dearest friends. I stayed in the same apartment house as Kenneth and his choreologist assistant, Monica Parker, who explained Benesh Notation to me. The apartment was on the third or fourth floor overlooking the Kurfürstendamm and straight out of an Isherwood novel.
Nico later sent me to Sweden, to supervise the designs for Romeo and Juliet at the Opera House there and almost by default I became his main assistant for the next seven years. Can you imagine what that was like for a rather timid middle-class boy from the Midlands to find himself sitting drinking tea in an apartment in Berlin with Kenneth MacMillan and working with some of the most distinguished dancers, actors and theatre people of our age?
I worked with Nico on the designs for the mammoth Berlioz Opera, ‘The Trojans’ at Covent Garden, directed by Minos Volanankis. Later I was the Art Director for Michael Cacoyannis’ film of ‘The Trojan Woman’ with Nico as Production Designer. The cast of luminaries included, Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, Geneviève Bujold, Brian Blessed and Patrick Magee, together with the wonderful Greek actress, Irene Papas. Despite the starry cast, beautiful cinematography by Alfio Contini and music by Mikis Theodorakis the film was not a great success. But it is still worth looking at from a feminist perspective on war.
And then Georgiadis sent you to meet Peter Darrell?
Yes! One day many years later in the studio Nico announced, “my dear it is time for you to fly the nest….”. Rather than abandoning me he sent me to meet Peter Darrell, the Director of Scottish Theatre Ballet. I went to meet him in his London apartment and Peter invited me to design a new, full-length production of ‘Tales of Hoffman’ for his company.
The ballet was adapted by Darrell from the story and music of Offenbach’s popular opera of the same name. The tales which span Hoffmann’s life from youth to old age tell of his four loves, first of an opera singer, then a life-like doll, next a ballerina and finally for an alluring courtesan.
The production premiere at the King’s Theatre Edinburgh on 6 April, 1972 included Gordon Aitken, Peter Cazalet, Hilary Debden, Elaine McDonald, Patricia Rianne, Sally Collard-Gentle, Harol King and dancers of Scottish Theatre Ballet in the cast. John Lanchberry arranged the ballet score and John B. Read designed the lighting.
The opening night of Hoffmann, at the Kings Theatre Edinburgh, was a big success, the reviews were great and I was looking forward to the next big commission and a starry future. It looked like everything was shaping up to be as good as it could be!
How wrong could I be?
If you want to see more of Alistair Livingstone’s work go to the following links
