ABSTRACT
The River Clyde flows through Glasgow, dividing the city center on the north bank from the devastated “Gorbals” working-class districts on the south. Like the river for which it is named, the Clyde Unity Theatre of Glasgow reflects class issues that divide the city, a common Scottish identity that binds it together, and the focused energy that carries the city’s creative life out into the country and beyond. The assertive Scottish identity of Clyde Unity Theatre has strong cross-cultural roots. Ritchie and Binnie modelled their theatre in part on the old Glasgow Unity Theatre, a left-wing, social action group of the 1940s and 1950s that toured original plays to working-class venues and produced Scotland’s first openly gay play, Lambs of God by Benedict Scott in 1948. Given Clyde Unity’s focus on Scottish-American themes, it was perhaps inevitable they would invite two Americans to join the Company.
