ABSTRACT

Although one direction towards which the ghost of Brecht guided British theatre was that of austerity, this did not mean that Brechtian productions were cheap. On the contrary, they required permanent companies (which were expensive), long rehearsal periods, resident writers, musicians and designers, and, at the end, there was no settled product which could play for years in the West End. Within the existing 'commercial' system in Britain, a 'Brechtian' company could scarcely be formed, and even by the standards of other national companies (of a type which Britain in the late 1950S still lacked), teams such as the Berliner Ensemble were rare indeed and could only survive with large subsidies. The days of private patronage on this scale were over: in Europe as in Britain. Thus, directors with Brechtian ambitions (and even those without them) looked towards governments for support.