January used to be such a lovely, quiet month. Thanks to Celtic Connections, the arts programmers of Scotland have unfortunately realised that there is an audience for performance after Christmas, mostly people wanted to forget the nightmare of family gatherings. And so both the Lyceum and the Citizens are kicking off early with blasts from the past, staging works that have a nice blend of awkwardness and passion.
A Taste of Honey is a wise choice for the Lyceum. Back in the 1950s, it was shocking - single mothers, racism, social exclusion, untamed passions. The Lyceum's programme has always been strong on the revival of classic plays, but has increasingly had a rougher edge. Meanwhile,
The Maids at the Citizens is even more hardcore: it's French, the author was a convicted criminal and its gender politics are dizzying.
But which of these two is the winner in the January sales? Will Genet's tale of murder and power best Delaney's insight into working class despair and hope? Does
The Maids reveal more about the interior world of the criminal, or does
Honey express a more vivid existential torment? Judging both plays in six categories, it's time to find out whether the Citizens or the Lyceum are more likely to attract an audience looking for controversy.
Social Relevance
Despite being over five decades old,
A Taste of Honey grapples with issues still live today. The heroine is a single mother, and the tension between mother and daughter is as relevant now as it was in the 1950s. Some of the themes - racism, the impact of poverty on opportunity and ambition - might have different contours in 2013, but
A Taste of Honey puts them on stage for serious consideration.
The Maids might be based on a true story - although Genet makes it all his own - but its fundamental social conflict is based around a master/servant dynamic. It might give David Cameron a few nightmares when he gets an insight into the thoughts of the home help, but
The Maids races off into a very specific narrative that does not necessarily claim any universality.
Winner: ATaste of Honey
Historical Significance
A Taste of Honey came at that point when theatre audiences were ready for a bit more than well-made plays about the middle-classes. It stands as a pointer to the development of English realism, culminating in the neo-brutalists, who gave the script a visceral edge more familiar from Live Art. Without Delaney and "the angry young men", there would be no
Trainspotting and social realism would be a Soviet genre of visual art, not an important strand of British cinema and art. Even better, it presents, if not a documentary, a creative description of British working class life in the olden days.
It's more difficult to assess
The Maids in a historical context: I don't know enough about French culture, and Genet's personal history sets him outside any mainstream I can imagine. He does herald the more brutal aspects of contemporary theatre, and his emphasis on theatre as ritual (admittedly more obvious in other plays) links him into the move away from the script as an imitation of life than a philosophical meditation.
Winner by a nose: A Taste of Honey
Gender Politics
Delaney manages to focus her play on female characters - looking at the history of the English theatre, this is no mean feat. By representing their problems in a relatively objective manner - it's surprising how little moralising is directed at the characters - she made a major step forward in the sort of stories that could be told. Without patronisingly labelling
Honey a feminist classic, it is nevertheless a bit more sorted than the stuff coming out of the 1940s, or Shakespeare.
The Maids has female characters played by men. Director Stewart Laing has said that he wants to look at the way masculinity operates in the play but the actual gender and sexual antics written into the script make this one where identity can't be ignored.
Winner by confusing the issue: The Maids
Rock'n'Roll
The rock'n'roll era was defined by the rise of the teenager. America got Elvis, England got Delaney, who wrote this when she was eighteen. Of course, the escapism that marked Elvis' swinging pelvis as a threat is replaced by an altogether more fertile male nether regions, which get the heroine up the stick. The seriousness of
Honey was not to enter rock'n'roll until Lou Reed hooked up with Andy Warhol...
... and The Velvet Underground are in the soundtrack of Laing's version of
The Maids. Genet's vision of crime has inspired plenty of musicians, and the mayhem of the script give it the psychedelic edge that popular music would embrace in the 1960s. David Bowie might have worked out his career from a stage direction or margin note to
The Maids.
Winner: The Maids
Dark Poetry
For
Honey, birth becomes a matter of despair, but the tone is serious and stern. There's little magic in the down-and-out, and being a weak lover or a domineering mother has little glamour.
Seriously, Genet evolved an inverted Catholicism, where the murder became like a saint. There's delirium, the glamour of execution, an erotic fixation on role play, orgasms and brutal fantasies, all given a patina of cool.
Winner: The Maids
Audience Baiting
The Lyceum might have a reputation for staging old school classics, but
A Taste of Honey fits in with their recent trend towards the rough stuff. Slipped in between Shakespeare remixes and refits of Scottish novels, their more vigorous choices have the potential to irritate some loyal audience members. To be fair, I've seen the crowd take the bloodshed caused by a renegade terrorist in good spirit, but this does challenge the idea of the Lyceum as a soft touch.
The Citizens has a reputation for experimental numbers: Giles Havergil made his name with nudity in Shakespeare, and Dominic Hill didn't spare the horses for his first season.
The Maids makes perfect sense in their programme.
Winner: A Taste of Honey
Conclusion: yes, of course I fixed it to be a draw. I think they are both worth going to see.
A TASTE OF HONEY
Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh 18 January- 9 February 2013
The Maids
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow 17 Jan – 2 Feb 2013
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