The Royal Shakespeare Company and BAM: A Brief History

Back in 1969, when Harvey Lichtenstein saw Peter Brook’s legendary Royal Shakespeare Company production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Stratford-upon-Avon, he swooned. Lichtenstein went on record in his oral history for the BAM Archives to say that “if I had to pick one performance of all the ones I’ve seen that affected me more than anything else, it would be that performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Lichtenstein brought Brook’s production of Midsummer, with Patrick Stewart as Snout, to BAM in 1971, and over 40 years later, the RSC still regularly returns to BAM.

Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

From the Astrology Dept: The Ides of March and Google Divination™

Dear BAMystic,

What's up with the Ides of March? Is it a real thing? Something Shakespeare made up? Some band I've never heard of? And what does “ides” mean, anyway?

Yours,

Ida

Harvey Oral History: Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream

The following is excerpted from a transcription of an oral history conducted by BAM archivist Sharon Lehner and critic John Rockwell with BAM's ex-President, Harvey Lichtenstein. This excerpt, along with many others, is part of From Brooklyn to the World, the archival exhibition celebrating BAM's 150th anniversary, on view in BAM's lobby through August 31st.

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo: David Farrell

LICHTENSTEIN: You know, I met Peter Brook through Grotowski, through the Grotowski engagement, and he told me—this was in the fall of ’69—and he told me he was going back to Stratford[-upon-Avon, England] in ’70 and doing a new production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then I read the reviews. I guess Clive [Barnes] had gone over to see it and reviewed it in The Times. And, of course, it got the most astonishing set of notices you can imagine. I went over to see it in the fall of ’69, and I think probably, if I had to pick one performance, John, of all the ones I’ve seen that affected me more than anything else, it would be that performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

ROCKWELL: That’s interesting. I never saw it, but my wife feels the same way.

LICHTENSTEIN: Really?

ROCKWELL: Yes, that it would just change her life.

John Kane (right), as Puck. Photo: David Farrell

LICHTENSTEIN: Because it was a circus. It had a lot of scatological stuff. It had acrobatic stuff. It was wild, and yet it was the play, and it was the piece. At the end of the piece, when—I was sitting on the aisle—I remember seeing it at Stratford; it was the first time I was in Stratford, and Puck says those last lines, “Give me your hands if we be friends, and Robin will restore amends.” And then the whole cast poured off the stage and came down the steps and walked up the aisles, shaking hands with the people there. And by the time Puck came to me and I was on the aisle—what the hell was the guy’s name? John [Kane] was the actor’s name who played Puck. I grabbed him around. I wouldn’t let him go. He must have thought I was a madman. I was in tears, and I just wouldn’t let him go.

Harvey's Oral History: Peter Brook's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Brook/

Royal Shakespeare Company, 1971.  

Photo: David Farrell

"By the end of the performance...I mean...I was in tears"

—Former BAM President Harvey Lichtenstein on Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream

In our last post, we told the story of globe-trotting director Peter Brook's 1973 trip to Africa to study acting techniques before putting on "The Conference of the Birds" at BAM. As a little appendix to that story, have a listen to former BAM President Harvey Lichtenstein sharing his memories of an earlier Peter Brook triumph: Brook's game-changing Royal Shakespeare Company production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, at BAM in 1971:







The complete Harvey Lichtenstein Oral History, featuring John Rockwell interviewing Harvey, is available at the BAM Hamm Archives.