… If you would like to see some of their work, they are going to revive Brother Jero and another Soyinka play The Strong Breed for a Sunday performance on October 2 nd.’ We plan to do this in about July of next year when Wole will come over and direct it himself and bring over some African actors and dancers to perform it. This group has solved that particular problem and besides The Lion and the Jewel, which has not been performed in England but is an early play, we are planning to do Kongi’s Harvest which is Wole’s latest play about African politics. He was one of our script readers and a member of the Writers’ Group when I ran it, and there has been a great backlog of wonderful work which we have always drawn back from doing because of the lack of actors. Wole is a real Court writer in the true sense of the word. It had a vitality and immediacy which very few of our new plays have. This is the first play that we are going to do as part of a tie-up with a group of African actors called the Ijinle Players, who did a tremendous production of Soyinka’s play The Trials of Brother Jero at the Hampstead Theatre Club, and was the first play I went to see twice in about the last ten years. ‘After Three Men for Colverton and Macbeth, we want to do Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. Gaskill, discussing the programme for the forthcoming season, writes: Although not the first of Soyinka’s plays to be staged in London, the production of The Lion and the Jewel at the Royal Court Theatre in December 1966 is of particular interest for two reasons: the commitment of The Royal Court’s Artistic Director William (Bill) Gaskill to Soyinka’s work, and the range of critical responses that reflect, in equal measure, enthusiasm, uncertainty and – sometimes – naïve cultural responses to this African voice.Ĭorrespondence between Gaskill and producer Oscar Lewenstein dated 19 September and 9 November 1966 (Lewenstein at that point being a Council Member of the English Stage Company Ltd) show Gaskill’s enthusiasm for Soyinka’s work.
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