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''The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'' is a play by Stephen Lowe, adapted from the classic working-class novel, by Robert Tressell. It was first produced by Joint Stock in Plymouth on 14 September 1978, directed by William Gaskill. The production then toured the country, with performances in London at Riverside Studios in October.〔Wardle, 1978.〕 As with other Joint Stock shows, the project began with a workshop in which Lowe, Gaskill and the actors explored ideas and material for the play. Lowe then worked alone for two months writing the script; finally, the company came together again for a conventional six-week rehearsal process. The actors who took part in the workshop, and who also made up the original cast, were Bruce Alexander, Christian Burgess, Peter-Hugo Daly, Ian Ireland, Fred Pearson, Harriet Walter and Mark Wing-Davey. Harriet Walter, who played the role of Bert (a boy apprentice), writes of the original production: "I had spent most of the evening under a table scraping out paint tins, and yet I remain prouder of ''The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'' than of most other shows I have been involved with. The reason for this is simple. We had time.... The show belonged to us all. Every experience in the last six months, whether ordeal or treat, had bound our imaginations together and this informed the quality of the work." 〔Walter, 2003; p 60.〕 Among the many positive reviews of Lowe's play, Irving Wardle wrote of the original production: "...it is an independent work of great skill and integrity, putting the original to the test of physical action and personal experience... for those who still find England blanketed with a thick fog of political evasion it is sheer pleasure to watch this lucid, beautifully organised account of the roots of our present industrial chaos." 〔Wardle, 1978〕 There have been many revivals of the play since 1978. In July 1983, John Adams directed the play at the Half Moon Theatre in London, with a cast including Josie Lawrence.〔Anthony Masters, 1983.〕 In 1985 Stephen Daldry directed a production for Metro Theatre, which toured until 1987. In February 1991, John Adams directed the play again, a touring production for Birmingham Rep; the tour travelled as far as Birmingham, Alabama. Stephen Daldry directed the play again in 1998, with a co-production by Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Liverpool Playhouse. In 2011, Townsend Productions produced a two handed version of Lowe's play which is currently touring the UK.〔Townsend Productions website, 2010〕 In 2010 Lowe worked with South African company Isango Portobello on a new version of his play, setting it in 1950s Cape Town. Directed by Mark Dornford-May, with musical direction by Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, ''The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Izigwili Ezidlakazelayo'' opened at the Fugard Theatre, District Six, Cape Town in October 2010.〔Gordon, 2010〕 This production is due to visit the Hackney Empire in May 2012. ==Themes: politics and work== The play is about a group of painters and decorators and their struggle for survival in a complacent and stagnating Edwardian England. Tressell's novel had affected Lowe profoundly, when he first read it as a young man. "My father, unlike Owen in almost every aspect, suffered like him from TB and had been a brickie and decorator before the war. The attitude of the workers to socialism seemed, in my young way, to be exactly like the one I encountered when I heatedly argued with family. In a way, I identified with Owen. Owen also became the father I wanted badly. My relationship with my own father at that time was at its lowest. He, Owen, was a man alone who had not given in. The bastards couldn't grind him down. The analysis of society was not what struck me, because I already... had come to these beliefs. It did not, in that sense, convert me. It did something much more fundamental. It spoke to me directly, out of intense pain, saying "You're not mad. You're not on your own."... It was the nearest to finding a father, a friend across that time, that I had ever known. I tried to persuade anyone to read it. It seemed irresistible to me. It still does."〔Lowe, 1979; p3.〕 Apart from politics, a key theme in Lowe's play is work itself. Since physical labour was so central to the novel, it played a large part in the Joint Stock workshop. The company worked in the morning refurbishing an old warehouse as an annexe for Dartington College of Arts, supervised by a professional site foreman.〔Walter, 2003; p48〕 In the play, apart from their poverty and worries about keeping their job, most of the time the men are also frustrated at not being allowed to do a good job. (The bosses are not really interested in the quality of the work, their main interest is in keeping down costs to make more profit.) So the Moorish room episode, in which Owen is given the chance to use his skills to the full, is a key part of Lowe's play. Even though he knows that his work will only be enjoyed by the bosses, Owen desperately wants to do the job: OWEN: "Just gi' me the chance of it, eh? I could do a good job. No slapping paint over rotten wood. Hearing the worms chewing away behind the paint. No papering over cracks. Burn the paint right back. Strip it down. Treat the walls. Stop the cracks. Dry it. Clean base. Three coats of white. Clean canvas. No wood that crumbles to dust. No wall to powder. Real work. Just once. I'm due. It's my right."〔Lowe, 1983; p 19.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (play)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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