The Brattle Theatre--Brilliance and Arrogance

The Brattle players were an ambitious arrogant group. They scorned outside actors who joined their casts, and tolerated cheering audiences. During the four bright years they stirred the theatrical world with their Shakespeare and Shaw, they were constantly pointing toward the bright lights of Broadway and, at the same time verbally damning its commercialism.

In 1949 director Albert Marre declared "The best hope for serious theatre in American lies in important plays being produced well, far away from the prohibitive and stifling costs of Broadway." Marre is now an assistant director at the New York City Center. The other members of the original Harvard Veterans Workshop, which formed the Brattle, have also left for the Broadways of New York, London, Chicago, and San Francisco.

While the Brattle players grumbled about their low salaries and fought each other for control of the company, the audience applauded and the visiting actors felt they were performing in a theatrical shrine. Cambridge puffed and boasted about them, and critics raved. But Brattle wanted more.

They were good, often superb. It is regrettable that the same people who breathed fire into the classics while on the stage were incompetent, when it came to managing a theatre. They became hopelessly entangled in personal feuds and private prejudices which slashed at both their efficiency and bank account. No one person held enough authority over this group of proud and often pig-headed individualists. As a result, the scenery or wardrobe departments might disregard their budgets for the sake of greater art, or an optimism based on ignorance might provide the spirit for a production which they could never afford. Always they sought to expand and reach farther; always they were badly in debt.

Veteran's Group

They began as the Harvard Veterans Workshop, disdaining the other College dramatic groups because these refused to give them the prestige and parts they wanted. Of course, they were better than the other groups, and they proved it.

All of them had been in the Army, and this accounts, in great part for their refusal to take secondary positions in collegiate organizations. They were older and more mature than were members of the other groups.

A short time after they organized, Albert Marre, who was at the law school, joined them, bringing his wife, Jan Farrand. During rehearsal for one of their first productions, "Henry IV Part I," the HVW almost lost its leading lady. One of the members of the cast, brandishing a sword, swung it around his head. The handle broke, and the sword flew out to the audience, at Miss Farand. Luckily for the Brattle, she was hit by the side of the sword, knocked cold but uninjured. Miss Farand recovered quickly and "Henry IV" was a huge success.

When college was over, they decided to go on professionally. A few members of the group were wealthy, and one, David Hersey, persuaded his father to buy the Brattle Theatre in 1948. The Brattle was a barn of a building, constructed in 1890 by the Cambridge Social Union to provide a social center for Harvard and Radcliffe and dances every Thursday. When Hersey bought it, the theatre was being rented for various fly-by-night productions, many of them College plays.

Money Troubles

That first year the company produced only during the summer, and lost $10,000. Hersey decided to get out, then, and six of the others bought his deed for $80,000.

As soon as the company moved in to stay, in the summer of 1949, there was friction between those who owned the theatre and those who only acted. The theatre lost money at the rate of $400 a week, and during the following four years it floated stock and bond issues totaling $35,000.

There were some plays that made money, but whenever one did the group and its board of directors would rejoice and schedule another turkey. The actors with money paid for some of the loss, but the others often went without meals. Salaries became a matter of pay according to need with a top of $65 a week.

One of the greatest expenses was the name performers they hired to stud their productions. When they had to fill up a cast they could usually find bit players who were eager to work for little or nothing, just to participate in their plays. But they usually overpaid their stars, and to have the glory of a top name on their program they would disregard their financial difficulties. Once the star was there, however, they resented his drawing the lion's share of the gate receipts.

In their casts they boasted William Devlin, Margare Webster, Eva LeGallience, John Carradine, Helmut Dantine, Philip Borneuf, Ruth Ford, Nancy Walker, Sarah Allgood, Betty Field, Claire Luce, Jessica Tandy, Hume Gronyn and many more. Sometimes their personalities clashed with those of the stars. In one play, Luise Rainer threw a glass of water at Bryant Haliday. Later, she told him "If I had six months I could teach you to make love." Yet often Brattle and its guests would get along quite well. The late Sarah Allgood stayed up all night with the cast, guzzling gin and singing Irish ballads.

Changed Attitude

Before the Brattle's last performance, Moliere's The Doctor in Spite of Himself, one could see the difference in attitude between the old Brattle the company and those who were there for this play alone. Zero Mostel, a Broadway and Holly wood comedian, was the featured performer, and he was enthusiastic about the theatre and angered that it had never gotten outside financial support.

It was a hot night late in August and the small dressing rooms reeked with sweat and perfumed grease. Yet, to the outsiders this enhanced the Brattle's almost mystic quality. They talked freely, voicing their hopes that more more actors would turn to projects like the Brattle's. Most of them made their living in television or small-time theatre, and the Brattle was a temple in which to worship the theatre's best art.

There are only two dressing rooms at the Brattle, one for the men, another for the women. Stars and extras dress together, but the old members stayed aloof.

Few Veterans

At that time, few of them still remained at Cambridge. Albert Marre had already gone off to New York, but his wife and the company's leading lady, Jan Farrand, had stayed to finish the last play. Jerry Kilty, a leading actor, was in London, playing with the Old Vic. Robert Fletcher, who did costumes and also acted, was with the New York City Center Ballet, and Robert O'Hearn was with the Sadler Wells Company. Many of the other Brattle alumni had also attached themselves to bigger companies. Jack Kerr and Michael Wager were rehearing "Bernadine," and Fred Gwynne was playing in "Mrs. McThing."

And for all their arrogance and business ignorance, they had worked hard and suffered abominable theatre conditions. They endured small dressing rooms and made their own costumes. Their theatre presented technical difficulties: there was no fly gallery or wing space, only a tremendous 38 foot depth. And they had to fit their productions of these limitations. It was a difficult life, especially for intelligent and actors drawing huge salaries on radio, television and in Broadway theatre.

They did bring two of their own productions to New York. The first was The Little Blue Light with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandey; the other The Relapse, a Restoration comedy, sponsored by the Theatre Guild. These should have given the Brattle prestige to attract angels and revenue to pay the debts. But the inexperienced Brattle businessmen found they had signed contracts for certain properties and had forfeited play rights to such an extent that the profit disappeared and they left New York with little more than they had brought in. Moreover, the prestige they won did not draw any outside help.

Disintegration

As the theatre failed to make, the members began to blame each other, and the organization started to disintegrate. There was a Board of Directors and its members would often by to control choice of plays and business policy from the outside. The Directors were also overly ambitious, and they helped choose productions like The Idea, which lost about $1,000 a week. Even a box office attraction like Mactteth lost money, because Brattle overextended itself on sets.

It is easy to see how extreme financial worries could upend all parts of the theatre. With no stable authority and many pretenders, each department tried to get as much of the budget as it could. And all the while Brattle kept its ticket prices low.

This past summer Haliday discovered that the theatre could make money, if managed correctly. He sliced his cast, and put it on a profit sharing basis instead of the old straight salary. Besides this, he picked plays that would cost less. As a result, he was able to raise salaries and run an efficient front office.

Too Late

But Haliday's venture came too late to save the company. Its members have grown apart from each other. Away from their close ingrown society, they now have the chance to put the spark that made the Brattle into the outside theatre. Marre wants to do this at the City Center.

All of Brattle's company can look back with pride on what Harper's Bazaar called "the new Old Vic." And their amazing number of productions attests to their versatility and enthusiasm. Each member of the company filled in different types of roles, and doubled as stagehands of various types.

For the future, Haliday has bought the theatre and will run it as a foreign movie house. He hopes to bring back the theatre during the summer, and perhaps members of the old company will return briefly.

But Brattle Theatre is dead, and it was murdered by the same ambition, exuberance, and energy that powered it through its meteoric four years of production