Chicken

-1-
Soup with
Barley
"My future is here. My
aim is clear and simple. I
want out. I wanna be
rich. I'm not gonna
by Arnold Wesker
pretend it's anything
more than that and I

by Richard Bean
want it now."

BACKGROUND PACK

CONTENTS

1. About The Production

2. About The Writer
3. Synopsis of Chicken Soup with Barley
4. About the Set Design
5. Research
6. Interview with the Director
7. Chicken Soup with Barley – Then and Now
8. Classroom Activities
9. About Royal Court Education
Chicken Soup with Barley Education Pack Royal Court Theatre

1. ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

The Royal Court Theatre presents

Chicken Soup with Barley

By Arnold Wesker

Chicken Soup with Barley was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre,
Coventry on 7 July 1958 and subsequently at the Royal Court Theatre,
London, on 14 July 1958.

The complete Wesker Trilogy was first presented at the Royal Court
Theatre, London, in the summer of 1960.

Chicken Soup with Barley was revived at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre
Downstairs, Sloane Square, London on Thursday 2 June 2011.

Cast in order of appearance

Sarah Kahn Samantha Spiro

Harry Kahn Danny Webb
Monty Blatt Harry Peacock
Dave Simmonds Joel Gilman
Prince Silver Ian Gillman
Hymie Kossof Steve Furst
Cissie Kahn Alexis Zegerman
Ada Kahn Jenna Augen
Young Ronnie Kahn Charlie Cancea, Sonny Ryan
Ronnie Kahn Tom Rosenthal
Bessie Blatt Rebecca Gethings

Director Dominic Cooke

Set & Costume Designer Ultz
Lighting Designer Charles Balfour
Sound Designer Gareth Fry
Music Gary Yershon
Dialect Coach Penny Dyer
Casting Director Amy Ball
Assistant Director Monique Sterling
Assistant Set Designer Mark Simmonds
Assistant Costume Designer Kristen Dempsey
Production Manager Paul Handley
Stage Manager Ben Delfont
Deputy Stage Manager Fran O’Donnell
Assistant Stage Manager Laura Draper
Stage Mngmnt Placement Jon Snowdon
Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton
Set built by Object Construction
Set painted by Richard Nutbourne

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2. ABOUT THE WRITER

ARNOLD WESKER

Arnold Wesker, F.R.S.L., born London 1932, has written over 45 plays,
the most well known being the Wesker Trilogy, Chips with Everything,
and Shylock, most of them performed worldwide. He has written two
opera librettos, published volumes of fiction and non-fiction, poetry, a
book for young people, and an autobiography As Much As I Dare
(1992). His work has been translated into 17 languages. Wesker may
be unique in having had 16 world premieres abroad.

In the last seven years he has written five new plays and other works,
including his first novel, Honey, published by Simon & Schuster 2005.
In 2008 he published his first volume of poetry All Things Tire of
Themselves. In that year he also completed a commission, to celebrate
75 years of the BBC World Service, for a radio play, later adapted for
the stage – The Rocking Horse Kid. He has just completed his latest
play Joy and Tyranny. The recipient of honorary degrees and prizes,
Wesker’s vast archives have recently been purchased by Texas
University. He was knighted in the 2006 New Year’s Honours List for
services to world drama.

Extract from Observer article by Rachel Cooke, Sunday 22 May 2011

Arnold Wesker: 'I've never understood my reputation for

grumpiness'

After decades on the sidelines, this great British

playwright is back on the national stage

Playwright Arnold Wesker in his back garden in Hove. Photograph: Andy

Hall for the Observer
…We discuss the two revivals. I understand entirely why the National is to

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stage The Kitchen, Wesker's first play: it chimes resonantly with our
obsession both with restaurants (it is set in one), and the issues
surrounding cheap immigrant labour. But the Court's choice of Chicken
Soup with Barley – the first play in the trilogy that also includes Roots and
I'm Talking About Jerusalem – is more curious. It's about the emotional
collapse of an East End Jewish family from 1936 to 1956, a disintegration
that is largely provoked by the loss of its members' political faith. The
Kahns are communists, and the play traces their relationship with the
party from the high of Cable Street, when working men and women
successfully forced Mosley's parading fascists into retreat, to the low of
Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary. On the page – I've never seen it staged
– it could not be more of a period piece if it tried. The world it conjures
has entirely disappeared. The East End is Asian now, not Jewish, and I've
never even met a communist. Plus, it's so very talky. (Wesker's friend,
Margaret Drabble, once told him that there is never any sex or violence in
his plays – and reading this one, you do see what she means.) Hasn't the
heat rather gone out of it in the 53 years since it was first staged?

"I don't know, is the answer," he says, mildly. "But it was done [in
Nottingham] five years ago, and it seemed to make an impact. So I must
assume that there is still something in it that touches people. The
audience does not need to know in its bones exactly what it was like to be
a communist or an anti-communist: the argument between Sarah [the
mother, and the only member of the family to retain her faith] and Ronnie
[the son, who loses his completely] spells it out. They feel it passionately,
and that passion and antagonism will communicate itself. I am hopeful.
Dominic [Cooke, the artistic director of the Royal Court] wrote to me the
other day, saying how everyone is loving doing it, how he's coming to
admire the main thrust of the play more and more. So…"

Of all Wesker's work, it is Chicken Soup with Barley that is the most
autobiographical. Sarah and her wastrel husband, Harry, are thinly
disguised portraits of Wesker's own parents, Leah and Joseph, who were
the children of immigrants from eastern Europe and who worked as
tailoring machinists. They brought up Arnold and his sister Della, first in
rented rooms in Fashion Street, Spitalfields, and then in a new council flat
in Hackney. Both were devout communists. "My father wasn't much
committed to anything [Joseph, like Harry, found it hard to stick at any
job for long], but in argument, he was a communist. My mother, though,
was deeply concerned about justice and good behaviour and honour, and
she felt you had to be a communist to be that, or rather, she felt that
those who weren't communists were frequently unpleasant people." Was
Wesker proud of their politics? "No, I took them for granted, though I
enjoyed all the gatherings: the May Day demos, being carried shoulder-
high through Hyde Park, all the banners."

Like the Kahns, the family was poor. "But I don't remember it in terms of
suffering. The only time there wasn't something to eat – this was one of
my proudest moments – I sold my stamp collection for three pounds and
10 shillings and we bought fish and chips from Alf's fish shop on Brick
Lane. That said, my mother did once have to go to the Jewish Board of
Guardians to get help. They made her feel awful, but they did help." So, in

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spite of their politics, his parents held fast to their religion? "No. They
were completely atheist. But they were also – this is difficult for gentiles
to understand – fiercely Jewish."

The Wesker parents were not bookish. It was his older sister, Della, and
her fiance, Ralph, who gave him his first reading list – Orwell, Ruskin,
Morris, and those now all-but-forgotten novelists, Howard Spring and A J
Cronin. "I loved and admired Ralph, and wanted to please him, so when
he was conscripted into the RAF during the war, I wrote him these
dreadful poems." At this point, though, Wesker wanted to be an actor, not
a writer. "I joined an amateur dramatics group, for which I wrote a play
called And After Today. It was about my spinster aunts. I was exploring
the nature of spinsterhood. I must have been about 16, which made me a
great authority." The group never staged this searing early work but, later
on, he was able to cannibalise it for Chicken Soup.

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3. SYNOPSIS OF CHICKEN SOUP WITH BARLEY

The play spans twenty years - 1936 to 1956 - in the life of the communist
Kahn family: SARAH and HARRY, and their children, ADA and RONNIE and
a whole host of activist friends.

We first meet the family and their 'comrades' in 1936, on the day of the
anti-fascist protests in the East End. There is a fever of excitement,
anticipation and resolution, as the comrades prepare to march against the
BUF. Against the dusky colours of this dingy flat, father Harry brandishes
a Communist flag, illuminating the room with its striking red. But from the
outset of the play, we observe the chinks and complexities in their political
ideologies. Dave is 'a pacifist really', but considers joining the
International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Young
Monty is full of anger against the BUF, hungry for the fight, but doesn't
understand exactly what he's fighting for. And Harry spends most of the
march sheltering at his mother's house, drinking tea. All are unhappy with
their lot, but seem increasingly unable to organise themselves into action.
'You have to start with love', Sarah offers, 'How can you talk about
socialism otherwise?' Despite accusations of political ignorance, Sarah is
the only character that remains politically active and animated throughout
the play.

Interestingly for a 1950s play, Chicken Soup gives the strongest roles to
its women: wife and mother Sarah is our protagonist; her perspective
drives the play and its political debate. Sarah provides domestic warmth
and chicken soup-nourishment to her comrades, always looking after her
house guests and over-feeding them around her table. But the solidarity
that we witness in the first act turns sour: as the family begins to
fragment, symbiotically, so do political allegiances. Gradually, we learn of
Harry and Sarah's marital unhappiness; daughter Ada then loses heart,
becoming an embittered intellectual; and son Ronnie pities his failure of a
father, too apathetic and cowardly to fight.

One by one, the comrades become disillusioned by their former values:

they cannot maintain faith either in each other or in socialism, as Wesker
suggests a correlation between political and human strength. The
community of comrades is lost: in the final act, Harry comments that he
doesn't know his neighbours; and, despite her yearning for company,
Sarah's visitors pay only dutiful visits. Towards the end of the play, having
nursed her debilitated husband to bed, Sarah returns to a bare living room
and takes in its empty expanse through a slow breath. Like her emotional
loneliness, Sarah is politically isolated in her constant ambition: playing a
game of cards at the table, she begins to complain about the NHS, but is
hushed by the others - no one is listening anymore.

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The ending is tinged with dissolution, tempered by hope. Harry exclaimed

in act one, 'Show people what Communism means and they see life, a
future', but as he predicted, 'not in our lifetime'. Sarah cries to her now
indifferent son that he must remember her politics, to rescue her life from
vanity; almost heroically, she protests that just because her Communist
ideologies failed doesn't mean they are untrue. In a final, rousing
monologue, Sarah simply concludes, 'If you don't care, you die', just like
the broken spirit of her husband and daughter.

-Monique Sterling, Assistant Director

4. ABOUT THE SET DESIGN

In approaching the set design for Chicken Soup with Barley, the designer
Ultz and director Dominic Cooke felt it was very important to create
authentic representations of the Kahn’s flats in the 1930’s, 1940’s and
1950’s. Because the play is semi-autobiographical, they used Arnold
Wesker’s autobiography as a starting point for researching the way the
flats would have looked at the time. Arnold Wesker also provided some
pictures of his two homes during these periods. In addition, the director
and designer were lucky enough to gain access to the flat Wesker lived in
on Fashion Street in the East End of London as well as the building in
Weald Square, Clapton which Wesker’s family moved to in 1942. This
detailed research allowed Ultz to create a set that was very true to the
real places Wesker lived in his childhood and young adult life.

Model Box of Chicken Soup with Barley Set Design (Act One) © Ultz 2011

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Your Decision

In the Royal Court’s current production of Chicken Soup with Barley,

the First Act is set in an attic, to reflect the setting in Wesker’s original
script. In the first production in 1958, the director John Dexter decided
to set Act One in a basement flat. Compare the photo of the 2011 set
on the previous page with this archive photo of the set in 1958. With a
partner, try to decide the following issues:

1. Why do you think Dexter may have changed the setting from an
attic to a basement? What advantages could that have had in terms
of the action in Act One of the play?

2. Why do you think the director Dominic Cooke and designer Ultz
wanted to use the setting of an attic as originally conceived by
Arnold Wesker?

3. Imagine you are designing a set for your own production of

Chicken Soup with Barley. Would you choose to set the First Act in
a basement flat or in an attic flat? Why would one work better than
the other for your particular production?

Chicken Soup with Barley Set Design 1958

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Changing the Set for Acts Two and Three

The play requires a major scene change between Acts One and Two.
The Kahn family move from their cramped attic flat in the East End into
a more spacious council flat in Hackney. The Kahn’s move in the play
mirrored the Wesker family’s actual move in 1942. Wesker describes
their new flat in his autobiography:

We had a front door at the end of a landing – which meant neighbours

on only three sides instead of four – two bedrooms, a front room, a
dining room, a separate kitchen, our own lavatory. No separate
bathroom, no hot running water, no central heating – just a coal fire –
but we had space. Space, space, space!
-from As Much As I Dare by Arnold Wesker

1. What major differences do you notice between the Act 1 set and
the Acts 2 and 3 set in the current production?
2. How do you think Wesker’s autobiography may have influenced the
design for Acts 2 and 3?
3. How would you describe the different atmospheres Ultz has created
in the sets for Act 1 and for Acts 2 and 3?

Chicken soup with Barley Set design (Act Two and Act Three) © Ultz 2011

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5. RESEARCH

It was vital for the cast and creative team of Chicken Soup
with Barley to discover the historical context of the play.
With the help of the assistant director, Monique Sterling,
they researched in detail the real political events that fuel
the action of Chicken Soup with Barley. Here is an
introduction to help you understand some of the key events
such as the Battle of Cable Street, the International Brigade
and the Hungarian Uprising.

THE BATTLE OF CABLE STREET

Take your boys to Cable Street. The Fascists are assembling! Come out
of your houses! Come out of your Houses!

Act One, Scene One

The Battle of Cable Street or the Cable Street Riot took place on Sunday
October 4, 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash
between the police, overseeing a march by the British Union of Fascists (BUF),
on one side and anti-fascists including local Jewish, socialist and communist
groups on the other.

The leader of the BUF was Oswald Moseley. He had set the party up following a trip to
Italy where he had been impressed with Mussolini and his fascist party. Moseley and
his party tried to gain support in areas where unemployment was at its worst.
These were often areas where there were large numbers of immigrants and also
where the communist party was trying to gain support. Anti-semitism and racism
was rife in such areas.

London’s East End

The East End of London was targeted by the BUF. In 1936 the Jewish population of
Britain was 350,000 (0.7 per cent of the total population) However nearly half of the
Jewish population lived in the East End – 60,000 in Stepney alone. The BUF announced
that it would be organising a march of its members wearing their black shirt uniforms
through the East End. All through the summer of 1936 it had organised street-corner
meetings, fire-bombing and smashing the windows of Jewish shops, racist abuse and
physical attacks. When they heard about the proposed march the Jewish People’s

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Council organised a petition calling for it to be banned but the government refused to
ban the march.

Running battles

The anti-fascist groups erected roadblocks in Cable Street in an attempt to prevent the
march from taking place. The police tried to clear these to allow the march through.
There was a series of running battles between the police and anti-fascist demonstrators
and eventually the march did not take place.

The Public Order Act

As a result of the Cable Street Battle the Public Order Act was passed in 1936. This made
the wearing of political uniforms in public and private armies illegal, using threatening
and abusive words a criminal offence, and gave the Home Secretary the powers to ban
marches.

Commemorative plaque

In the 1980's, a large mural depicting the Battle was painted on the side of St. George's
Hall. This old Town Hall building stands in Cable Street, about 150 yards west from
Shadwell underground station. A red plaque in Dock Street also commemorates the incident.

Source: The Anne Frank Guide, www.annefrank guide.net

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The International Brigade

You think I’m going to enjoy shooting a man because he calls

himself a Fascist? I feel so sick at the thought of firing a rifle that
I think I’ll board that boat with a blindfold over my eyes.
Sometimes I think that’s the only way to do things. I’m not even
sure that I want to go, only that if I don’t then- then- well. What
sense can a man make of his life?

Dave, Act One, Scene One, on joining The International Brigade

In August 1936 Harry Pollitt arranged for Tom Wintringham to go to Spain

to represent the CPGB during the Civil War. While in Barcelona he
developed the idea of a volunteer international legion to fight on the side
of the Republican Army. He wrote: "You have to treat the building of an
army as a political problem, a question of propaganda, of ideas soaking
in."

On 10th September 1936 Wintringham wrote to Harry Pollitt that he had

arranged for Nat Cohen, a Jewish clothing worker from Stepney, to
establish "a Tom Mann centuria which will include 10 or 12 English and
can accommodate as many likely lads as you can send out... I believe that
full political value can only be got from it (and that's a lot) if its English
contingent becomes stronger. 50 is not too many."

Maurice Thorez, the French Communist Party leader, also had the idea of
an international force of volunteers to fight for the Republic. Joseph Stalin
agreed and in September 1936 the Comintern began organising the
formation of International Brigades. An international recruiting centre was
set up in Paris and a training base at Albacete in Spain. Battalions
established included the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, British Battalion,
Connolly Column, Dajakovich Battalion, Dimitrov Battalion, Mackenzie-
Papineau Battalion, George Washington Battalion, Mickiewicz Battalion and
Thaelmann Battalion.

A total of 59,380 volunteers from fifty-five countries served during the

Spanish Civil War. This included the following: French (10,000), German
(5,000), Polish (5,000), Italian (3,350), American (2,800), British (2,000),
Canadian (1,000), Yugoslavian (1,500), Czech (1,500), Canadian (1,000),
Hungarian (1,000) and Scandinavian (1,000). These men were organized
into the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of the Mixed Brigades.

Men who fought with the Republican Army included George Orwell, André
Marty, Christopher Caudwell, Jack Jones, Len Crome, Oliver Law, Tom
Winteringham, Joe Garber, Lou Kenton, Bill Alexander, David Marshall,
Alfred Sherman, William Aalto, Hans Amlie, Bill Bailey, Robert Merriman,
Fred Copeman, Tom Murray, Steve Nelson, Walter Grant, Alvah Bessie,
Joe Dallet, David Doran, John Gates, Harry Haywood, Oliver Law, Edwin
Rolfe, Milton Wolff, Hans Beimler, Frank Ryan, Emilo Kléber, Ludwig Renn,
Gustav Regler, Ralph Fox, Sam Wild and John Cornford.

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Women were active supporters of the International Brigades. A large

number of women volunteered to serve in Medical Units in Spain during
the war. This included Annie Murray, Thora Silverthorne, Salaria Kea,
Mildred Rackley, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mary Valentine Ackland, Lillian
Urmston and Penny Phelps.

Volunteers came from a variety of left-wing groups but the brigades were
always led by Communists. This created problems with other Republican
groups such as the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and the
Anarchists.

International Brigade Flag International Brigade at Casa del Campo

The Hungarian Uprising of 1956

I don’t suppose you’ve bothered to read what

happened in Hungary?...What has happened to all
the comrades Sarah?...Why do I feel ashamed to use
words like democracy and freedom and
brotherhood?

Ronnie, Act Three, Scene Two, on the Hungarian

Uprising

Hungary in 1956 seemed to sum up all that the Cold War

stood for. The people of Hungary and the rest of Eastern
Europe were ruled over with a rod of iron by Communist
Russia and anybody who challenged the rule of Stalin and
Russia paid the price. The death of Stalin in 1953 did not
weaken the grip Moscow had on the people of Eastern
Europe and Hungary, by challenging the rule of Moscow,
paid such a price in 1956.

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From 1945 on the Hungarians were under the control of

Moscow. All wealth of whatever nature was taken from
Hungary by the Russians who showed their power by
putting thousands of Russian troops and hundreds of tanks
in Hungary. The Hungarian leader, Rakosi, was put in
power by Stalin of Russia. When Stalin died in 1953 all
people in Eastern Europe were given some hope that they
might be free from Soviet (Russian) rule.

In February 1956, the new Russian leader Khruschev made

a bitter attack on the dead Stalin and his policies and in
July 1956 in a gesture to the Hungarians, Rakosi was
forced to resign. In fact, the Hungarians had expected
more but they did not get it. This situation, combined with
1) a bad harvest 2) fuel shortages 3) a cold and wet
autumn all created a volatile situation.

On October 23rd 1956, students and workers took to the

streets of Budapest (the capital of Hungary ) and issued
their Sixteen Points which included personal freedom,
more food, the removal of the secret police, the removal of
Russian control etc. Poland had already been granted
rights in 1956 which had been gained by street protests
and displays of rebellion. Hungary followed likewise.

A ruined statue of Stalin in Budapest

Imre Nagy was appointed prime minister and Janos Kadar

foreign minister. They were thought to be liberal and in
Moscow this was felt to be the best way to keep happy the
"hooligans" as the Moscow media referred to the
protesters. As a gesture, the Red Army pulled out and
Nagy allowed political parties to start again. The most
famous man to criticise the Russians was released from
prison - Cardinal Mindszenty.

On October 31st, 1956, Nagy broadcast that Hungary

would withdraw itself from the Warsaw Pact. This was
pushing the Russians too far and Kadar left the
government in disgust and established a rival government
in eastern Hungary which was supported by Soviet tanks.
On November 4th, Soviet tanks went into Budapest to
restore order and they acted with immense brutality even
killing wounded people. Tanks dragged round bodies
through the streets of Budapest as a warning to others
who were still protesting.

Russian tanks in Budapest

Hundreds of tanks went into Budapest and probably

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30,000 people were killed. To flee the expected Soviet

reprisals, probably 200,000 fled to the west leaving all
they possessed in Hungary. Nagy was tried and executed
and buried in an unmarked grave. By November 14th,
order had been restore Kadar was put in charge. Soviet
rule was re-established.

Source: www.historylearningsite.co.uk

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6. Interview with Director Dominic Cooke
This revival of Chicken Soup is happening more than fifty years
after the play’s premiere, what was the drive or impetus to
produce it now?

Well, I came back into contact with the play about three years ago having
read it first when I was at university. I was really struck by, first of all,
what an extraordinary play it was about family, but I thought it would
particularly hit home now because of this central idea which is about the
loss of political idealism. Which, from the point of view of communists in
the 1950’s they’d experienced, but for most of us, it’s something we
experienced more recently - I’d say, from the sixties, depending on what
generation you are from, or even from the eighties (where at least there
was a stronger and clearer opposition on the left, a consensus). I thought
that feeling and that sense of doubt that the young man expresses at the
end, and confusion, would really hit home for people today. And I think it
has, especially the final lines of the play, I think it really speaks to people.

Can you tell me a little bit about the research that you and Ultz did
in preparing for the play?

One of the salient features of the play is how autobiographical it is. Arnold
Wesker was writing about family, about his own family. He is the young
man in the play. He is Ronnie. So we read Arnold Wesker’s autobiography
and discussed it, anything that was useful, and then we went to the two
homes that he lived in, which he put on stage.

The first one was in Fashion Street in the East End, just off Brick Lane and
the other one was in a council estate called Weald Square which is in
Clapton, Hackney, and we got into the flat (actually we got into the wrong
flat, it was the one directly above!) And we had a look… we were very
lucky with the way things turned out. We managed to get inside in the flat
in Fashion Street which was very instructive about the kind of space the
characters were in.

And we really based the stage sets very closely on those spaces. The first
one, the first flat was two rooms on the top floor of this flat, in this
building on Fashion Street. We got into the flat which was converted now
into a bed-sit, with a bathroom (there wasn’t a bathroom in those days)
and there was actually a picture by a guy called John Allen, a painting
which had the family, the actual Wesker family, in the picture. So some of
the details, like the original wallpaper and where the furniture was, and
things like that, we got from the picture.

In the text, when Arnold Wesker wrote the play, he did set it in an attic in
the first draft, and then John Dexter, the director of the original
production, thought it would be really good to see people’s feet running
past to indicate the riot. So he then asked Arnold to re-set it in a
basement, which Arnold - and there are houses around that area that did
have basements – agreed to do. But we wanted to set it back in the attic,
Chicken Soup with Barley Education Pack Royal Court Theatre

partly because that was the original setting, partly because we thought it
would be good to create the crowd through sound and through the actors
being able to look down.

The second flat was in Clapton. The character of Dave in the First Act is
based on Ralph, who is Arnold’s brother in law, and Ralph did a ground
plan of the original layout of the flat in Clapton because they’d rebuilt the
flat. It’s very different now so we wanted to get a sense of how the flat
actually was.

We did a lot of research into that. And then we also did a lot into period;
Ultz is very meticulous about detail and authenticity, so he did a lot of
research into period shapes for the costumes, the hair… and it’s very, very
thorough, the work that he did.

And when you got into these flats, what really struck you?

Well, I think the first thing that happens is, you actually go, ‘okay, this is
real lives that you’re putting on the stage’ because it is uniquely
autobiographical. Every writer uses their autobiography in different ways,
but some, more frequently what they do, they abstract it in their own
imagination so they’re not even aware they’re using it, whereas this is so
consciously autobiographical.

So the first time I went to see the flat on Fashion Street, I was reading
the autobiography at the time, and reading about the family in these
rooms, reading about sitting in the tin bath, reading about the life of
Arnold’s mother Leah, who is very much who Sarah is based on.

And it was very moving really. There’s a unique opportunity with this play
because you’ve got this extra information that’s not in the text, from
Arnold himself, from the real places, from the autobiographies of the
characters which really helped us in rehearsal. But the other thing is just
how small, especially Fashion Street was, for four people to live there for
a long time. (you can feel that on the stage) Yes, tiny space! (And the
number of people coming in and out) Yes, and in fact it was used, the
flat, for communist meetings, and the sense you get in the play, which is
why we did a lot of eating and drinking and preparing at the beginning, is
that her family, and the communist party, and – if you like – the workers,
are all one and the same to her. So her home is a public space.

That causes all sorts of problems for kids growing up, which is one of the
reasons why Ada is so angry at her. I think that’s often the case for
children of political activists, or probably, the case for children whose
parents work a lot, is that they feel angry that their needs weren’t met,
and the needs of other people were met instead, and we wanted to
capture that in that sense.

It was a unique experience, I’ve never had an experience like it, because
of that sense of autobiography. Because we were also rehearsing just two
streets away from Fashion Street, so we would walk by all the places that

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are mentioned in the play every day. Because Ultz is the kind of designer
he is, he really loved all that. He really enjoyed honouring that.

In your view, what idea drives Chicken Soup with Barley?

It’s difficult to say. I suppose, the obvious answer to that is the failure of
a political ideology played out through family life. That’s the core idea. But
with that comes the notion of political and personal things being at one.
Because they are a political family, it’s more apparent, but the notion that
our lives, political ideas, and political movements, and what’s happening
historically, are one and the same.

If you were to have to choose, would you say it’s Ronnie’s play, or
Sarah’s?

Sarah’s play, undoubtedly, it’s Sarah’s play. The play is about people
leaving Sarah, and Ronnie is one of the people that leaves, and he has the
climatic scene because she invests - as everyone leaves her, bit by bit,
one by one - she invests more and more hope in him. And in that there’s
that archetypal Jewish mother and son, the Jewish archetype… the
stereotype where the hopes of the mother are invested very, very
strongly in the son. And when she, in Act 2 Scene 2 she talks about the
failure of her husband (which of course, she does a lot) she says, ‘you
wont be like that, will you? you won’t?’ He has a terrible weight to carry,
it’s not really fair. He is the final person to threaten to leave.

But really the play is an investigation of her psyche, the psyche of a

fundamentalist, and a religious zealot. Its about a religion really, I mean,
it’s not a play about communism at all, I don’t think. That’s the dressing
of the play. It’s a play about how and why people believe what they
believe. She’s an emotional creature and her belief comes from an
emotion. It’s about a religious faith - you can’t prove it. opposite in the
Throughout her lifetime, it started to come out in the mid 50’s, about
Stalin and what had actually happened in the Soviet Union. She chose to
ignore that evidence… Stalin’s regime and the ideas of the party she was a
member of; murdered people on the street, murdered protestors, regular
people on the streets of Hungary, Budapest, protesting against oppressive
rule. Her heart really should be with those people and yet she’s chosen
not to… because her belief is in the concept of brotherhood.

How did that sort of idolatry feed into the family unit?

I think the family is like a fundamentalist state, and that’s one of the
reason it fails. It fails as a family because there is only one way of being
in that household, and the only way is not to be is to leave, is to go and
live in Norfolk, or Paris. Or desert the party. And that’s her problem, she’s
uncompromising. It’s why Harry leaves her, in a way, not physically, but
he does, by having the stroke and being unable to be what she wants him
to be. These things are played out, in her perfectionism and her idealism,
which it’s very hard for people to live with, with people like that.

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What do you hope the audience might take away, after seeing
Chicken Soup?

I think the play leaves you with very strong questions: Is there a way
forward from where we are now? Is there another big idea? Is there a way
of assimilating the principles behind Sarah’s belief - the idea that we are
all connected, if you like, the idea that there is a better way of us
organising our society that somehow takes on the lessons of the failures
of the communism movement? Is there a way of interpreting that for our
times? Because I think Wesker’s heart is very much with Sarah, even
though his head is not. It’s a very balanced argument, the argument at
the end, with all Ronnie’s doubts and his rejection of the simplicity of her
ideals, but at the same time she is given the last line of the play.

Her need to connect is interesting, given that she’s managing

express it in a way that pushes her family away.

The play shows it’s very difficult in practise, but is it a good principle? I
think a lot of people in collective endeavours sacrifice their personal lives
and relationships around them, and the people around them, in order to
achieve that goal. It’s quite a common thing that people who are good at
the public world aren’t so good at the private. But there’s a hopefulness in
the play - Arnold says this - the principles are noble principles. And how is
there a way of encouraging them?

At the moment, we are told by the environmental lobbyists, ‘if we don’t

care, we will die.’ So what is the way for us? It’s not an easy question to
ask or to answer, but I think the play asks that. Which is why I’m relieved
that people are getting it. When we first put it on in front of an audience, I
really worried that people weren’t getting it. That they would think it’s just
a play about a bunch of old communists in the 50’s, but who cares? But I
think people are reading beneath that, and seeing the bigger idea of the
play, because I think those questions are universal questions. They will
always speak to every time.

Is there a big idea that we can believe in that can help us move forward?
There isn’t much in the way of hope, is there, for big ideas? I mean, Big
Society doesn’t really seem to be catching on!

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7. CHICKEN SOUP WITH BARLEY - THEN and NOW

The Evening Standard Reviews from 1958 and 2011

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Chicken Soup with Barley is meticulous and impressive

By Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, 8 June 2011

When Arnold Wesker's play first appeared at the Royal Court in

1958, it was passionately acclaimed. Since then his star has
declined, to the point where his work is largely neglected -
although he was knighted in 2006. Here Dominic Cooke makes a
case for renewed interest in the now 79-year-old Wesker, reviving
this authentic portrait of a disintegrating Jewish family.

We follow the Kahns, who live in the East End, over the period from 1936,
when they confront Oswald Mosley's parading fascists, to 1956, when
Soviet tanks are trundling into Budapest.

Their relationships are tested, and so are their political commitments.

Doubt, apathy and material anxiety replace idealism and fervour - for all
except the bustling matriarch Sarah, who's forever brewing tea and trying
to preserve her family's integrity.

Many of the incidents that shape their lives happen far away - early on
there are repeated references to the Spanish Civil War - but world events
resonate domestically for the Kahns, who respond to the constant
churning of history with a vivid, argumentative emotion that reveals their
personal frailties.

There are two stunning performances: from Samantha Spiro, whose Sarah
is a nugget of vitality and a model of resilience, and from Danny Webb as
her feckless husband Harry, who shrivels unbearably as a result of two
strokes.

Among the support, the standout is Harry Peacock as a firebrand whose

spirit is snuffed out by prosperity.

The play itself has a deep core of humanity. Its title is a reference to a
memorable, evocative flavour that remains after everything else has gone
- a reminder of the warm, enduring nourishment afforded by friendships.

But Wesker's writing doesn't slip down easily. He depicts misery and
bleakness with great assurance, and there are flashes of humour but as
he makes connections between the personal and the political, the dialogue
often labours its significance. This feels didactic, and his characters can
appear too neatly illustrative of different strands of ideology.

In the Fifties, Wesker was applauded for bringing to the stage a stratum

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of working-class experience that was alien to most theatregoers.

Today, the substance of this family chronicle seems less novel, but it's a
lot more than just a dusty period piece, and Cooke's interpretation, with
an affectionately detailed design by Ultz, is meticulous and impressive.

In the Director’s Chair

The critics in 1958 and now in 2011 have found Chicken Soup with
Barley a moving play about the disintegration of a family. If you
were to direct Chicken Soup with Barley, how would your
production bring across the play’s ‘deep core of humanity’ cited by
Henry Hitchings while at the same time making it the sort of
‘urgent and passionate theatre’ mentioned by Milton Shulman?

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8. CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Drama Exercise

Characters’ Physical Centres and Internal Rhythms

Here is an exercise from Chicken Soup with Barley rehearsals that you can
try. In the first week of rehearsals it helped each actor develop their
character’s physicality.

Physical Centre

Begin by standing in a neutral position with hands down by your sides.

Close your eyes and decide what part of the body would be your
character’s centre. For example, if your character is very flirtateous, the
centre might be the eyelashes or if your character is a labourer, the centre
could be the forearms. Once you’ve decided, start walking around the
space, focusing your energy on that part of the body. Experiment with
moving at different speeds, but always being aware of your character’s
centre. After the exercise, feed back to the others in the group regarding
how your movement was affected and how the character’s physicality is
different from your own.

Internal Rhythm

Sit in a circle on the floor with the others in your group. You each take it
in turn to tap out a simple rhythm that shows the internal rhythm to
which you think your character moves through the day. After each person
has a go, the group can discuss what is revealed about each character
through these rhythms. Everyone then stands and experiments walking
around the room allowing their characters rhythm into influence their
movement.

Scene Study

Ask students to read the opening scene of Chicken Soup with Barley (up
to Monty’s entrance) in pairs, one person taking the part of Sarah and the
other the role of Harry. Once they’ve read it through, ask them decide the
following for Sarah and Harry:

1. What is each character’s objective in the scene?

2. What is preventing her/him from achieving this objective?

3. Does s/he overcome the obstacle/s and if so, what tactics does s/he
use to do so?

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9. EDUCATION AT THE ROYAL COURT

As the Royal Court is a centre for excellence and innovation in

theatre-making, the Education Department aims to stimulate and
inspire students of all ages, encouraging learning and participation
in every aspect of the theatre’s work, from the process of writing
plays to pioneering rehearsal room techniques.

We offer a wide-ranging programme of work designed to open up

and de-mystify the craft of making theatre. Royal Court Education
activities include:

Workshops for productions

INSET workshops for teachers
Post-show talks
Royal Court in a Day Study Day
Drama School in a Day Study Day
Performing Arts Business Study Day

A full description of all education events can be found on the

education pages of the Royal Court web-site,
www.royalcourttheatre.com. If you would like more information,
please e-mail Lynne Gagliano, Education Associate, at
[email protected] or phone 020 7565 5174.

For more information about Royal Court productions and the Young
Writers Programme, please visit our web-site,
www.royalcourttheatre.com.

The Chicken Soup with Barley Background Pack compiled and written by Lynne
Gagliano and Monique Sterling, June 2011. The Chicken Soup with Barley set
design by Ultz ©2011. Production photographs by Johan Pearsson © 2011.

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