Sir Arnold Wesker (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an
English drama
Drama was introduced to Britain from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose.
But England didn't exist until hundreds of years after the Romans left.
Medieval period
By the medieval period, t ...
tist. He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 20 languages, and performed worldwide.
Early life
Wesker was born in
Stepney
Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...
, London, in 1932,
the son of Leah (née Cecile Leah Perlmutter), a cook, and Joseph Wesker, a tailor's machinist and active communist.
Arnold Wesker was delivered by Samuel Sacks, father of neurologist
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in Britain, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the Uni ...
.
He attended a Jewish Infants School in
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...
. His education was then fragmented during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. He was briefly
evacuated to
Ely,
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...
, before returning to London where he attended Dean Street School during
the Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
. He then returned to live with his parents who had moved to a council flat in
Hackney, East London, where he attended Northwold Road School. He then attended Upton House Central School, Hackney, from 1943. This was a school where emphasis was placed on teaching office skills, including typing, to bright boys who however had not been selected for
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
places. He was then evacuated again to
Llantrisant,
South Wales.
[An education in the life of Arnold Wesker at ''The Independent''](_blank)
Retrieved 13 April 2016
He was accepted into the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...
but could not afford to take up his place there. Later, he served for two years in the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
, and then went on to work as cook, furniture maker, and bookseller.
After saving up enough money, he went to study at the London School of Film Technique, now known as the
London Film School
Career
His inspiration for 1957 play ''
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...
'', which was
later made into a film, came when he was working at the
Bell Hotel in Norwich.
It was while working here that he met his future wife Dusty.
Wesker's plays have dealt with themes including self-discovery, love, confronting death and political disillusion. ''
Chicken Soup with Barley
''Chicken Soup with Barley'' is a 1956 play by British playwright Arnold Wesker. It is the first of the 'Wesker trilogy' – being followed by ''Roots'' and ''I'm Talking About Jerusalem'' – and was first performed on stage in 1958 at the Bel ...
'' (1958) went out to the provinces. Rather than opening in the
West End, its premiere was seen at the provincial
Coventry Theatre
The Coventry Theatre was a 2,000-seat theatre located on Hales Street in Coventry, England. It opened in 1937 as the New Hippodrome and was renamed the Coventry Theatre in 1955. In 1979 it was purchased by businessman Paul Gregg and became the C ...
, a locale which typified Wesker's political views as an '
angry young man'.
Wesker's play ''
Roots
A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
Root or roots may also refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
'' (1959) was a
kitchen sink drama
Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose protagonists usually could be described as "angry young men" w ...
about a girl, Beatie Bryant, who returns after three years of stay in London to her farming family home at Norfolk and struggles to voice herself. Critics commended the "emotional authenticity" brought out in the play. ''Roots'', ''The Kitchen'', and ''Their Very Own and Golden City'' were staged by the English Stage Company at the
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
under the management of
George Devine
George Alexander Cassady Devine (20 November 1910 – 20 January 1966) was an English theatrical manager, director, teacher, and actor based in London from the early 1930s until his death. He also worked in TV and film.
Early life and education
...
and later
William Gaskill
William "Bill" Gaskill (24 June 1930 – 4 February 2016) was a British theatre director who was "instrumental in creating a new sense of realism in the theatre". Described as "a champion of new writing", he was also noted for his productions of B ...
.
Nuclear disarmament
Wesker joined with enthusiasm the Royal Court group on the
Aldermaston March
The Aldermaston marches were anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, taking place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of fifty- ...
in 1959. Another of the Royal Court contingent,
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for ...
, made a short documentary film (''March to Aldermaston'') about the event. He was an active member of the
Committee of 100 and, with other prominent members, was jailed in 1961 for his part in its campaign of mass nonviolent resistance to nuclear weapons.
Centre 42
After his stay in prison in 1961, Wesker made a full-time commitment to become the leader of an initiative which arose from Resolution 42 of the 1960
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances ...
, concerning the importance of arts in the community. Centre 42 was initially a touring festival aimed at devolving art and culture from London to the other main working class towns of Britain, moving to the
Roundhouse in 1964. The project to establish a permanent arts centre struggled through subsequent years, because its funding was limited; Wesker fictionalised it in his play ''Their Very Own and Golden City'' (1966). He formally dissolved the project in 1970, although The Roundhouse did eventually open as a permanent arts centre in 2006.
Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative
Wesker co-founded, in 1974, the
Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd, with a group of writers that included
John Berger
John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...
,
Lisa Appignanesi
Lisa Appignanesi (born Elżbieta Borensztejn; 4 January 1946) is a British-Canadian writer, novelist, and campaigner for free expression. Until 2021, she was the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a former President of English PEN ...
,
Richard Appignanesi
Richard Appignanesi (born December 20, 1940) is a Canadian writer and editor. He was the originating editor of the internationally successful illustrated '' For Beginners'' book series (since 1991 called the '' Introducing...'' series), as well ...
,
Chris Searle
Chris Searle (born 1 January 1944) is a British educator, poet, anti-racist activist and socialist. He has written widely on cricket, language, jazz, race and social justice, and has taught in Canada, England, Tobago, Mozambique and Grenada. He h ...
and
Glenn Thompson.
Later works
''The Journalists'' (1972) was commissioned by the
Royal Shakespeare Company and researched at ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' at a time it when was edited by
Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew Evans (28 June 192823 September 2020) was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title ''The Times'' for a year f ...
. The RSC's literary manager Ronald Bryden thought it would be "the play of the decade" and it was scheduled to be directed by
David Jones.
The actors in that year's RSC company refused to perform it, Wesker claimed, because they were under the influence of the
Workers Revolutionary Party.
(The WRP was not founded until 1973, but its forerunner, the Socialist Labour League had many sympathisers in the RSC.)
Wesker wrote in 2004 that he had also "committed the politically incorrect crime of creating Tory ministers who were intelligent rather than caricatures".
Wesker's play ''
The Merchant'' (1976), which he later renamed ''
Shylock'', uses the same three stories used by Shakespeare for his play ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
''.
In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are fast friends bound by a common love of books, culture and a disdain for the crass antisemitism of the Christian community's laws. They make the bond in defiant mockery of the Christian establishment, never anticipating that the bond might become forfeit. When it does, the play argues, Shylock must carry through on the letter of the law or jeopardize the scant legal security of the entire Jewish community. He is, therefore, quite as grateful as Antonio when Portia, as in Shakespeare's play, shows the legal way out.
The play received its American premiere on 16 November 1977 at New York's Plymouth Theatre with
Joseph Leon as Shylock,
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes (August 23, 1928 – October 6, 2014) was an American actress. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for '' A Delicate Balance'' in 1967, and received subsequent nomination ...
as Shylock's sister Rivka and
Roberta Maxwell
Roberta Farnham Maxwell (born June 17, 1941) is a Canadian stage, film, and television actress.
Biography
Maxwell began studying for the stage in her early teens. She joined John Clark for two years as the child co-host of his '' Junior Magaz ...
as Portia. This production had a challenging history in previews on the road, culminating (after the first night out of town in Philadelphia on 8 September 1977) with the death of the exuberant Broadway star
Zero Mostel, who was initially cast as Shylock.
Wesker wrote a book, ''The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel'', chronicling the entire process from initial submissions and rejections of the play through to rehearsals, Zero's death, and the disappointment of the critical reception for the Broadway opening. The book reveals much about the playwright's relationship to director
John Dexter
John Dexter (2 August 1925 – 23 March 1990) was an English theatre, opera and film director.
Theatre
Born in Derby, Derbyshire, England, Dexter left school at the age of fourteen to serve in the British Army during the Second World War. F ...
(who had been the earliest, near-familial interpreter of Wesker's works), to criticism, to casting, and to the ephemeral process of collaboration through which the text of any play must pass.
In 2005, he published his first novel, ''Honey'', which recounted the experiences of Beatie Bryant, the heroine of his earlier play ''Roots''. The novel broke from the previously established chronology. ''Roots'' was set in the early 1960s and Beatie is 22; but in ''Honey'' she has only aged three years yet the action has been transplanted into the 1980s. Other oddities are that the timeframe includes the
Rushdie affair
The ''Satanic Verses'' controversy, also known as the Rushdie Affair, was a controversy sparked by the 1988 publication of Salman Rushdie's novel '' The Satanic Verses''. It centered on the novel's references to the Satanic Verses of the Qu ...
and
John Major's fall as recent events and yet the action is concerned with the
dotcom boom
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
.
In 2008, Wesker published his first collection of poetry, ''All Things Tire of Themselves'' (Flambard Press). The collection dates back many years and represents what he considered his best and most characteristic poems. He was a member of the editorial advisory board of ''
Jewish Renaissance
''Jewish Renaissance'' is a quarterly cultural magazine, founded in October 2001, covering Jewish culture, arts and communities in Britain and beyond. It is edited by Rebecca Taylor, a former News Editor at '' Time Out London''.
Scope and con ...
'' magazine.
He was a patron of the
Shakespeare Schools Festival
Please note: Shakespeare Schools Festival became Shakespeare Schools Foundation in 2016. The Festival is the charity's flagship project.
The Shakespeare Schools Festival is the world's largest youth drama festival. Schools who participate perfor ...
, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.
He was the castaway on ''
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usua ...
'',
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, on in 1966 and again in 2006.
Archive
Wesker's papers, covering his entire career, were acquired by the
Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
in 2000. The collection contains not only the prolific output of the playwright, novelist and poet but also is framed within the larger historical context of international events. Wesker was actively involved in the organizing of his archive, and before shipping it to the Ransom Center, Wesker compiled a list of the contents, which is also available to scholars for consultation. The collection's contents include over three hundred boxes of manuscript drafts, correspondence, production ephemera, personal records, and other materials. Wesker's family shipped the last of his papers to the Ransom Center in March, 2016 shortly before his death.
On 13 April 2016, the Leader of the Opposition,
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
, gave thanks for the playwright's life. They shared a socialist background in London, where Corbyn is an MP.
I am sure the whole House will join me in mourning the death of the dramatist Arnold Wesker, one of the great playwrights of this country, one of those wonderful angry young men of the 1950s who, like so many angry young people, changed the face of our country.
The BBC repeated in May 2016 the retrospective radio programme on Wesker's career first broadcast at his 80th birthday.
Personal life
Wesker married Doreen Bicker in 1958. The character Beatie, in the so-called "Wesker trilogy" of plays, was inspired by Doreen, a chambermaid at The Bell Hotel, Norwich, where Wesker was working as a kitchen porter. He gave her the nickname of "Dusty", because of her "gold-dust" hair; an
Arts Council bursary of £500 covered the cost of their marriage.
The couple had three children Lindsay, Tanya and Daniel. Lindsay was named after director
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for ...
. Tanya died in 2012. Wesker also had another daughter Elsa, with Swedish journalist, Disa Håstad.
He was grandfather to Swedish rapper
Yung Lean Yung may refer to:
* Yung (surname), Chinese surname
* Yung Joc, (born Jasiel Robinson in 1983), an American rapper
* Yung Wun, (born James Carlton Anderson in 1982), an American rapper
* Yung Berg, (born Christian Ward in 1985), an American rappe ...
.
Wesker died on 12 April 2016. He was suffering from
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
.
Awards and honours
![Sir Arnold Wesker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Sir_Arnold_Wesker.jpg)
Wesker received numerous awards throughout his career. In 1958 he received grant of 300 for the play ''Chicken Soup'' from the
Arts Council of Great Britain.
He used the money to marry Bicker.
The following year he won the
''Evening Standard'' Theatre Award in the "Most Promising Playwright" category.
He was presented with the Italian
Marzotto Prize (a cash award of £3000) in 1964 for ''Their Very Own and Golden City'', and the Spanish Best Foreign Play Award in 1979. He became a fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature in 1985 and was presented with the
Goldie Award in 1987. For his "distinguished service to theatre" he was honoured with the
Last Frontier Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.
He was
knighted in the
2006 New Year Honours.
In December 2021 a plaque in Wesker's memory was installed at his former primary school, Northwold Road, Hackney, London, by the
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) is an American non-profit 501(c)(3) volunteer historical society. The society locates sites of American and Jewish historical interest and importance. It works with local community org ...
Works
The following list is drawn from Arnold Wesker's official website.
; Plays
*''
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...
'', 1957
*''
Chicken Soup with Barley
''Chicken Soup with Barley'' is a 1956 play by British playwright Arnold Wesker. It is the first of the 'Wesker trilogy' – being followed by ''Roots'' and ''I'm Talking About Jerusalem'' – and was first performed on stage in 1958 at the Bel ...
'', 1958
*''
Roots
A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
Root or roots may also refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
'', 1959
*''I'm Talking about Jerusalem'', 1960
*''Menace'', 1961 (for television)
*''
Chips with Everything'', 1962
*''The Nottingham Captain'', 1962
*''Four Seasons'', 1965
*''Their Very Own and Golden City'', 1966
*''
The Friends'', 1970
*''The Old Ones'', 1970
*''The Journalists'', 1972
*''The Wedding Feast'', 1974
*''
The Merchant'', 1976
*''Love Letters on Blue Paper'', 1976
*''One More Ride On The Merry-Go-Round'', 1978
*''Phoenix'', 1980
*''Caritas'', 1980
*''Voices on the Wind'', 1980
*''Breakfast'', 1981
*''Sullied Hand'', 1981
*''Four Portraits – Of Mothers'', 1982
*''Annie Wobbler'', 1982
*''Yardsale'', 1983
*''Cinders'', 1983
*''Whatever Happened to Betty Lemon?'', 1986
*''When God Wanted a Son'', 1986
*''Lady Othello'', 1987
*''Little Old Lady & Shoeshine'', 1987
*''Badenheim 1939'', 1987
*''Shoeshine'', 1987
*''The Mistress'', 1988
*''Beorhtel's Hill'', 1988 (community play for
Basildon
Basildon ( ) is the largest town in the borough of Basildon, within the county of Essex, England. It has a population of 107,123. In 1931 the parish had a population of 1159.
It lies east of Central London, south of the city of Chelmsford and ...
)
*''Men Die Women Survive'', 1990
*''Letter To A Daughter'', 1990
*''Blood Libel'', 1991
*''Wild Spring'', 1992
*''Bluey'', 1993
*''The Confession'', 1993
*''Circles of Perception'', 1996
*''Break, My Heart'', 1997
*''Denial'', 1997
*''Barabbas'', 2000
*''The Kitchen Musical'', 2000
*''Groupie'', 2001
*''Longitude'', 2002
*''The Rocking Horse'', 2008 (commissioned by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
World Service)
*''Joy and Tyranny'', 2011
; Fiction
*''Six Sundays in January'', Jonathan Cape, 1971
*''Love Letters on Blue Paper'', Jonathan Cape, 1974
*''Said the Old Man to the Young Man'', Jonathan Cape, 1978
*''Fatlips'', Writers and Readers Harper & Row, 1978
*''The King's Daughters'', Quartet Books, 1998
*''Honey'', Pocket Books, 2006
; Non-fiction
*''Distinctions'', 1985 (collection of essays)
*''Fears of Fragmentation'', Jonathan Cape, 1971
*''Say Goodbye You May Never See Them Again'', Jonathan Cape, 1974
*''Journey Into Journalism'', Writers & Readers, 1977
*''The Dusty Wesker Cook Book'', Chatto & Windus, 1987
*''As Much as I Dare'', Century Random House, 1994 (Autobiography)
*''The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel'', Quartet Books, 1997
*''Wesker On Theatre'', 2010 (collection of essays)
*''Ambivalences'', Oberon Books, 2011
*''Ambivalences'', Oberon Books, 2011
*''Chambers Biographical Dictionary'' (Chambers, Edinburgh, 2002)
*''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford 2004)
*
*De Ornellas, ''Kevin. Focus on 'The Wesker Trilogy, Greenwich Exchange Press, 2020.
. ''
''. Broadcast on ''
'', 17 December 2006; repeated 22 December 2006.