Glasgow Repertory Theatre was a short-lived Scottish professional theatre founded in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

in 1909 by

Alfred Wareing Alfred John Wareing (26 October 1876 – 11 April 1942) was an English actor-manager. He was a pioneer of the repertory theatre in Britain and an authority on the plays of Shakespeare. Life and career Wareing was born in Greenwich, London on 26 ...

. Its aim, directly inspired by the example of

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the p ...

(which had brought its first tour to Glasgow in 1907 with plays by JM Synge and

WB Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

), was to break Scotland's theatrical dependence on

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Over the previous thirty years, Scottish theatrical activity had been increasingly dominated by touring London companies using transport by rail to bring their productions north, a situation that had effectively contributed to the demise of the country's own stock theatre companies, which had had growing success in the mid-nineteenth century. Starting with a season at the

Royalty Theatre, Glasgow The Royalty Theatre, Glasgow (later the Lyric Theatre) was a theatre in Glasgow at the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Renfield Street. It was built in 1879 as part of a development by the Central Halls Company chaired by David Rattray, and was ...

which commenced on 5 April 1909, Wareing created seasons of international European and English-language drama. Glasgow Repertory was, for example, the first theatre in Britain to produce a play by

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

(''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises th ...

''). It was however less successful in its aim also to produce native Scottish drama, though its company did mount some productions of new Scottish work. One of the ironies of the company's existence was its rejection in 1910 of Graham Moffat's

Scots Language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonl ...

comedy ''The Causey Saint'' which, under the title '' Bunty Pulls the Strings'', went on to become the box office smash hit of London's West End in 1911 and continued to win outstanding success on international tour. Glasgow Repertory folded in the autumn of 1914 with the theatre closures which took effect in Britain in the weeks immediately after the start of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

; this even though the company, in its final season, had broken even for the first time in financial terms. Although short-lived, the practical legacy of the Glasgow Repertory was important. The company's residual funds were used in 1921 to establish the

Scottish National Players Scottish National Players, founded in Glasgow c.1920 by figures such as playwright John Brandane, was a non-professional touring theatre company which had the aim to pioneer the establishment of a Scottish National Theatre along the lines of the ...

, and memory of its 'national' aspirations continued to inspire a growing movement for Scottish theatrical revival in the inter-war years. When

James Bridie James Bridie (3 January 1888 in Glasgow – 29 January 1951 in Edinburgh) was the pseudonym of a Scottish playwright, screenwriter and physician whose real name was Osborne Henry Mavor.Daniel Leary (1982) ''Dictionary of Literary Biography: ...

eventually established Citizens' Theatre in 1943, his principal direct model was Wareing's Glasgow Repertory.

References

Books

*Donald Campbell, ''Playing for Scotland, A History of the Scottish Stage 1715-1965'' (Edinburgh, 1996) *Bill Findlay (editor), ''A History of Scottish Theatre'' (Edinburgh, 1998) {{coord missing, Glasgow Theatres in Glasgow