UK theatre director Hall dies aged 86

Supremely self-confident

LONDON, Sept 12, (Agencies): Leading British theatre Director founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, has died at the age of 86, the National Theatre said on Tuesday.

Hall died on Monday at University College Hospital, London, surrounded by his family, the theatre said in a statement.

“Peter Hall was an internationally celebrated stage director and theatre impresario, whose influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled”, it added.

Hall’s career spanned more than half a century. In his mid-20s he staged the English language premiere of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and in 1960, aged 29, he founded the Royal Shakespeare Company which he led until 1968.

Appointed Director of the National Theatre in 1973, Hall was responsible for the move from the Old Vic theatre to its current home in a purpose-built complex on the South Bank of the

Hall

River Thames.

His work as a theatre director included the world premieres of Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” (1965), Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” (1979) and the London and Broadway premieres of Alan Ayckbourn’s “Bedroom Farce” (1977). His last production at the National Theatre was “Twelfth Night” in 2011.

Hall, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2011, was also an internationally renowned opera director and worked at many of the world’s leading houses including The Royal Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and Bayreuth.

Hall was born in November, 1930, the son of a railway station-master in rural Suffolk.

Modern

From his local grammar school he won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge University, where he often used the cheap railway passes to which his father’s occupation entitled him to visit the bright lights of London’s theatre world.

At the age of 23 he presented his first professional production.

He became assistant director at London’s small Arts Theatre in 1954, taking over the directorship a year later. He began to make his name with a series of controversial modern plays, including “Waiting for Godot”.

In that production, Hall chose to portray the two leading characters as tramps — although there is no mention of this in the text — and directly affected almost every subsequent production of the play.

Hall was married four times. In 1956, he hit the society columns when he married French actress Leslie Caron, star of the film “Gigi”. The couple had a son and a daughter before their divorce in 1965.

Later that year, Hall married Jacqueline Taylor, his former secretary. The couple divorced in 1981 and Hall, who was knighted in 1977, married American opera singer Maria Ewing in February 1982.

His last marriage was to scrptwriter Nicky Frei.

National Theatre director Rufus Norris said in a statement: “We all stand on the shoulders of giants and Peter Hall’s shoulders supported the entirety of British theatre as we know it.

“All of us, including those in the new generation of theatre-makers not immediately touched by his influence, are in his debt. His legendary tenacity and vision created an extraordinary and lasting legacy for us all”.

Influential

Passionate, prolific and supremely selfconfident, Hall was one of the most influential figures in British theater since World War II. Richard Eyre, one of his successors at the National Theatre, said he “created the template of the modern director — part magus, part impresario, part celebrity”.

He led the National until 1988, directing productions including his own adaptation of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, the premieres of Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” and “Betrayal” and Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus”, which went on to take Broadway by storm.

He directed acting greats including Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins in a 1987 “Anthony and Cleopatra”, Dustin Hoffman in “The Merchant of Venice” in 1989 and Dench again in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 2010.

He helmed his own Peter Hall Company between 1988 and 2011, led the Rose Theatre Kingston when it opened in 2003, and was director of the Glyndebourne opera festival between 1984 and 1990.

His opera work also included productions for the Royal Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, where he staged Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” in 1983 to mark the centenary of the composer’s death.

His final production at the National Theatre was “Twelfth Night” in 2011. He was diagnosed with dementia shortly afterward.

Nicholas Hytner, who led the National Theatre between 2003 and 2015, called Hall “the great theatrical buccaneer of the 20th century”.

“Without him there would have been no Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre’s move to the South Bank might have ended in ignominious failure, and the whole idea of the theater as a public service dedicated both to high seriousness and popularity would not have seized the public imagination”, Hytner said.

Hall is survived by his fourth wife Nicki, six children, including director Edward Hall and actress Rebecca Hall, and nine grandchildren.