ELSIE GREEN, MBE (1904-1997)
Elsie Green, MBE was Director of the Polesden Lacey Open Air Theatre for 36 years. She was also drama therapist at Horton Hospital, Epsom, and an inspiration to many budding performers, some of whom went on to successful careers on stage and screen. Four years before her death she was interviewed at her Epsom home.
Interview date: 28 October 1993
Location: St Martin’s Avenue, Epsom
Interviewer: Edwina Vardey
Early years
I was born in a pub off Lisson Grove, Marylebone, London in 1904. Only beer was sold, the customers being mainly draymen who delivered goods arriving at Marylebone Station. I can remember the lovely large shire horses driving through the streets, which were sometimes covered with snow, when one of the wealthier residents lay ill or dying. My sister, seven years my senior, was constantly ill and was sent away to boarding school in Margate, principally to get the benefit of the sea air. When I was born, my mother, who was French, arranged for a 16-year-old French girl, Louisa, to be sent over from a farm in Normandy to take full charge of me. This was fortunate for me because both my parents worked ungodly hours in the pub and were not in the least bit interested in me anyway. They seemed to be constantly quarrelling. Dear Louisa. I remember her only vaguely but with love and always it seemed in Regents Park. What better garden for one’s first playground? I can remember my bedroom, lit not only by a candle but by the waff of Players used by the stallholders in the street below. My father was the youngest son of a farmer’s large family and at an early age was put into service, eventually becoming valet to Lord Caernarvon. He was tall and handsome with an instinctive taste for good food, wine, hand-made clothes, hand-made shoes and, it seems, pretty women. A bon viveur and a true Edwardian. My mother was French and a trained dressmaker who left France to break away from her fiancé, an unrepentant alcoholic. She became lady’s maid to Lady Caernarvon. My mother and farther met while travelling on the Riviera with Lord and Lady Caernarvon. Only such a romantic setting could have triggered off such an unsuitable match as theirs turned out to be. When my sister was on the way they undertook the management of their first pub in Soho which provided them both with a home and a job. My mother hated it but my father, an affable man, became a popular host to all his customers. My poor mother became obsessed with the necessity for fresh air so the next move for my unwanted arrival was to Marylebone with its proximity to Regents Park. When it was time for me to go to school my mother, with shrewd profiteering instinct, insisted that my father bought a small house in Hampstead so that I could go to school there and have daily healthy walks on Hampstead Heath. Louisa returned to France and I remember being utterly devastated by her departure, spending the first week at school sobbing with my head on the desk. I can still remember the smell of the ink-stained wood mingled with my tears. By the time I had learned to love my teacher it was time to move up a class. Again, utter desolation and so it went on.
Introduction to theatre
However, there was always Friday night to look forward to when my mother and I returned from a grim, although I suppose healthy, life in Hampstead to the lively pub which, joy of joys, exhibited play bills for the Coliseum and the Met in the Edgware Road, a variety playhouse where my father used to take me to see brilliant performers like Marie Lloyd, George Robey and Nellie Wallace, Dan Leno and many others.
How proud I was to be taken by my father to this red-carpeted, golden-tiered palace full of unhealthy tobacco smoke and see such engaging talent and to be one of the loyal and enthusiastic audience. Although I did not understand the blue jokes that set the audience on a roar, I felt that here was real communication between audience and performers. In fact we were all one happy family. What a lot [that] television actors miss.
The other great perk from displaying play bills was constant visits to the Coliseum. Half of the evening was devoted to variety turns and the second half was given over to Diaghilev’s Russian ballet. This opened up another world to me. The manager, a friend of my father’s, would allow me to stand on the wings. How well I remember seeing Karsavina dance, with the great impresario himself waiting in the wings holding an ermine cloak ready to wrap around the ballerina at the end of a wonderful performance with its host of curtain calls. I can still smell the Russian perfume which seemed to change the air. I saw Nijinsky do his famous leap out of the window, Le Spectre de la Rose and many other great dances.
The world of the theatre in all its aspects seemed to me like a magic box with all its treasures just waiting to be revealed. Life was no longer grim and lonely but wonder, with unknown marvels still to be discovered. The next high spot was seeing Pavlova dance. Her dying swan haunted me and thereafter I could think of nothing but working to become a ballerina assoluta. I attended ballet school for many years, run by Helen May. No-one could have worked harder than I but alas I did not progress very well. The reason was varicose veins. My father then admitted that both of his sisters, whom I’d never met, had been similarly afflicted at an early age.
Giving up ballet was a heart-breaking experience but happily was soon replaced by a passion for the theatre. Gerald Du Maurier in Dear Brutus was the first play I saw apart from the annual pantomime and Peter Pan. From then on a school-friend and I used to sit in the front row at the gallery of the Old Vic every Saturday where we saw actors like Ernest Milton, Harcourt Williams, the young John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave play opposite Edith Evans and others. How different Shakespeare acted at the Vic compared with the one read at school. The magic of the verse interpreted by such incomparable actors was intoxicating.
How I became a Director
So from then on I became obsessed with the desire to become an actress. I studied at the Guildhall but failed in the final diploma examination. I was in despair when quite by chance I dropped into a speech training class run by the late Clifford Turner in the City Literary Institute in London. Here I thought was my salvation. This Greek god with a wonderful voice. I stayed behind after class and said to him: “I’m going in for my final examination again in three weeks time and I know that I shall fail again unless you help me.” His reply was: “Come on Sunday morning.” I duly went to his flat and did my pieces. He shook his head and said: “No, that is not the way. You must hang on to the poet’s tail and never let go.” After three weeks of sheer bliss studying under him I passed my final exam with distinction.
Then of course I wanted to learn how to direct a play. So I asked Mr Walmingshaw, the principal of the Mary Ward Settlement in Russell Square, London, whether if a group of experienced actors could be assembled he would agree to Mr Clifford Turner of the Central School of Speech Training being appointed as producer for plays to be included in the repertory of the Tavistock Little Theatre. This was agreed to and I became Clifford’s assistant.
All too soon, however, Clifford was sent all over the country on an adjudication tour and I was offered the job of director of plays at the Tavistock Little Theatre in his stead. I refused, feeling too inexperienced and quite inadequate. However, Mr Walmingshaw persuaded me to overcome my fears and that is how it all began.
Theatre in wartime
The Tavistock Little Theatre was an amateur theatre with an enormous membership of experienced actors working under several professional directors, producing a different play each week for its loyal audience at very low prices. Maud Scott managed the theatre in my time, a lady of catholic taste so that every aspect of drama was presented from Greek plays to bedroom farces. I had the good fortune to work on The Ascent of F6 by Auden and Isherwood with incidental music played by Donald Swann and John Amis, and also Murder in the Cathedral by T S Eliot and many of George Bernard Shaw’s plays. I was in the process of directing Rex Warner’s translation of The Trojan Women when the bombing in London became very serious which, though giving the play particular poignancy, necessitated the closure of the theatre.
I was evacuated with my young son to Epsom, Surrey, where I formed the Epsom Drama Group composed mostly of young men and women from the Land Army. At this time it was forbidden to use halls for public performances so we performed Everyman and Murder in the Cathedral in churches throughout Surrey. We toured many other plays in Surrey and in North Wales, Criccieth, Porthmadog, Pengelly Caernarvonshire. I actually played Shaw’s Candida myself on one occasion. I was a lecturer at Bangor University.
Polesden Lacey – The Start
After the war at Polesden Lacey a performance of Merry England was given as part of the 1953 Festival of Britain [sic]. The director then left the district and the Bookham Community Association were looking for another director. The chairman of the association, the late Mrs Harrison who had seen my work at Tavistock Little Theatre finally tracked me down at Epsom and asked me whether I would direct As You Like It at the Polesden Lacey Open Air Theatre the following summer. I was terrified, never having worked in the open air before, but flattered and intrigued enough to agree. The following day in a mild snow storm I staggered to Polesden Lacey in search of the theatre. It was a plateau covered in snow and surrounded by magnificent trees. A wonderful sight and an irresistible challenge.
The following spring an audition date was fixed and I was lucky enough to find Ron Kirkwood and others who spoke Shakespeare’s verse as though it was their natural language. Rehearsals proceeded happily with no set, only hessian wings. As the theatre seats 2000, splendid amplification was installed but no lighting. By the end of the play it was dusk with a touch of magic, the
surrounding meadow being lit by masses of glow-worms. They have never appeared since. I suppose they must have been trodden to death by the home going audiences. But this was the beginning for me of 37 years of summer Shakespeare.
In 1964, 1965 and 1967 we were invited to give two performances of our Polesden productions at Chichester Festival Theatre in aid of their development fund. For Saturday rehearsals, we were housed in a disused pub with mattresses and blankets provided by the WVS. We worked with minimum scenery. In a dream, I remember my resourceful stage manager covering the enormous thrust stage with polythene and real grass turfs which at the end were distributed among the front of house resident staff for their gardens. The resident electrician, Bill Beauvoir, contributed enormously with his imaginative lighting.
For the first 21 years at Polesden no play was repeated. At the beginning the audience numbered 1500 but by the time I retired they were 20,000. For the last few years Polesden has become a festival including, in addition to Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, ballet, old time music hall and top concerts. A magnificent feat of organisation on the part of the local committee. Facilities for the theatre have been developed, elaborate sets designed, and a high degree of efficiency has been achieved.
Working with mental patients
At the same time as working at Polesden Lacey for the National Trust I also worked through drama with mentally disturbed patients at various mental hospitals. It was for this work, and my work with the National Trust, that I was awarded the MBE in December 1977.
From my long association with mental patients a few events stand out in my mind with special vividness. The most spectacular was when we decided to give a rehearsed reading of the play Everyman, in necessity minimal costume, before an audience comprised of other patients, doctors and staff. I was brought in to do this because one of the enthusiastic members of the Fabian group was a highly intelligent ex-member of the RAF and an extrovert psychopath to boot. With no job at all he learned the leading role which he played superbly.
The part of Good Deeds was played by a beautiful young girl yet sadly violent and schizophrenic with a penchant for breaking windows. To the strains of a Bach fugue I had the actors walk slowly through the audience and then up on to the stage with Good Deeds lying on a rostrum, placed draped in a simple hospital sheet, her golden hair cascading over the rostrum. There she lay, still and relaxed until it was time for her to read. It seemed to me a miracle.
When the play was over, our ex-airman, Everyman, presented all the members of the cast and myself with a carnation, As he never had any money, I suspect, true to his psychopathic and moral standards of ethics he had been to the market that morning and nicked them.
On another occasion one of the doctors suggested I should take Sam, who had been a superb carpenter, up to Polesden where he could help build the set. Thereafter for some weeks on Sundays I drove him from the hospital to the site where he worked happily with backstage crew until rehearsal was over. I realised that he would have missed his supper so we used to stop at a pub on the way back to the hospital for his pint and pork pie. He loved this and admitted that during the intervening weekdays he felt lonely for the first time in years, missing the companionship of the other set-builders. Then after a few weeks to my sorrow he told me that his voices had warned him against coming any more as they said he might do something he would be sorry for. I expressed my sorrow but accepted his – or rather their – decision. When I mentioned all this to his doctor she said casually: “Oh didn’t I tell you he’s a potential killer. He probably thought his voices might tell him to kill you nicely before the demons made a mess of the job.” Poor Sam. We used to smile at each other rather wanly after meeting in the corridors after that. Mercifully he has now died.
Psychopaths and others
One very happy experience was the regular attendance of Doris at one of my hospital classes. She had a degree and had been a teacher but for some years had been absolutely silent, no-one at the hospital ever having heard her speak. However I always included her when allocating parts in the plays we read, saying: “Don’t worry if you don’t feel like it.” She seemed quite happy just to follow the play. Then suddenly after many weeks she actually read her lines quite beautifully. I asked her afterwards what had given rise to this release. She said: “Well Miss Green, I think it was because you always made me feel that I was a member of the group.” Her recovery started from that day. She slowly regained her confidence and was duly discharged from hospital. She is now working again, not as a teacher but as a housekeeper to a vicar.
For about two years I worked with a group of psychopaths who had been condemned for certain crimes and were “doing time” at hospital. I was warned that they might be tough so it was with some trepidation that I entered the room for the first time. They had been told that someone was coming to read and talk about plays with them and they were, I am sure, expecting a lovely young actress to turn up because on my entry the ringleader said: “Gee, who’s this old bag they’ve sent up?” Whereupon I replied: “You fuck off, piss off or shutup” (something more seemly), to which he said: “Coo, boys, she’s one of us.” After that I had no trouble at all. I expressly took roles along which I thought might arouse their social consciences, Galsworthy’s Silver Box, One Door for the Rich, Another for the Poor, Strike, The Stubbornness of the Capitalist Boss and the Union Leader, Leading to Tragedy for Both Parties, advocating the need for discussion and compromise. Ernst Toller’s Masses and Mann’s The Right to Strike. They were enthusiastic and read with gusto. We all became very friendly. But I’m afraid my pathetic attempt at spiritual enlightenment was not very successful. When some of them were about to be discharged I enquired what they were going to do on release. “Well, go back to crime of course. Who wants a nine to five job?” Who indeed.
On another occasion a quite well known actress came into the hospital for treatment for a time. It was with some apprehension that I viewed her arrival at class. I felt she would intimidate the others by her expertise and that she would be bored by their lack of it. Nothing of the kind. She intuitively scaled her reading down and the others rose to the occasion.
I’ve often been touched by the instinctive sympathy which patients have for each other, accepting each other’s idiosyncracies and abnormalities quite naturally. The so-called sane have much to learn from the so-called mad.
After Polesden Lacey
In 1988 I was invited by the Friends of the Shakespeare Theatre in the gardens of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris to view the theatre and to attend a reception given in my honour. The theatre must surely be the most beautiful open air theatre in the world, being built on various levels enabling all of Shakespeare’s plays to be performed. All the flowers, shrubs and trees mentioned in the plays flourish there, even to a willow growing aslant a brook. All is lovingly cared for by the state. It was originally created to replace the bust of Shakespeare which stood there only to be removed ultimately by the order of Hitler. I was guest of honour at a splendid [mildly cut?] dinner and was asked to give a talk about Polesden on Paris radio.
On retiring from Polesden I founded Evergreen Productions and presented Murder in the Cathedral, St Joan and Othello at various venues in Surrey and at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Bankside, Southwark, London, in aid of Shakespeare’s Globe building fund. I hope to be directing King Lear there next spring. One of the most gratifying things about my work with Shakespeare is that ……for some of my actors it has been a springboard for a career in the professional theatre.
Giving advice
One delightful experience occurred when an enlightened schoolteacher at a local girls private school asked me to give a talk to the B stream in the sixth form, in other words the less bright who were not going on to university. She felt that having come from comfortable middle class homes to a comfortable school, they should be made aware of the seamier side of life. She asked me to give a talk about my work with mental patients.
The girls had seen some of my productions at Polesden and seemed intrigued at the prospect of hearing about my other activities. I gave them a brief resume of my work and then sat back and let them talk. They were charming but so vulnerable. One lass said: “When I go for an interview I never seem to make a good impression.” My advice was: “Don’t be in a hurry to reply. Look your interviewers in the eye and don’t forget, they need you just as much as you need them or rather their approval. They are being paid to interview you. It’s part of their job. Having given yourself a slight pause and taken a deep breath, then make your reply. You will see how your confidence has improved, having given yourself time to clarify what you have to say. So much better than blustering in with something ill considered.”
At the end, one lass said: “Isn’t it great to think that compromise can be turned to advantage.” I thought that just about summed my life’s experience. I told them how I came upon hospital work quite by chance having been invited to give a talk on drama by the education officer in charge of several hospitals. A different speaker was invited each month. I went with some trepidation, armed with copies of The Importance of Being Earnest, hoping that a short talk on Wilde, followed by a reading of perhaps one act of the play, would fill the bill. I need not have worried. As I went into the room to meet 20 or more patients, three hands waved a greeting: “Hi Miss Green”. These patients had previously acted with me at the Tavistock Little Theatre. The ice was broken and we had a great time. Shortly afterwards I was invited to do this sort of work at four different hospitals on a regular weekly basis. The word had got around.
I remember in particular one neurotic patient amongst the group, suffering mostly from chronic depression. He told me that he wanted to write film scripts. Could I help him get an introduction? I said no but advised him to try to get work in a film studio, scrubbing the floor, tea-boy – anything – and then to keep his eyes and ears open. He was horrified and said: “What about my right to happiness?” I replied: What makes you think you have a right to happiness? You must work your passage.” Incidentally he is now quite a successful playwright. Many years later he met a friend of mine who wrote to me quoting what he had said about me. “She was like a beacon in the very dark days of my life. I shall always be thankful. I mean that from the bottom of my heart because in those days there was no-one. They were the darkest days of my life. She was wonderful. She pointed the way and God knows there was little light in those days.” I hope not to be thought immodest, quoting this but you see it is the only accolade I have ever had.
Personal life & Shakespear’s Globe
What about your husband?
We were both pacifists which was why we moved to Surrey because we had friends who were also pacifists. During the war he got a splendid job in the rest centre service in London in the thick of the bombing and he loved it. I think he wanted to prove to himself that he was not a coward. After just clerical work in local government to be in charge of a rest centre was really living.
So now you’ve got Evergreen Productions.
Yes, I’m working on Lear for Sam Wanamaker’s building fund. We love going there because the Globe Theatre is small but so intimate and it is built more or less as a replica of Shakespeare’s stage. For us it is something very very special.
He has had a lot of struggle with that but it is his life.
Yes, most definitely.
Do you miss Polesden?
At first I did but some of the older members of the group who had been with me for years were all well over 60 and just wouldn’t lie down and wanted me to carry on. I despise old ladies who resign and keep on making comebacks but they bullied me and we so enjoyed working together as a hobby for all of us. I never make it impossible for them to go back to Polesden because we are almost finished by the spring so ready for the auditions. So it is a sort of occupational therapy for us all.
Do you go to other people’s productions of Shakespeare?
I go everywhere, I see literally everything. I always have because it is the only way you can pick up actors. I remember going to the Croydon Histrionic Society when Ronald Kirkwood had to resign because of his job which sent him abroad. In one fell swoop I picked up Geoff Cheshire and Bob – I can’t remember his surname – who were with me playing leads alternately for 25 years. I do that out of interest and curiosity. It’s part of my life.
Staging Henry V
When you produced Henry V you said it was early days and it was difficult to get money for scenery and things so you had those two banners.
Two huge banners, one red and one blue, representing on each side of the stage the camps. We had two tents, beautifully [?], they were the tents of the army of France and the English. I had great difficulty in persuading the Committee to let me buy this extremely wide material as it was quite expensive. They said: “Could you cut it in half?” but then it would look like two silly little strips. So I said: “Look, I will pay for it myself. I must have it.” At last they agreed. But the loveliest thing about that production was that I recruited boys for the army from Epsom College, Glyn Grammar School and St John’s School in Leatherhead. They were recruited for the army. I said to the tent people: “How long does it take to get a tent up?” They said: “Oh, about ten minutes.” I said: “Well I want it done in ten seconds.” They said: “Right, get the boys in the bushes with the tents all ready, the pegs already having been set in the ground, with the boys in order to rush on, know exactly which pegs to go to and it was up. It worked but what I hadn’t bargained for was the hushed whispers of the boys saying: “Gosh, you ass, you clod, you …..” All this was going on and it was so lovely I didn’t mind. It was the army so what. But that was heaven.
What about the noises off you had?
Well the noises off, we even suggested the battle. I’m not very familiar with the names of explosives but explosive material went off behind the stage, way back in one of the fields belonging to one of the farmers which indicated that the battle was about to begin. But of course we have never been allowed to do that since because the sheep didn’t like it at all. I believe they aborted or something terrible. But at the time it created tremendous effects and the critic in that particular year said he felt it was like a kind of portent that something was about to happen in Bookham.
Views on acting
Is there a modern approach to delivering lines, like The Method?
The Method is fine but that’s regarded by the young on television as old hat, alas, because the worst of it is that for television they are not taught to relish lines, relish the words and project. We have to do it terribly intimately as you know and made colloquial. When they get on the stage – it was typical at the Thorndike when once when they did Hamlet – the oldies were fine, Gertrude and Claudius who were fine old actors but the Hamlet and the youngsters you could hardly hear them because they hadn’t been trained to project. It’s not only to project but it’s what Clifford says. Shakespeare didn’t know when he wrote line one what line six was going to be. So you don’t recite a set piece, you tune into your author’s mind and you give voice to his ideas. You don’t sit back and recite them, that’s the point. But you have exercises for voice reduction like you do scales and learn projection breathing and all the rest of it like a singer. But when you come to interpret a role, then you don’t do it like the set piece you had to do you express with great inner understanding what the poet wants to say.
I’d like to talk about open air productions. Do you enjoy putting something on in the open or has it got huge drawbacks?
Oh yes, I enjoy it enormously but my goodness the price you have to pay but then you have to suffer for everything you enjoy, don’t you? The discomfort of rain, midges and all that but you take all that in your stride. But the main difference for the actors is size if you like. Your gestures must be larger, simpler, your voice must be projected more and even though the application is splendid you need to do everything, relish everything, give yourself time. You are handling something magical. Not to have a special voice or a special approach but to have a special love, if you like. It’s got to be done with understanding – love, enjoyment relish.
Do you think it is necessary for an actor to go to RADA?
I think it’s useful to go there. There’s LAMDA [London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art] and there are others, the Central School [of Speech and Drama]. Because they do get an opportunity to learn how to move and how to project and also to act in different styles. Each play has a different style , like music. Whereas if they just go straight into rep and get one good part it may suit them and the next time it may not suit them and they don’t know quite how to cope. No, I think ideally it’s good to go as you would for any profession- a musician or whatever. They take it seriously, very.
Polesden Lacey anecdotes
There’s one little one which I treasure. It was when I did The Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was before the days when we boasted of portaloos. We merely had Sani-Cans for the actors and the audience. There was a diminutive fairy, a dear little girl, who sitting on the Sani-Can nearly fell right down into it. She came up with her little skirt stained and we had to cut it short and she went on with a skirt of about half an inch but so pretty was her little bum that nobody minded at all.
Are you pleased with the way it has become a venue, like picnicking with people having their usual place year by year? It’s become an institution.
I think that’s delightful. We used to call it the poor man’s Glyndebourne and not so poor with the champagne corks popping. But no, I find that absolutely charming. To come to Polesden and see the people already sitting in the grounds. It seems part of the English scene. Even if it’s not a very fine day they do it. So endearing, you feel they have to come share which you yourself loved.
My idea of a good time is to go to show and see one of my own students doing their stuff. I sit back and I want to purr. Sometimes too when the young come. A dear chap. He was playing in Camelot and he had been in Polesden a bit. He rang me up and said: “Elsie, there’s quite a lot of dialogue – he was playing the King – not singing. Can I come? Will you teach me to speak it as though it was written by Shakespeare?” I said: “You are a clot. You must not think like that. The part’s very romantic. Come on. Deep down it’s your emotions. That’s it. It’s a romantic thing so you give yourself up to your romantic fantasies.” But it’s all fantasies.
Are there any plays unsuitable for Polesden?
No, not Shakespeare because he wrote for the open air anyway. He didn’t want changes of scene because the audience was standing around. When it was raining, god knows how. When you think that little boys played Cleopatra, it takes your breath away. I’ve cut to make it acceptable because knowing an
audience can’t take more than about two and three quarter hours but they must have played for three and half or four hours. How they could do it!