David Lister: The Week in Arts

A court case like no other has been taking place in Italy. In the highest courts of justice, counsel has been arguing over who should play the two tramps in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. An Italian stage company had intended to cast two women in the roles. That's quite a radical piece of casting as far as footnotes in theatrical theses about Beckett's work go, but not one of the bigger criminal offences in Italian legal history. However, the Beckett estate is nothing if not indefatigable and had taken legal action to prevent the production from going on.

I have to say it cheered my heart. Here was an expensive and high-profile court case over the interpretation and casting of a play. I couldn't see it happening here. My learned friends just take the vicissitudes of casting lying down over here. When Sienna Miller was cast in As You Like It, one or two critics gasped, but in the High Court there was apathy.

The Italians, and certainly the Beckett estate, have shown us that casting is a serious matter of jurisprudence. And, unlike Beckett's play, the court case had a clear, comprehensible and happy ending. The Beckett estate lost. Thankfully, directors can interpret plays how they wish, and experiment as much as they like. A potentially endless and highly lucrative sideline for lawyers has been nipped in the bud.

But another change to a play, which I witnessed this week, does leave me perplexed. It will never come to court; indeed critics do not seem even to have mentioned it. I went to see the excellent production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the one in the West End with a magnificent performance by Kathleen Turner. To my astonishment, the climax of the second act had been cut. This is where, without giving too much information, George cooks up his plan of revenge on Martha for the final act and rehearses it in front of the terrified house guest Honey. It is a chilling climax, which has long been etched on my memory. But it had disappeared. At first I thought that the curtain had accidentally been lowered at the wrong moment. But it emerges that the lines were cut by Edward Albee himself, the play's author.

Now, in other art forms this cannot happen. When a director re-edits his movie, it is known as the director's cut, and is shown as such. When an artist re-paints a picture he gives it a different title or a different date. The version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? now showing is terrific, but it is not quite Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, not down to the last details, not down to the memorable, now lost, ending of the second act.

Should it not be marketed and advertised as the playwright's cut? I suspect that if it had been a Beckett, the Samuel Beckett estate would have had something to say. Albee is entitled to do as he wishes with his masterwork. But it is strange that we turn a blind eye to playwrights fiddling with their writing, when it has been in circulation for decades. Let's have the same rule for playwrights as we do for film directors. Let's see up in lights on Shaftesbury Avenue: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - The Playwright's Cut.

Playwrights naturally enough see themselves as owners of their own texts. But are they? Once the texts are out there, known, studied in schools and universities, do they not begin to have a more universal ownership?

The Italian case - casting women instead of men - is, in my view, less important a change to a classic text than cutting climactic lines. Albee mixing it with his own text is more notable than Godot mixing it with the girls.

A book speaks for itself

In the age of chat shows, interviews and relentless self-publicity, the name of Harper Lee stands out.

The author of To Kill a Mockingbird has not spoken publicly about her 1960 novel for more than 40 years. But she does attend annual prizegivings for an essay competition about her book at her local university in Alabama and chats to students. She even gave her first interview in four decades, to The New York Times, to talk about the prize. She said nothing about her one novel, except that she thought the 1962 film of the book was "one of the best translations of book to film". That must take the biscuit for a belated reaction; and the film's star Gregory Peck is, of course, no longer alive to hear it.

Lee retains an old-style southern courtesy. She is still deluged with interview requests, and the 79-year-old pens a personal letter declining each one. Many authors say they want their work to speak for itself. Only one has abided by this principle.

* Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot, has updated The Barber of Seville for a production at the Bristol Old Vic. Hall's version, which opens next Tuesday, has moved the action to the present day and is a satire on contemporary mores. The targets include Tatler and the society gadabouts who inhabit its pages. And cultural taste also comes under scrutiny. The heroine, for example, is mocked for liking the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Lord Lloyd-Webber may have done a double take at first as the production is directed by Julian Webber. But this Julian is no relation, and certainly not Andrew's brother Julian. But Lee Hall should tread carefully. It's easy to make fun of established names of musical theatre. But as Billy Elliot's run continues, Lee Hall himself is becoming an established name of musical theatre. And the next new star might find him a suitable case for teasing.