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 Opened 22 April
1969 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, directed by Lindsay
Anderson, starring Alan Bates, Brian Cox, James Bolam, Constance
Chapman, Bill Owen
Filmed with the same cast and director by producer Ely
A. Landau for the American Film Theatre in 1975.
1 JANUARY 1998. In writing about In Celebration for a
1998 audience, I'll begin with an quote from theatre critic Harold
Hobson, writing about the play in 1969. In doing so, let
me say in advance that I disagree with some elements of Hobson's
interpretation. My comments follow:
"In David Storey's In Celebration (1969) there
was, as there is in all Storey's work, a generally acceptable
beauty that was still irreclaimably melancholy. During the brief
intervals that separated the various scenes of In Celebration
one heard the simple and comforting strains of a tinkling piano
nostalgically playing 'Jesus Loves Me'. Bathed in the warmth
of this old-time religion, we saw the Shaws in their small miner's
house celebrating the fortieth anniversary of their wedding.
For the occasion they were visited by their three sons, for whom
they had done exceedingly well, since they had given them a university
education.
 "Colin, the middle son, was now a prosperous
executive, not very articulate, but kind and generous. The youngest,
Steven, was a teacher, full of affection for his parents, who
were unfashionably fond of him and of each other. The eldest
son, Andrew, in this united and Christian family, was the odd
man out. He had been a solicitor, but was now an artist, uninspired
and unsuccessful; and in the bitterness of his mocking tongue
he seemed bent on destroying the happiness around him.
- A Fourth Child -
"But there had been a fourth
child, a child less wanted than the others. Whereas they had
been treated with unvarying kindness, he, in Andrew's searing
memory, had been beaten black and blue; and at the age of seven
he had died of pneumonia. Andrew could not, or at least did not,
forget this; and alone in the contented household he was obsessed
by the fact that his brother Steven also nursed an inexplicable
grief.
"In the light of these things it was
impossible to take the hymn tune at its superficial value; and
very difficult to accept any interpretation of the play that
saw it as a sweet domestic idyll, a Yorkshire collier's Garden
of Eden invaded by a malicious and poisonous serpent.
"Lindsay Anderson's fine production
of the play was too full of disturbing nuances for that. In its
compelling ambiguity it perhaps even went so far as to suggest
(though not to Andrew or to me) that it is better to compound
cruelty to a child than to let its memory become the mainspring
of vengeful action. It might have implied that the consequences
of evil can never be erased, even to the third or fourth generation;
or it may have meant that though the penalty for wrong-doing
is always exacted, it is sometimes exacted (since Mr and Mrs
Shaw are visibly happier than either Steven or Andrew) not from
the wrong-doer, but from the innocent. But a quiet tale of comfort
and joy (as it seemed to some people) is precisely what it could
not possibly be. It was better, it was more subtle than that.
With Andrew I could not but remember the dead, bruised child...
- A Bright Ferocity
-
"This may not be what Storey
intended. If so, it would not be the first time that a profound
and moving play produced in a spectator deeply touched by it
an impression other than had been foreseen. ..But this is a sign,
not of failure, but of richness, and In Celebration is
a very rich play. It was beautifully written, and its beauty
was appropriate to the circumstances and the class of its characters.
And it had reverberating echoes of great men, as when Colin was
said to measure out his life in motor cars.
"It was perfectly acted by James Bolam
as the upright and successful son, and by Brian Cox, who bore
memorably Steven's uncommunicated sorrow. As for Andrew, for
whom went all my sympathy, Alan Bates gave to him a bright ferocity
that made the play vibrate with life. Lindsay Anderson's direction
showed that characteristic yet amazing understanding of northern
existence and northern passion that is so rare in well-born,
intellectual, public school socialists."
[from: Theatre in Britain, A Personal View, Phaidon
Press Limited, Oxford, © 1984, Harold Hobson]
 WHILE THE FILM
version of In Celebration is opened up with a few exterior
arrival and departure scenes, it is otherwise very close in content
to the play. It was filmed on location in a tiny "two up,
two down" row house.
Social class and the family (in this case,
the destructive force of each) dominate In Celebration.
Unlike Hobson, I feel that the pivotal factor in the story is
not the fourth child (who was the Shaw's firstborn), but the
marriage of the Shaws: Mrs Shaw, a young beauty from an
upwardly-mobile family, was meant by her family for better things
than marriage to a miner. But Shaw seduced her and made her pregnant;
then, married, Shaw spends his entire life proving to himself,
to his wife, to the world, that he is good enough. Shaw treats
his wife like a queen, and has trained the sons to do so as well.
The lifelong habits of atonement for an undefined but pervasive
sin, and a struggle for propriety (suggesting that one is never
good enough), have infected all three of the surviving children.
- Impossible Standards
-
Andrew has memories of the earliest, bad times, the grinding
poverty that allowed only four chairs for five people, the newspaper
covering the table, the scorn and pity of their teachers, the
fact that he was sent to a neighbor for a while, after his brother's
death, because his mother couldn't cope with him. He remembers
being locked out of the house; and it is clear that he still
stands outside his parents' affection. Colin and Steven remember
less, but the effort and impossible standards of their upbringing
affect all three.
 Andrew,
the oracle, the truth-teller, ever the outsider, has rejected
the mold, trying to make a more honest life for himself and his
wife and two children by becoming an artist. Colin (James
Bolam, with Alan Bates, right), the dutiful middle son, his
mother's favorite, is a striver. There are hints that he is homosexual,
but he plans to marry for the sake of propriety; though outwardly
a success, he is in denial as deeply as his parents are. The
youngest son, Steven, whom his father unashamedly loves best,
has been trying to write a novel about his childhood (Andrew
has read part of it). Married, father of five, Steve is trembling
on the edge of complete breakdown, weeps in his sleep, is withdrawn
and tragic among his family. The senior Shaws, looking for a
scapegoat, blame Andrew.
- Tidy Facade -
In a searing performance, Alan
Bates as Andrew brings forth the family's secrets while revealing
the legacy of his own loveless childhood. He longs for approval,
but at the same time exposes the carefully maintained fictions
that hold the Shaws together.
 Storey's
masterful account of the Shaws' life is almost biblical in its
force. Lindsay Anderson's direction (with Bates, left)
is spare and elegant, and the ensemble acting is of the highest
quality. I suppose that technically this play belongs to the
"kitchen sink" movement of the '50s and '60s, in its
gritty Northern reality -- but for me, its superb quality elevates
it out of the genre.
In the simple piano music mentioned by Mr
Hobson and also present in the film as entre'acte interludes,
I hear tremendous irony; it represents the Shaws' careful, tidy
facade. Late Beethoven or Prokofiev -- something powerful, discordant,
elemental, tragic -- might be more in keeping with the emotions
uncovered in the course of this play. But in the end, the children
leave, the parents remain united, the facade is in place, the
piano tinkles. The celebration is over.
-- KR for the Alan Bates Archive
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