SIR,—Lord Aberdare is glibly unrepentant and proves once again that
he feels it Is more important now to find £500,000 for a contractor than commis- sions for Welsh writers.
The plan for this Welsh National Theatre de- signed by Elidir Davies, the architect of the Mermaid, who is now working on the Royal Court and Strat- ford Royal Shakespeare experimental theatre, as far as I can judge, is a splendid concept. It envisages a circular stage 100 feet in diameter, four storeys of dressing-rooms, etc. for 102 players, a roof garden for members of the company, bars, restaurant, an orchestra pit for 100 musicians, and six lifts: a multi- purpose National Theatre on a three-acre site in the Cardiff Castle grounds capable of seating a maximum 2,000 audience.
It is at this point that my whoop of joy ends. I know my Cardiff rather better than Lord Aberdare. His proposition that his temple of reinforced con- crete will Miraculously produce a Yeats, a Synge, a Lady Gregory,- a Miss Horniman or Lord Longford in the City of Dreadful Knights is easily shot down in flames; and to write of 'a great number of Welsh writers on the London stage' is equally a contribu- tion to ritual myth. Indeed, the Spectator previously has reported from Cardiff on the vacillations of Mr. Clifford, Evans in expounding this venture, which the Observer predicted would get under way before Sir Laurence Olivier's own National Theatre.
Why is Cardiff such an incredibly philistine capital? The Iceman Cometh draws thirty people to a theatre there after O'Neill's play had been excep- tionally publicised. The Phoenix Literary Club attracted a handful five years ago; a Music Club also had to pack up. The artistic plans for the St. David's Theatre on July 19 were tucked away in a right-hand, column as long as my biro on page four of the Thomson House fourpenny evening Echo; just a few sticks in a so-called Land of Culture. Ask for the Spectator at a bookstall and you're given a florin glossy full of bulging pictures of chaps and gels holding glasses. Similar animals, as fond of gargling their singing tonsils, infiltrate to the numerous Welsh Committees which safeguard Welsh culture by ensuring that the amateurs literally drive out the few serious writers.
TO ventilate any such wrongs is considered terribly bad form by the increasingly guilty Establishment of Aberystwyth professors and their garrulous extra- -mural associates; and indeed there are fewer and fewer places where you are able to broadcast factual opinions. Like political comment in the Principality, you mustn't give it 'edge.' A time-lag of fifteen years before action is usual. The Nationalist Party advocate both a. National Theatre and a National Opera House. This is considered building castles in Spain by the national daily of Wales.
will not take that line; but let's get the writers weaving in the garrets first and spend a bit of that Church windfall on encouraging them so that we can
get a true Welsh Theatre. In the meantime Messrs. Clifford Evans and Co. might use the Old Vic, the Royal Court, and the two Stratfords as a training ground, if I might be excused this rather military application. We must have a real feeling for the priorities, but please not facing bricks first or it'll be like a certain Eisteddfo. Pavilion:
Sacred alike to Boxing and to Art
For who in Wales can tell the two apart. Finally, I noticed that the gentleman who had the Courage to attack the noble lord when he was Presi- dent of the London Welsh, himself won two prizes for playwriting at Llandudno, which now doubtless makes us three playwrights up.
40 Heath Street, NW 3 KEIDRN:Cil MIN'S
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