Elaine Paige on Peter Hall: he was like a father to me
Writing this not in hope of any praise that many will ever read it. That may never be true. For anyone. More so nowadays. But because Sir Peter Hall supported writers as well as actors and indeed anyone who made the theater both tick and roar. Writing is a strange thing that indeed self absorbing, garners nothing great without its author somehow chaperoning his/her words into what always seems the abyss yet most often ends up in grace through belief in that other something. Simone Weil sort of.
Over the years I heard many derogatory comments about Sir Peter. Some from people I respected. I never asked director Jonathan Miller his thoughts (who did not fair well in the Diaries back in 1983). Someone I respect enormously. As a naive, passionate kid who soaked every night in anything theatrical (and filmic it must be said) those Diaries were almost like a Bible to me. There was someone who could rise to the top of that flea circus tent, speak his mind, and the knife-thrower still listened.
Sir Peter wrote: ''[Michael] Blakemore [director] said he admired me but couldn't stand my greediness - for work, for money, for success, for power, for position. And he couldn't stand the fact that I was so energetic.'' I think I've been accused of maybe a), c), e). Not sure of the others. Don't think I ever saw much of b) and d) but many others who I helped up the ladder did. I've been called opinionated- isn't that somehow 'the pot calling the kettle black' in America!
Why I attended one fringe theater show? Remember being introduced to Sir Peter by his newish wife Nicki Frei. An offspring involved? Can't remember. Someone asked what he thought: "It the worst thing I have ever seen." It was a VERY small reception area. Now some would argue that he should have shown a little more grace and support. Well: I've met some very great directors in my time and what they all have in common is honesty. And opinion. Not out of self-aggrandizement simply they have no interest in flanneling, 'pressing flesh', brown-nosing.
And many of the world's globe-trotting directors are not world-class in Sir Peter's league. There are dozens I can think of who are very unsung, in Sir Peter's league and indeed probably better directors. Don't think he'd deny that. Success is rarely a good bedfellow for passion. Sir Peter never kicked out the latter in the middle of the night.
He was so proud and supportive of his children. Again: people will say things. Often cruel about a family. Make judgements about things they know almost nothing about. Often convincing themselves that they do. That was certainly my family head-opening experience. And sometimes you are right there as a witness and still will never truly understand the why of it all.
If I was Rebecca Hall's Dad I would just drop to my knees after seeing that brave, brilliant and relatively unsung performance in the film Christine. And I would say in tears: it isn't the theater. I know. But I must have done something right over the years for that to happen.
I could hit Sir Peter over the head with a newspaper for this: a 1977 [diary] entry tells of a visit to A Chorus Line at Drury Lane. Having paid tribute to its brilliance, he goes on to describe the show as ''a sham, it's kitsch at heart,'' and adds: ''The girl who desperately wants the job and shouldn't get it does of course get it; otherwise the show itself would not be commercial.'' The show, he says, is ''reeking of double Broadway standards.''
A Chorus Line was also a bible as a kid. (Can't say that I disagree with Sir P's thoughts, though) That poster loomed over my little living room in Sydney. After I'd left to seek a career in the British theater it was saved for decades by my father in his garage. Not out of interest or anything except that I was his son. Then he died and the vultures came. That comment does a disservice to wings!
The world nowadays needs more Sir Peter Halls. People who can retain that passion for their art while dueling with the monsters always around us. Nothing is ever easy in life. And there are many who did do their very best and failed. And will fail through no fault of their own. And many who will never pick up that sword as did Sir Peter: a symbol of the resolute not the defiant.
A noble knight.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE (22 November 1930 – 11 September 2017)
