Jim Haynes Topics List taken from his interview with Susan Croft, 31st September 2009, at his atelier in Paris, recorded by Jessica Higgs.
Video and audio extracts edited by Jessica Higgs.
Parents and early years
Born Haynesville, Louisiana, conceived Texas, Mother went to parents in Louisiana for birth, stayed for few months, then to Treefort
Father in oil business in Venezuela, moved there when Jim Haynes (JH) 10/11 years old in late 1940s
Memories of being brought up in Deep South town are that he was always out of step with the racism there, which he fought whenever it appeared, from an early age
Has almost an hyper-respect for the downtrodden
Read his Father’s books – especially Langston Hughes’s I Too Sing America and Dorothy Parker who had an early effect on him and he still reads today.
Father possibly of Irish or Scottish-Irish descent, but basically were WASPS who settled in the South, Father middle rank executive in oil business in Venezuela, retired to Houston and when his Mother died he returned to Louisiana
JH lived in Venezuela for 2 years and attended an international school there, at end of 2 years parents elected to send him to a military boarding school in Atlanta where he stayed for 3 years before enrolling at university in Atlanta
He chose military school because he had a friend there, top of the class and ran literary society
Travelled between US and Venezuela continually in youth which made him an early world traveller which contributed to his dreams, aspirations and hopes
University, joining Air Force and Edinburgh
After school went to university to study history and economics, quit after 3 years, called up for army but ended up joining Air Force, based in San Antonio
Decided to study Russian and sent to language school in San Antonio where taken out and placed in crypto-analysis
When it came to passing out time, requested he be sent to somewhere in Western Europe, near to a major city and university, ended up outside Edinburgh (Kirknewton) at a base in 1956 listening to Russian messages
Asked for shift hours between 5 and midnight so that he could attend university during the day, allowed to stay in own accommodation in Edinburgh
Lived with a Swedish au pair, Viveka, together they produced their son James Jesper, now separated but friends, she lives in Sweden with her family,
Jasper is a photographer living in Brooklyn, he too is a world traveller, Exhibition coming up in Stockholm
Edinburgh at that period, university
Edinburgh hadn’t fully recovered from WW2, no rationing
First Coffee House [Laigh Coffee House] had just been opened by an actor, Moultrie Kelsall in Hanover Street, along with vegetarian place, Henderson’s, that had opened opposite formed heart of JH’s social life, both venues attracted a cross-section of Edinburgh public – students, doctors, old ladies from Morningside, open from early to late
Free at weekends, had saved money when working in oil fields in Venezuela during summer holidays and was able to buy VW Beetle, also had access to free cigarettes and booze from Air Force, used to drive friends to parties all the time
Studied history and economics, Inspirations were history professor George Shepperton, still friends with him, and economics professor, John McIntosh, and Professor Thompson who became a Labour MP
When he finished in the Air Force he was given permission to stay in Edinburgh at the university
Introductions to theatre, Edinburgh Festival meeting Richard Demarco
Began seeing theatre at a very young age at local theatre and on- and off-Broadway productions when he went to New York, he saw Porgy and Bess, South Pacific, Threepenny Opera with Lotte Lenya
Edinburgh Festival was already going strong, saw his first one in 1956, Ugo Betti’s Corruption in the House of Justice by
Oxford University at Murray House Theatre in the Royal Mile
Fringe very small then, maybe 30 companies
Met Richard Demarco (RD) and his wife and sister there, story of how that happened and they became friends
Bookshop and Traverse beginnings
Opened his bookshop [Paperback] in 1959
After he finished in military parents wanted him to go back home and train as a lawyer, he wanted to stay in Edinburgh and so financially was on his own
Sold car to buy freehold of a junk shop for £300 so that he could open a bookshop
Met a couple on bus, he was a boat builder from California, she a student from Boston, the man built JH’s bookshop for him, the woman was called Jane Quigley and she later became a famous actress known as Jane Alexander, also American Minister for the Arts in the Clinton years
In 1960 she was at the Festival playing in Tennessee William’s Orpheus Descending, JH was an offstage voice in the production, after her return to the US he set about making plans for a theatre for her to play at when she came back to Edinburgh
Had no problems staying in Edinburgh after leaving the air force: law in Britain that allows you stay if you bring money in and employ people which he was doing, he had permanent residency from 1959
He wrote to bookshops and publishers all over Britain saying he was starting a bookshop next to the University
which would sell only paperback books. Truck-loads of books arrived from all over the world
Contacts in Scandinavia who would provide books that were out of print
The area is now demolished, but was at the time centrally placed in the middle of the University really, 2 small rooms with a basement with a gallery
Local sculptors and tapestry makers used it as a gallery, first of its type in Edinburgh, gave out free tea and coffee to those visiting the bookshop, stocked books that were banned elsewhere, for instance, stocked Lady Chatterley’s Lover
He became friends with an English language publisher in Paris, Maurice Geodias, who started Olympia Press, he provided books to JH like My Life and Loves, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Lawrence Durrell’ sThe Black Book that weren’t available at time, The Ginger Man by Donleavy and many other titles that weren’t available elsewhere
Somehow managed to pass under the radar, story of woman who burned a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover outside his shop an event which was photographed and sent all around the world
Performances at The Paperback Bookshop and the Howff
Bookshop was also used for signings, concerts and performances
First occasion was in 1960, JH dates the journey of the Traverse from this date, the shop was called The Paperback Bookshop
First production was David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Harold Hobson raved about it in The Sunday Times at that year’s Edinburgh Festival as the best thing in town at the best venue
Bookshop held 60 people, sitting on benches, tea and coffee was served afterwards and audiences invited to stay and discuss performance afterwards Joyce McMillan says in her book on the Traverse [1.] that the performances were in the gallery in the basement, but all performances were held on the ground floor in the main bookshop
Production was Dieter Pieter’s idea, he approached JH
It involved 2 actors dressed as eighteenth century scholars, drinking claret, smoking pipes, discussing, Colin Hamilton was one of them
After the bookshop JH was involved with a coffee shop in the High Street, called The Howff, cost him and a friend a freehold of £250
First performance there was Martha Schlama doing Lotte Lenya style work in 1961 Festival
Also that year he was approached by a local painter, Ffion McCulloch who had written Trial of Heretics which was produced there, a cast of about 5 actors performed- good local amateurs
There was a last minute replacement of one by professional actor, John Malcolm
White Washing Fences – title of JH’s book and his way of getting things done, taken from an anecdote from Huckleberry Finn –finding a way to persuade people to join muck in and help get things up and running for free, as he did with the shop and the coffee-shop
He wrote to John Calder (JC) in London as he liked his book lists and asked if they would supply him with books, they soon became friends and have remained so for many years
JC knew Charles Marowitz and Michael Geliot and introduced them to JH
Traverse Theatre
The Traverse is the story of 2 love affairs, talks about Tom Mitchell (TM) and how he got to know Tamara Alferoff (TA), TM followed TA to Edinburgh where he began buying properties, one of these was the building in Long Market,James Court, which became the Traverse
Originally TM was going to turn it into flats but this was not possible, instead JH persuaded him to let him rent it for one shilling a week to turn in to a theatre
The other love affair was that of JH and Jane Alexander, but she never played at Traverse, after training she accepted work at Charles Street Playhouse, problems with British Equity
Traverse set up with RD, JC and John Martin, a local graphic designer who put money in and did early graphic designs, also many others who help ‘whitewash the fences’ to make it happen
JH had bad experience in 1961 at end of the Festival that year when his partner at the Howff absconded with the funds,
JH had to sell his half of the Howff to save the Bookshop
When it came to the Traverse he set it up under Scots Law where every member of the club was a part owner, there was a board and an AGM where every year JH was made Chair until he chose to step down
First director was someone called Terry Lane (TL) who was a friend of JM
Difficult subject for JH who says TL probably has his own version of events
TL more traditional director wanting to do classical rep whereas JH wanted to promote new and Scottish playwrights,
TL also tended to cast his girlfriend all the time, Rosalind Dickson, JH as Chair had to sack him
Opening of Traverse
At time of opening of Traverse JH’s son was born, so he was away in the States at the time with his family visiting his parents, he was married to Viveka for three years, she was very long suffering with their different life styles
JH wanted to be more artistically involved in Traverse, when he suggested productions to TL he did them, but TL there by default really as friend of JM who had left
TL didn’t really embrace the inclusive theatre experience JH wanted
JH had given up bookshop and was living at the Traverse involved in all aspects of the work, thought bar, gallery and restaurant were equally important as the theatre
‘Talk Outs’ where controversial, local topics were debated
Developed school of Scottish playwrights where there had been none, one of the first playwrights who came through was Glaswegian C.P. Taylor (CPT). Major exhibitions were held in the gallery managed by RD who was also vice-chairman of the management
Profits to be used in the theatre came from bar, restaurant, gallery and membership
Being a club meant: no problems with Lord Chamberlain and censorship, could serve food and drink on Sundays, had a source of income from the membership
They had a grant once from the Festival which allowed them to pay artists a little more, but generally Equity minimum, £15 per week
New work got critical acclaim, the actors got the notices and this potential made them want to work there
Sheila Colvin, Edinburgh girl, had been away in New York and Brazil, had theatre and TV experience and was recruited quite quickly, she did the administration
Joyce McMillan’s account of the Traverse is good but not always accurate as she wasn’t there
Traverse after Terry Lane
After TL left JH assumed leadership
Director Callum Mill (CM) was brought in to direct Waiting for Godot.
CM encouraged JH who was learning on the job, also brought in Scottish angle
They brought in guest directors, actors and audiences loved it
JH brought in new plays
Seating was only for 60, JH had no scheme or plan but plays started coming in in truck-loads, cost was a consideration when choosing
1962 they held The Novel Today conference with John Calder, Sonia Orwell and JH, on stage together for a whole week at the McEwan Hall
Parties every night and was part of the official Festival
In 1963, again in the McEwan Hall they held a conference on Theatre with 120 theatre artists, Peter Brook,
Sir Laurence Olivier, Ionesco, on the last day they discussed the future of theatre and they hatched some ‘happenings’
One was a nude woman being wheeled across a gallery space – at the time women could appear nude as long as she didn’t move, there were pictures on the front pages of the national press and it caused a scandal, plug was pulled on a proposed poetry conference
Traverse at Festival time
Lots going on at Traverse especially at Festival time, early 1960s not a lot of places open for people to drink and eat late night and Sundays, so Traverse was a little oasis that people came to.
At that time was at hub of Festival, perhaps not so much so now because there are more choices
Fringe Festival was just beginning, JH’s bookshop used to sell tickets and productions continue there after he sold it on
JH produced first Fringe catalogue in 1960, got companies to commit to advertising in pages in catalogue, Fringe Box Office in opened the early 1960s and the Fringe Society started then too
Traverse produced a very successful of Happy End [Weil/Brecht] at the university
JC was married to Bettina Jonic, they were all listening to a recording of Happy End (Lotte Lenya Recording?) and wanted to do it
One of the hits of 1964 Festival (with Jonic), it went on to the Royal Court Macbeth (1965) was a modest success, these were produced by a company entitled ‘Traverse Theatre Productions Limited’
Another production was Peter Weiss’s The Investigation which was performed at the Unitarian Church, directed by Michael Ockrent
JH always like performing in non-theatre spaces
Traverse didn’t work with designers in early days through lack of funds, Arts Council funding picked up after he left although they did fund new writing
JH edited Traverse Plays for Penguin, ee was friends with Sir Allen Lane (AL) AL loved the Bookshop and it was a big outlet for Penguin
There was a Heathcote Williams (HW) piece in the book (Traverse Plays, 1966)
They became friends and started the magazine SUCK together in Amsterdam, HW is now a painter.
Also in Traverse Plays: two Saul Bellow plays (CM got hold some
Saul Bellow plays and asked to do them at Traverse. They were later done
at the Fortune, London, then Off-Broadway, then Broadway), Marguerite Duras’ La Musica and The Old Tune by Robert Pinget translated by Beckett
Meeting Marguerite Duras (MD), Sonia Orwell (SO) and Charles Marowitz (CM)
In 1961 JC was touring Britain with authors Natalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe-Grillet, they went to university towns and JH organised Edinburgh visit
Robbe-Grillet didn’t come but others did, they were all controversial in France because they had spoken out against the war in Algeria
SO did translations for JC and had translated Sarraute
SO was JH’s landlady for a year and he used to serve at her London
cocktail parties attended by the likes of Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Cyril Connolly, MD, Francis Bacon
CM had done his Theatre of Cruelty season with Peter Brook at LAMDA which JH had seen, when TL left Traverse CM was one of JH’s first directors there, as was Michael Gellot and Callum Mill
CM now lives in Malibou, California, not always the most diplomatic of directors. CM recently directed a Havel play in Prague in Czech and another in Philadelphia
Lindsey Kemp (LK) and Jack Henry Moore (JHM)
Both major talents with inflated sense of worth
JHM began life in Oklahoma. Didn’t know his father. mother very poor, sold shoes and had a motorbike, JHM very bright, got a scholarship to University of Oklahoma, went as engineer but swapped onto drama course
Ended up working in New York, Off-Broadway, on a trip to Boston with a friend picked up a job in Dublin running a detective agency which mainly tracked down lost inheritors
During his time in Dublin he read an article about JH’s production of Happy End and travelled to Edinburgh to meet him, JH couldn’t offer him a paid job but offered somewhere to stay
They fell out in 2001, story of the falling out, JHM lives in Amsterdam
One time JH was staying with JHM in Dublin, LK was there doing a show at the Dublin Theatre Festival, he’d blown all his grant and JH and JHM helped raise some money for LK to leave Dublin
LK went with them to Edinburgh, LK did some of his early work in Edinburgh, he produced one at the Traverse, an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ A Chilld’s Christmas In Wales’ and used Thomas’s own recording of it
LK did Genet plays at festival at a small space near to the Traverse
Impossible to work with, very demanding, but very endearing
JHM was a very out gay man in Edinburgh when it was not accepted, LK was little more discreet about his sexuality
It was JHM who had read and realised the importance of C.P.Taylor, he spoke French and German and translated Brecht, Ionesco and French playwrights
To London
JH had wanted to take Traverse productions to London for some time, while he was still at Traverse he produced a London season at the Arts Theatre off his own bat and lost money on it
He produced under title of London Traverse Theatre Company, they did Tutte Lemkow’s Lecture to an Academy (from Kafka), CM directed CPT’s Happy Days Are Here Again, Green Julia by Paul Ableman maybe, critically successful seasons
JH had had to resign as Board member of the Traverse when the Arts Council began giving money, he asked a lawyer friend to replace him who promised he would be a ‘silent’ chair, but ended up taking over
He met Jennie Lee, then Minister for Culture, at a conference organised by the Arts Council in Colchester, called
‘Problems of Small Theatre’, JH spoke at it, she encouraged him to run the Jeanetta Cochrane as a London Traverse which he did
He asked Ralph Koltai, CM and Michael Geliot to come and direct for him there, no state money but Jennie Lee knew a West End producer who put in £2,000 with West End option on productions
Traverse and the Cochrane
The Cochrane was a new building but already a bit of a white elephant, it had no money, no funding and the manager was very inflexible
JH had no fun there but there were two hits, CM’s production of Orton’s Loot which transferred to the Piccadilly, and the Bellow plays which went to the Fortune, a CPT was well received – was it Who’s Pinkus? Where’s Chelm? and a Duras play: they had a very successful year when the big players didn’t
International Times (IT)
JH started the newspaper International Times with 2 or 3 others – JHM, Hoppy (John Hopkins) and Miles (Barry Miles)
Lord Goodman, previously a supporter, cooled towards him as he thought the paper supported drug taking, which it didn’t just trying to take the hysteria out of the debate
JH started it because he realised how much money the Cochrane was wasting on advertising and thought if they had their own paper it would save on promotion costs
IT was an immediate success, he large sales and avid readership, became the spokesperson for the London Underground scene
JH was one of the first street sellers pitching copies outside the Aldwych when Peter Brook’s US was on there
IT was important in spreading word about the alternative productions that were going on at the time
Cost one shilling? He borrowed £125 to pay the printers to do the first issue, for a time it was run from the basement at
Mile’s bookshop Indica in Southampton Row, lots of writing was done at JH’s house
JH lived in Drury Lane at the back of the Arts Lab and in Long Acre where he had a pay phone People used to drop by for a cup of tea and use the phone, JH had been given a pre-release copy of Sergeant Pepper by the Beatles and people also dropped by to listen to that
JHM was a great cook and would make a stew from produce from the shop below that would last them for days, apartment had four rooms
JH met the Beatles through Brian Epstein who asked to meet him, JH was friendly with John Lennon, Miles got close to Paul McCartney, Beatles gave some money to IT, JH knew Yoko Ono before she knew John Lennon, when Yoko Ono came over from New York she did one of her first happenings at the Cochrane
Launch party for the IT was held at the Roundhouse, Arnold Wesker let him have the keys – he was trying to get Centre 42 up and running at the time 5,000 people attended, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine performed, Paul McCartney came dressed as an Arab, Monica Vitti was there, Antonioni was in town
UFO Space in Charing Cross Road
It was an Irish drinking club, one night a week it was dark
JH got them to let him hire it for that one night
It became The London Underground meeting place, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine were launched there, there were market stalls, poster shops, IT stand, went well until News of the World did a negative article on them, lasted 6 months
Indica in Southampton Row, Better Books in Charing Cross Road, Cochrane, Arts Lab in Covent Garden and Collets – where it was happening, all walking distance
JH had another performance space, got the key from estate agents to a property underneath the corner of Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road and Oxford Street, late night parties with bands
Enormous space, bigger than the Roudhouse, Living Theatre did something there and Dick Gregory for about 300 to 400 people –
African-American comic who was a Presidential candidate
JH was his Europe campaign manager, not a major Black Power figure more a radical free thinker
Beginnings of Arts Lab
Jennie Lee was disappointed and Lord Goodman (at Arts Council at the time) wouldn’t allow its support to Arts Lab because of its supposed drug culture
ICA started at same time and got support from ACGB as a non-druggy Arts Lab
JH tried to do underground films and happenings at the Cochrane but not keen on it, lunchtime theatre, talks – Saul Bellow gave a talk there, but JH very frustrated, productions were costly and therefore had to be successful at Box Office
Found a couple of empty warehouses at the top of Drury Lane [no. 184] and persuaded the owner to let him have them as an arts space until he required them for commercial use, there was to be a three month notice given
JH ran Arts Lab for 3 years [1967-69]
In 1968 JH hired the Albert Hall as a fundraiser, originally to star Leonard Cohen, he couldn’t attend but John Lennon, Yoko Ono and other did, someone in audience began to strip, when the officials tried to remove her, other joined in, it was called The Alchemical Wedding
Arts Lab
As soon as they got the keys to the building the People Show did a production with cages before anything else was done to it
People Show did a lot of productions at Arts Lab
The main building was a gallery, cinema in the basement with no seats just foam rubber to sit on, first floor was the restaurant, also used for site-specific work, the back was dressing rooms and where he lived, people lived in different spaces
It ran from Drury Lane at the front to facing the City Lit building at the back, on 3 floors
Without any announcement it opened, and through word of mouth became overnight success with people coming from all over Europe to see it
Free carpeting put into the Arts Lab, JH sent duplicate letter out to who’s who in theatre and in cinema asking them to be Patrons for £50 a year Membership was £2 or £5, students £1, they raised £30,000 that way
Peter Brook, Tom Stoppard were Patrons
Berkoff dropped by early on and asked JH to let him have a space where he produced his first show
Lots of companies performed there: Lindsey Kemp, People Show, Nancy Meckler and Freehold, David Hare and Portable, Brighton Combination
Then other Arts Labs started up in Birmingham, Manchester. Nicholas Albery created The Arts Labs News which gave a 2 – 3 monthly update on the arts labs, it felt like they could do anything
JHM ran the theatre and lived there, David Curtis ran the cinema and his wife Biddy Pippin, with Pamela Zoline, ran the gallery, someone else the restaurant, someone else the music
A lot of film directors were launched from there, Tuesday nights were open night when they would show work people brought in
The night’s programme was written up on a black board outside, lots of French films, New York underground films
People came from all over the world to see what they were up to, present day
French Minister for Culture started an Arts Lab in Paris
Day to day running
The people who ran Arts Lab lived there or nearby, there were no formal meetings
JH was a benevolent dictator type, but always a yes-sayer
Publicity mainly through IT, then other papers picked up on them, word of mouth, didn’t need too many fliers, cinema only held 60 -80 people, theatre depended on configuration, they had padded beer crates as seats which were kept outside and when people bought their tickets carried their seats in with them
Tickets were very cheap, often if people couldn’t pay they were passed in Rich and famous paid, restaurant took money
There was no alcohol licence, the food that was served varied depending on who was running it and went through several different styles from wholefood to normal fare
There was an empty hotel a few doors down from the Arts Lab which they seized and housed with homeless people, but police poured cement into the drains, first squatters seizure in London
At weekends people who came from outside London would stay in the cinema and gallery overnight, actors for Hair auditioned at Arts Lab
Another building was seized at the time near the Shaftesbury Theatre, then something at Hyde Park Corner
Many empty spaces at that time
Particular shows remembered
Graziella Martinez a dancer from Buenos Aires, show booked in at 11pm, modern dance production with a bath tub and two dancers, big success
Steven Berkoff’s first show was superb – Metamorphosis by Kafka,
Fucknam by Tuli Kupferberg, people upset by poster
Should talk to JHM who has an excellent memory, JH has problem remembering everybody’s names
Being a club they avoided the Lord Chamberlain’s Censorship, at the Cochrane they had to submit plays for licence
Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven
The first feminist show to be produced in London, an amazing number of people came together for it – Jane Arden, Jack Bond, Sheila Allen and Victor Spinetti already knew each other, JH introduced them to Shawn
Philips and JHM
Feels sure JHM has videotape of production, videos were just coming in then and Arts Lab had one, although they often had to record over because of lack of funds, JHM very good cameraman
Amazing response from underground audience and glitterati, when it finished at the Arts Lab CM offered it a home at the Open Space but it never moved, JH feels Jack Bond and Jane Arden wanted a higher profile venue, John Calder published Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven, and a lot of CM’s work
Arts Lab cont.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono had an exhibition in the gallery, German TV crew interviewing JH about Arts Lab and they asked to interview John and Yoko too, after German broadcast, hundreds of backpackers started coming over from Germany to Arts Lab, this helped changed audience of Arts Lab which had begun by age averaging around 30 and mixed and over years decreased to young people, almost became a youth club, which kept away mixture of ages and cross-section of public
The 24- hour Technical Colour Dream was a big funder happening at the Alexandra Palace for IT, thousands of people attended, JH was one of those who set it up
He was always one of a group involved in running discussions of Arts Lab,
IT UFO – JH, Hoppy, JHM, Miles and maybe one or two others
JH talked Tutte LemkoW into doing Kafka’s Lecture to an Academy and the Very Long Life of Toloman Olivitch which was by a Serbian playwright – the first ever to be done in Britain
The Yugoslavian Embassy gave them a case of slivowitz which was given out to audience members during the performances
Lecture to an Academy was about a monkey addressing an academy, took over Tutte’s life and he toured it all over the world, he had worked with Woody Allen and Peter Sellers
JHM directed the productions excellently
Lot of anti Vietnam stuff around then – plays, demonstrations, articles, people on the run asking to be hidden, many were illegal in Britain
JHM was never legal, he spoke Dutch, German and French, for many years was a consultant to Unesco, had a Unesco passport which he lost
JHM got support from Dutch government for a project called ‘Bank’ which was a video library, someone reported him to the tax authorities and he was shut down
Americans in London
Ex-pats seem to exert a little extra energy, because they’re free, JH was free from being pigeon-holed in Edinburgh and London as an outsider, had no social pressures, didn’t have to prove anything or apologise
No family pressures, could get away with things, he knew CM and Ed Berman a bit, never thought of himself in national terms, always as a man trying to make sense of it all
He started producing World Passports in the later 1970s, 80s, teamed up with Gary Davis who had been a bomber during the war, after the war, he settled in Paris threw away his passport declaring himself a citizen of the world, he printed a passport in English and Esperanto
JH tracked him down in the late 60s, they made world passports in 8 languages and people travelled on them, various stories relating to subject
of world passports
They got charged with breaking 3 articles of the French criminal code, JH saw whole exercise as a teaching device about citizenship as well as a piece of theatre
In 1960s he did a piece of theatre called How Do You Do? at Glasgow theatre festival, audience made up of 16 people
One person begins by asking person next to them ‘Where will you be next week and what will you be doing and why? This is passed around the group and finally ends up with original person answering own question, the next person begins another question etc
It was done at the Arts Lab beginning at 11pm and carry on to breakfast time, 16 total strangers became bonded
Work of the 60s
Lots of touchy feely stuff going on in the 60s, someone being blindfolded and passed from person to person, grapes in mouth, someone lying on table with people massaging them
At 2009 Edinburgh Festival JH attended a performance of something called Internal, 5 audience members face 5 cast members, each person led away with actor into a separate space and they have an exchange of information about each other, afterward they rejoin others and the actors tell about the audience and vice versa, JH found it intimate, exciting and thrilling, it was the hit of the festival and very 1960s.
Tea with Miss Gentry was a performance at the Arts Lab which took place in a property of few houses down in Drury Lane, about 10 people had tickets and were taken to Miss Gentry’s flat where she gave them tea and regaled them with stories of her life as a designer in the West End
JHM had a project called the Human Family where he took a bus around Europe with a geodesic dome, they would pick up hitchhikers along the way who would become part of the show, they would set up the dome and show videos, people were free to stand and relate their experiences to the audience, it was rather like Living Theatre’s Paradise Now
They did some touring from the Traverse but more from the Arts Lab because they had a bus
There was a tension at the Arts Lab about the money that was spend on the touring bus rather than the Arts Lab, but JHM wanted to do the bus and JH allowed him to do it
The first Traverse production went to the Mickery, Amsterdam. Ritsaert ten Cate (who started Mickery) began it in a barn at his home outside Amsterdam, his first production was a Gogol one-man show performed by a Dutch actor followed by two one act plays from the Traverse – Heathcote William’s The Local Stigmatic and another
Post Arts Lab
After the Arts Lab JH was between Paris and Amsterdam
Set up a sexual freedom newspaper called Suck and directed the White Dream Film Festival
At time believed that sexual images by definition weren’t obscene, for him obscenity is hunger, no shelter, violence but not sexual images if they bring pleasure to the people involved – it’s a social contract
There were 2 or 3 film festivals.
He finds pornography boring but erotica stimulating and exciting
It was his idea to start Suck recruiting Germaine Greer, HW, Bill Levy, Sarah Jensen, Susanne Brögger and Lynn Tillman.
Germaine Greer was a jury member of the film festival, there were about 10 or 12 issues of Suck, a book and the festivals.
It made an impact at the time and it led him to have tea with Salvador Dali, banned in England -story about officers from Scotland Yard trying to get it shut down.
Went to live in Paris late 1969 and at the same time started Suck in Amsterdam
He got an invitation to be a visiting professor at the new experimental University of Paris teaching sexual politics and taught there for 30 years, was a founding staff member
Arts Lab closed in 1969, lots of things changing in London, expectations of the1960s which weren’t fulfilled
JH had developed a relationship with some Parisian professors who brought groups of students over to both the Traverse and then the Arts Lab for many years.
It was they who rang him up out of the blue with their request, JH said he couldn’t speak French and they said he could teach in English: it was at the University at Vincennes (Paris 8). Locals complained when the University was re-located at St Denis
JH has written an essay on schooling versus education, he feels they are polar opposites, schooling is a not-very-subtle form of brainwashing
Education is a 24 hour-a-day job, your whole life and totally subjective Greatest creative forces tend to be drop-outs, the guys who created Apple and Microsoft
JH didn’t finish his degree, schooling creates CVs for job applications
JH attended a conference on experimental education that UNESCO arranged, he had an idea of a ship university that travelled to 200 ports.
Anyone of any age could apply to go on it and stay for a month, flying under UN flag, it would create a global consciousness for those going on it and they would be both teachers and students
When first in Paris stayed at a friends flat in Latin Quarter for 3 months, then an apartment in the 15th nearby for 2 years
He knew the people who owned his present flat and they were leaving Paris and offered him the chance to take it over which he did, renting at first and then buying after a few years
He worked at teaching and publishing, did small publications with authors who retained all the rights to their material, printed poetry, essays, autobiographies and his own stuff
The meals began by accident when he met a dancer via a friend who was looking for somewhere to stay who was a chef, in exchange for lodging she began cooking for JH and his friends, firstly on Wednesdays and Saturdays, settling to Sundays only, guests come and leave some money in an envelope, then other people and chefs were invited to cook
Original chef, Kathy, now has a husband and two boys. As a result, stories of JH picking up various chefs and guests along the way, mostly the entertainment is people meeting and chatting, impromptu concert
after a Brazilian guitarist and Italian jazz singer met at JHs.
A man was keen to spend time in a Japanese monastery and JH introduced him to a woman whose brother ran one in Kyoto
Favourite evening was when Swedish film director, Vilgot Sjöman (of I am Curious Yellow and I am Curious Blue fame), Xaviera Hollander (The Happy Hooker), a dancer from a Japanese touring company and singers from a Russian opera company all came
He has about 10 regular guests for dinner (plus up to 70 more)
Visiting Festivals and writing
For a while he was a festival junkie, attended Cannes, writingfor an LA journal
He goes every year to the Edinburgh Festival
Went to the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree during Cold War years, not so interested in the music but the people, he met a man who was going back to Leipzig to lead the candlelight parade that helped blow apart the DDR
JH went 8 times to the Latte Writers Reunion in Belgrade, they met every October for a week with 40 writers from all over the world
Film festivals in Budapest, Moscow, St Petersburg. Calcutta every November
He loves festivals and sees them as an excuse to bring people together
He writes 3 different things:
Short essays, for example one on a new verb e.g. to fuller
70 years of communism and capitalism were over semantics – a worker in Moscow is the same as a worker in New York, we need to eliminate work, and if we can’t we need a kind of national service where people get to share the menial labour
Fullering – to allow people to do what they want to do
JH doesn’t believe in the concept of art, it’s just information which some people write, others perform, others play, all is based on imagination and experience, he has no quality standard, a child’s drawing is as important as a Rembrandt to him
Has written his form of Blogs for many years pre-dating the Internet, he has attend many Edinburgh festivals and written over 700 ‘blogs’ on them
Written travel pieces, his best are those from his travels in Eastern Europe and Russia: they only contain the people he has met: ‘Tourists go to see things, a traveller to join in with the daily life of the locals’
Looking back he had 10 wonderful years in Edinburgh and and since then attended 52 festivals, London in the 1960s was very special and you can only appreciate that if you had been there, things were somehow softer then
He didn’t intend leaving Edinburgh, or London, nor does he now Paris, but who can tell…
[1.]The Traverse Theatre Story 1963-1988, Methuen, 1988