QUESTSTORIES
THE QUESTORS NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
17th FESTIVAL 1976
SANCTUARY

SANCTUARY
by James Keller

Directed by Spencer Butler
Cast:
Neville Bradbury, Glynn Caren, Alan Chisholm, Peter Field, Ned Gethings, Larry Irvin, Kay Scrivener, Phillip Sheahan, Geoff Webb, Andrew Wheaton, Norman Wilkinson

THE AUTHOR

James Keller was born in Australia and grew up in the Riverina district of New South Wales. After moving to Britain, he won a scholarship to a London drama school and began writing plays while still a student. An earlier play, Relics, was performed at the LAMDA Theatre in October 1975. Sanctuary, produced at The Questors the following March, appears to have been his first full-length play to receive a major public production.

THE PLAY

Set in a Burgundian town on All Fools’ Night in the mid-sixteenth century, Sanctuary brings together a cardinal-bishop planning a cathedral, an ambitious brotherhood of merchants, a mysterious stranger known as the Raven, and a travelling company of players. Their competing designs centre upon Valentina, the solitary “Lady in the Garden”. 

As the players stage their entertainment, reality dissolves into fantasy, masque and morality play, with the Seven Deadly Sins joining the action. Keller uses this elaborate theatrical framework to explore the uneasy relationship between religion, commerce, political power and personal desire.

PHOTOS

PRESS RESPONSE

Critical reaction to Sanctuary was mixed, with considerable disagreement over both Keller’s play and its production. Maurice Reeve in the Middlesex Chronicle found it a very interesting Festival opener and particularly admired Spencer Butler’s direction, Lynne Todd’s colourful costumes and the large cast, while the Shepherds Bush Gazette thought its bizarre, dreamlike atmosphere successfully realised. Amateur Stage recognised considerable promise in Keller but felt that the play’s two principal strands were imperfectly integrated. 

The Questors critics were markedly less impressed. Tim Dehn in TOAD, having read the script, considered the production a travesty which obscured its mediaeval metaphysic, structure and symbolism through cumbersome design and heavy-handed direction. Kitharistes in Questopics was more amused than hostile, describing the play as a derivative but “not unpleasant” romantic novelette, praising the costumes and several performances while questioning the cumbersome staircase and other elements of the staging. 

Thus, while Keller’s imagination and the visual qualities of the production were widely acknowledged, opinion differed sharply over whether the staging illuminated or obscured the play.

The Middlesex Chronicle

The Shepherds Bush Gazette

Amateur Stage

TOAD (Dehn)

QUESTORS ARCHIVES
SANCTUARY