TIME, LIFE, SEX AND YOU KNOW WHAT
by James Hepburn
Directed by Cecil Hayter
Cast:
Anthony Barber, Val Caren, Glynn Caren, David Gower, Pat Harris, Peter McNamara, Michael Moriarty, Ted Scrivener, Peter Wilfrid,
THE AUTHOR
James Hepburn was an American scholar, teacher and writer whose work included literary criticism, memoir, children’s fiction, opera librettos and plays. A Yale graduate, he received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at several American universities before becoming a research fellow at the University of Leicester.
The Questors presented his first produced play, Poor Dumb Animals, in the 1971 New Plays Festival, followed by the specially commissioned Time, Life, Sex and You Know What in 1972 and Circuses in 1975.
Hepburn later returned to America as Professor and Head of English at Bates College. His association with The Questors continued with Moonshipt in 1977 and Men and Women in 1985.
THE PLAY
Time, Life, Sex and You Know What was conceived as an experimental “entertainment” rather than a conventional narrative play. Its four sections—All Kings Time, One Kind Life, Six Times Sex and You Know What—form a succession of sketch-like episodes giving the work something of the character of a revue.
Director Cecil Hayter stressed its deliberately ambiguous nature: it could be approached as absurdist comedy or as serious drama. Hepburn's intention was also unusually collaborative, seeking to fuse writing, acting and production into a single theatrical experience rather than allowing any one element to dominate.
PRESS RESPONSE
James Hepburn's second Festival contribution proved much more controversial. Structured as a revue-like sequence around Time, Life, Sex and Death, it combined philosophical dialogue with highly visual staging devised by Cecil Hayter.
R.S. in Amateur Stage recognised Hepburn's originality and occasional verbal brilliance, but felt these were too often submerged beneath confusing and self-indulgent philosophising. The critic nevertheless acknowledged that this was precisely the kind of experimental writing the New Plays Festival existed to test, noting that it sharply divided its audience and provoked strong reactions rather than indifference.
Other critics demonstrated that division vividly. P.B. in the Ealing Gazette found the work alternately exhausting and exciting and regarded it above all as a visual triumph: movement, music and imaginative lighting communicated as much as the sometimes obscure dialogue. M.D.H. in The Stage was far harsher, questioning whether the work could properly be called a play at all and arguing that Hepburn's diffuse and verbose writing was sustained chiefly by Hayter's choreographic imagination. The Hayes Chronicle went further still, dismissing the piece as trivial and meaningless.
Yet even its severest critics implicitly distinguished between the text and its realisation: Hayter's inventive production, the physical performances and the Questors' technical resources gave considerable theatrical impact to a work whose sprawling philosophical ambitions otherwise left much of the press unconvinced.
The Ealing Gazette
Amateur Stage
The Hayes Chronicle
The Stage and Television Today
QUESTORS ARCHIVES
TIME, LIFE, SEX AND YOU KNOW WHAT