THE OWL-WINGED FACULTY
by John Norman
Directed by Robin duval
Cast:
Derek Arnold, Jean Baker, Anthony Barber, Peter Cariss, Jacmel Dent, Geoffrey Dobson, Sue Holmes, Christopher Lee, Ruth Lister, Kenneth Livingstone, Jane Longbottom, David Lorraine, Gillian Mcmanus, Jenny Parkin, Paul Philpott, Kenneth Ratcliffe, Peter Sainty, Ted Scrivener, Brian Taylor, Peter Whelan, Ffrangcon Whelan, Clive Williams
THE AUTHOR
John Norman was born in Plaistow, London, in 1935 and left school at seventeen. After National Service he pursued a varied succession of occupations, including work in the docks, as a ship’s agent, for a national newspaper and as reader to a blind writer in Italy. By 1973 he was living in Canterbury, dealing in antiquarian books and concentrating on writing.
Although Crincum Crancum was his fifteenth play, it was the first to receive a full production in the 1973 New Plays Festival. The Questors subsequently presented The Owl-Winged Faculty in the 1974 New Plays Festival and Agitator in 1976. His association with the theatre continued in 1980 with a programme comprising Afternoon, Edward and Anna and Mr Smith.
THE PLAY
Set entirely in the Senior Common Room of a new university, The Owl-Winged Faculty brings together an assortment of academics preparing to entertain a wealthy benefactor over dinner. Outside, however, a student protest gathers momentum: demonstrations develop into a sit-in, a professor dies and eventually the Common Room itself is invaded. Against the escalating disorder, the dons attempt to maintain their civilised rituals, revealing divisions of class, generation and political outlook within the university itself. Questopics described the play before its opening as a mixture of the “witty, engrossing and alarming”.
PHOTOS
PRESS RESPONSE
The critics generally found The Owl-Winged Faculty witty, intelligent and promising, while agreeing that John Norman had attempted to encompass rather too much. R.S. in Amateur Stage, who made it his personal choice of the Festival, praised the sharply observed academics and the play's wit, though he felt the students and the relatively trivial causes of their revolt weakened the central conflict. The Middlesex County Times similarly found it “very witty, very entertaining”, while Maurice Reeve in the Middlesex Chronicle called it “interesting and diverting”.
Other critics were more guarded. The Brentford & Chiswick Times thought Norman had “bitten off more than he can chew”, with characters tending towards stereotypes, while Drama Quarterly found the play burdened by exposition and loose ends. Anne Morley-Priestman in The Stage reached much the same conclusion: Norman had not yet learned to discard unnecessary material and characters, but the play was nevertheless “worth staging” and showed a writer clearly developing through experience.
Brentford and Chiswick Times
The Middlesex Chronicle
The Stage
The Financial Times
Amateur Stage
The Middlesex County Times
Drama Quarterly
QUESTORS ARCHIVES
THE OWL WINGED FACULTY